BWM

Boat nearest the towpath in the second picture is certainly Hawkesbury, the bullseye is the giveaway as it is situated further forwards than normal, above the cross bed.

Hawkesbury was definitely a camping boat at UCC, there are some sink mountings and waste outlet still welded to the hold which I presume date from that period.

Any chance you could put a picture on of one of the underperforming radiators to see how it is plumbed in? If it's not wrongly plumbed in, one other option could be a very high flow rate on the pump, moving the water too quickly past the boiler but that's a long shot.

The placebo effect is powerful medicine.

This is what I use, self adhesive flat fire rope. It allows for expansion so you won't need to change the glass anywhere near as much.

Me too..

Fair enough, i'm not familiar with the location but theoretically with ample space it would be a solution. Doesn't sound like this is the case here. Was assuming they were using new money and the M represented metres!

If it's unique to an area that is popular with anglers and boaters, it sounds like a reasonable compromise. I wonder if a match is due to take place?

I replaced the engine mounts on the Isuzu in my last boat and was supplied the wrong ones, even with such a smooth engine I could feel my eyes shaking in my head! It would seem a bit of a gamble to fit some to an engine designed to be solid mounted.

Boats in private arms, marinas, etc. don't require a licence unless they actually plan to leave and use Crt waterways. When our boat was rebottomed it was laid up in a private arm for nearly a year, unlicensed, and quite legitimate.

"Rads are on one loop which travels the entire circumference of the boat even though rads are only down the one same side." This sounds wrong, and it won't be cured by increasing the heat at the stove - if the flow away from the back boiler is particularly poor, it may try to boil the water within it.

When you say the system is on a single loop, does that mean a single pipe or a two pipe set up? A single pipe providing both flow and return is generally inneficient. Another factor could be pipe size as the run is quite long-you may find the system has never worked correctly and as someone suggested in an earlier post could now be sludged up.

Totally agree, many of the existing Gu boats have lost all original portholes, etc and presume these were stripped by tea leaves when laid up in the Wendover arm, even though I understand that some components were removed by Bw prior to leaving the boats there.

Adds an extra dimension to putting another log on the fire.

I have yet to see a boat with a letterbox..or a doorstep for that matter? If the marina suspects a new customer is responsible for the abundance of Richards, they might be hoping to shock them out of this behaviour, or to encourage peer pressure.

That is the only logical conclusion to arrive at, with an odd choice of engine to boot.

It looks like 'from this point', using the dot to denote point-possibly due to running short of space for the word.

Good quality being the key, the cheaper ones don't last when regularly used to cut dry timber.

Teamac do a specific bilge paint, fairly inexpensive and easy to apply. Four years on, mine is still looking good, even in the harsher engine room environment.

Strange how the builder seems to have included every rivet and all original deck cants/woodwork, only to put a tiny porthole in the back cabin and none in the engine room.

With varying bridge profiles and bows of different shapes/ heights, the guard rails don't always work to prevent damage to this area. Agreed on the vulnerability of the handrail area, but a patch on this area is less intrusive.

One thing that has crossed my mind is that when designing the cover, Is the section at the bottom of the sides-this is vulnerable to damage entering locks and accidental contact with other craft. With that in mind i'd be inclined to make the bottom strip easy to replace, i've seen several brand new ones damaged in this way within days of being fitted.

It's worth planning the cratch and top board to allow for quick and easy dismantling, both for enjoying nice weather and for clearance on some of the lower bridges, etc. Also important to angle the cratch very slightly forwards, which will ensure less water runs down it and looks better. The top board is generally about 10-11 inches wide. You may wish to add a headlamp mount on both the cratch board and the front bulkhead, to allow you to boat without the cratch assembly in place.

This is sadly the case in many areas i'm familiar with.

One concern I would have is wether the way you plan to do this will reduce headroom, with a layer of ballast, insulation, wood and then sprayfoam-this sounds quite a lot.