robert anthony

There is a slipway where you can launch a Narrowboat at Droitwich spa marina at the southern end of the Worcester and Birmingham canal. Only there are lots of stoppages on the w&b at the moment

Whoever paid for the mooring and moored their boat there. I moored my boat at it's current pontoon for 2 weeks before I realised there was electricity on the meter from the previous moorer (it was only when I plugged my £20 electricity card in that I realised that I had £26 worth of electricity)

Thanks for that link Graham. Some interesting stuff on there and would work out a lot cheaper than the nylon bar I was looking at

I need to replace some of my rubbing strakes. The ones I have are made of oak (I think) but I've been having a look online and I can get plastic nylon bar in the same size for not much more money. Once painted and fitted with an aluminium strip they would look the same so any reason why this would not be a good idea? I reckon they would last much, much longer as they wouldn't rot.

There are loads of privately owned boats on there, I can't see the point in it myself but each to their own.

Hopefully they're going to do lots of dredging as well. Our hire boat was scraping along the bottom in lots of places last time we went. ?

lol. I see what you mean Maybe they take a boat up to the entrance of the tunnel and see how long it takes to float through, unpowered.

That's not a bad idea, cheers. I see what you are getting at but I would have thought any particles that small would get taken care of by the biocide or burnt in the combustion chamber?

What? Silly me for believing a CRT notice or.......?

It seems like a lot longer when you're sat in the cold and dark getting dripped on lol

I think I've come up with an idea that may work. I can't empty the tank as I've not got anywhere I can store 150 litres of diesel so I've found an old fuel pump and inline filter in the shed. If I suck out the diesel through the filter from the lowest point of the tank and return the filtered diesel to the opposite side of the tank I reckon that should clear the bug out of the tank. I've ordered a pack of 10 inline filters so hopefully that should be enough. Once the filters have stopped blocking up I can treat the tank with biocide. Fingers crossed it works.

To be honest I've never timed how long it takes to pass through. I always assumed it was about an hour as that's what it says at the entrance. How long does it take?

Thanks makes sense now

I thought there was a compulsory 6 hour rest stop? So 18 hours would be the maximum cruising time?

I wasn't thinking of cheating, I just wondered how it works, that's all I might have a go at it as it sounds like fun and it would be good to get the boat down to Hawne Basin as I live on Gorsty Hill. Will have to do some careful measuring though to make sure my boat will go through Gorsty Tunnel

If you can pick any point on the BCN to start at 8 am how is it verified that you started at that point at 8 am?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpFUHCk-7K8

Wast hill is the longest tunnel on the W&B. Can't remember the length but takes roughly an hour to pass through it.

It's not biofilm that has built up over time. It was stringy algae like substance (similar to what you get in ponds during the summer) plus the engine was running perfectly right up until it started spluttering and died. What I think has happened is that the blockage occurred at the end of a 10 day cruise (mainly on rivers) so I've used a fair bit of diesel. That's resulted in any bug in the diesel becoming concentrated in the remaining diesel and getting sucked into the fuel line. The reason I was asking about the size of the fuel line is - if the fuel line gets blocked before the crud gets to filter the I won't be able to filter it out using the boats filters. That means I'll have to drain the tank but there is at least 150 litres still in there so I'd rather not if possible.

Diesel Bug article from RCR.pdf

Cheers Crafty, so after 5 pages of waffle it would seem that Churchward was right in post No. 2