BilgePump

KathArine Hepburn FTFY 😉

Yep, only ever seen one once in an ebay advert. Had an Evinrude Fastwin 18hp non-runner at the time, both from the 60s. It seemed like a cool idea and good for storage but didn't need another vintage outboard.

You probably did right. They can be like anything older, one isn't enough. Picked up my fourth 40+last year but they hardly ever get run. A small Yam and Mariner don't get cursed at so much and are a hell of a lot less mucky, even though they're still only two strokes. Really need to clear out the 'gull in bits and the one that needs new gaskets. Can bet that as soon as they're sold I'll need a spare part for one of the two runners!

You would probably pay as much for a decent original vintage rod brake butcher's bike nowadays as you would for a good secondhand Brompton. And don't mention Chopper prices!

Considering the price of a new GRP hull, the price of the moulds seems to be a bargain for an existing business with the facilities and plant to accommodate them and build new boats alongside existing work. Probably not enough orders though to warrant structuring a new business around them with cost of rent, hoists, forklift, certification etc etc. GRP resin is not cheap so it's not as if these can be produced by anyone as real budget boats that will fly out of the door. Probably a steady trickle of people who really like them (I do) and have the money to afford a new one (I don't).

They could have at least said hello and explained why they were reverse punting past you just to be polite. You were worried, they had had a bad day, possibly. Hope no hard feelings between yous.

When you say 'at night' in the title and then 'in the dark' in the post, what time roughly was it that they passed? As we're still in the depths of winter, it's getting dark before the end of a regular working day. Something underway at say 9pm would not even register as being unusual, one moving at 4am maybe, possibly. On the other hand there could be a dozen valid reasons why someone needs or wants to move in the wee small hours. Even if I did think something was amiss, I'd certainly still go for the 'Is everything okay?' approach rather than being initially confrontational. Personally, I really like moving a boat at night, the way everything looks in the dark, being amazed at how much you can see once the eyes get adjusted. Done it more on rivers/estuary than canals, moves being necessitated by the tide times. I can understand the OP's concerns (disturbed a burglar trying to break into the house last week) and not being unsympathetic but can still envisage many legitimate causes for a boat to be passing in the dark and mooring up.

Highly improbable they could get away with it. Reckon that there's only one as bonkers, knowledgeable and entertaining as yourself 🙂

Thinking like Peel, wondering if what they would really like to do with the Bridgewater would be to earn mega money by filling in a massive snake of a hole in the ground with landfill, build on top of it, and own a long developed corridor worth an eye popping amount of money.

The other day a friend in his 60s said that he had x kids with his wife and y 'door kids'. Other mate and self were a bit puzzled, imagining that they were either babes left in baskets with the morning milk bottles or adults showing up on the doorstep years later. No, it turned out that they were his kids from dalliances in the pre-marriage years when he worked the club doors as security.

Yes, that's where he lives now. Only a stone's throw or helicopter hop across the sea from Bury/Lancashire/NW where he hails from and made his money but a world of tax away.

That's a lovely boat. There are quite a few of us on here who enjoy rag and stick sailing. At least you could get onto plenty of inland waterways with the mast down but I don't see many narrowboats venturing out onto the Irish Sea.

That's ten company layers deep! Even hell only has nine levels, guess we now know that after treachery (ninth) the tenth is Peel. I've no faith at all that they will do the right thing and repair this breach. Their history as a company is that under John Whittaker (now a billionaire) they dug out their family quarries in the sixties then filled in the exhausted quarries with waste landfill, then moved into property acquisition and development, the Peel bit comes from Peel Mills in Bury, bought in the 1970s. Quite a mercenary organisation by reputation.

Been posted on here before but still pretty true

For all that lovey fallen ash and oak found towpath side in the Pacific 😉

One was done at the minimarket up the road from me one night about eight years ago. Was awake and heard huge smash about 4am then loads of clanking and metal dragging noises in the next 30 seconds or so. They'd backed a mini-skip pick up into the machine at speed then attached the chains and dragged it out and pulled it up the road scraping the ground behind the vehicle. Made a huge mess of the corner of the shop and it was closed for repair for a good while. I imagine that the bigger boat lifting strops would do just as good a job. As for boaters having their own strops, don't know any who do. We have a few at the yard but the crane guy's are better. He's possibly not supposed to use third party lifting gear either for insurance reasons. Imagine that boaters are far more likely to have their own ratchet straps for trailers etc.

I'm sure that she speaks highly of you too 😉 Which guests does she reserve the big conservatory for?

If we take a few examples 20 x two week stopovers with 85 x six hour days of cruising in between them = 510 hours. Say maybe 1000 miles and 200 locks. (approx 5% time underway) 182 x one mile movements = <90 hours. 182 miles + a few inconvenient (to boater) locks (approx 1% time underway) 27 x two mile movements = <30 hours. 54 miles + the aforementioned inconvenient locks (approx 0.35% time underway) Still within bounds would be two miles per fortnight on a <25 mile range

Whilst agreeing with most of your post in principle, even within it there could be outliers. What about the constant cruiser who likes to experience lots of different places for more than a night or two. They could have 20 two week stops but put in 85 six hour cruising days between them, 510 hours equals a lot of network miles and a potential countrywide range. Someone else cold move a mile every other day up and down a 30 mile range and only have to do the return run three times a year. Compare it to a 'backpack traveller' going off for a year. If they spent the entire year doing two week stays a few miles apart around London then that's not travelling. If they did a couple of weeks in London, train to Dover, ferry to France, train to and two weeks in Paris, then a few weeks or more in lots of different places around Europe, then that would be travelling.

This was exactly what a friend did, but it was 25 years ago after he finished college, and he played by the rules for all his years aboard.

I'm a right-hander but using a computer mouse in the left has always seemed best for me. Leaves my writing hand available for the keyboard and especially if using the numerical keypad keeps the body central to the screen and not twisting. Play darts left handed, pool right. Write with right but had to learn with left when broke hand at school, never as good or fast as with right but adequate. Any repetitive jobs like planing, sanding, painting etc I try to swap between hands mainly to give shoulders and elbows a break.

I imagine that most insurance companies offering fully comp insurance aren't bothered if you break your engine but would be wanting to know that the boat's not going to sink. Mechanical warranty covers what? I imagine just engine, gearbox, shaft etc and the terms say that you have to maintain them properly. £450 per year is maybe a new engine every 12-15 years. At the price mark of boat, maybe it's just better to self warranty and put 10% of the boat money into a contingency fund for any big issues.

Just looked up Ye Olde No.3 Liam mentioned. Near Little Bollington / Altrincham apparently. Certainly doesn't look trivial. Horrible start to the new year for all the boaters affected.

Ah yes, but boaters are an odd breed already. Might not be surprising that we have a greater proportion of left-handers than the regular world ratio. Of those that have self-identified, a few are certainly not 'normal' (in a good way chaps, before you lynch me).