Oliver

We came down Braunston Flight a couple of weeks ago. The first boat we shared locks with managed to get hung up by their front button fender on the downhill lock gate but luckily the weak link gave way quickly. Two locks later and with a different companion in the lock it happened again but this time the weak link on the front button didn't give way until the bow was clear of the water. The boat sure came down with a crash. We'll continue trying to keep the boat in the middle of the lock when going either up or down.

Sweet September was enroute to Braunston where it went in the water for the first time. The new owners then took it up to Crick Boat Show where they let several hundred people have a look on their boat. The owners slept on Sweet September for the first time Monday night after Crick. Yes - it is a Darren Aldridge boat and Darren was very grateful to the owners for letting him use it as one of his Crick Show Boats before they had the opportunity to cruise on it.

We have a Panasonic breadmaker which produces very good bread. A number of people we know had other bread makers which didn't produce bread of the same quality and they have all now bought Panasonics. We take ours on board but tend to set it going when we are cruising - so I don't know what the battery drain will be if it is left overnight. At home we use it on the timer and set it so that we wake up to the smell of bread baking. Our machine has a maximum 13 hour delay and the baking smell comes through in about the last 20 minutes. The bread can be taken out as soon as it is finished provided that you use a pair of oven gloves. Don't know how the bread comes out if you leave it in because we haven't done it. I can't see that it will draw much power when it is not actually doing anything except ticking down the timer. Happy Baking

Not sure how far it extends along the towpath but on-line mooring spaces were available to book from 8am on 25 May to 7pm on 28th May with the possibility of boats being breasted up. There were booking forms in the exhibitors packs which went out around Christmas which said space was limited.

How do you leave a comment on a photo in the Photo Gallery? I thought there was a 'Comments' button but I can't find it for April's Photo of the Month Competition. Plus, I can't get one of the photos to display - the Sunset on Grand Union - all I get is the file name

We've got one of the Wilsons' sofa beds - I think it's called the Stour. We are always more than happy to give up our fixed double to guests and sleep on the sofa bed. We paid quite a lot for the mattress on the fixed double but find the sofa bed more comfortable. When we had it made, we got them to cover the whole thing in our choice of material, including the part f the mattress which isn't normally visible. Not unknown for us to flip out the base support and partially unfurl the mattress to 'lounge' of an evening and then wake up in the early hours of the morning! Although supposedly a two seater, there's plenty of room for the two of us and two dogs. There's also storage underneath - we keep a double duvet, 4 pillows, mattress cover and sheets in there.

Phil Don't understand what you mean about my post about the hull number, etc. Perhaps you could elaborate (PM if you want). My first involvement with the canals was 22 years ago when I worked for BWB. That got us started hiring boats. About 8 years ago we got a share in a shared ownerships scheme and in 2003 we embarked on having our own boat built - we used a boat fitter who bought in a shell. Our original plan was to buy secondhand but that didn't work out for reasons I've posted in another thread. All our thought processes and how we went about things is covered in detail on our website. Cheers

If you are using a boat-fitter who has bought in a shell, then I think that the shell already has a hull number from the shell builder and you could get the shell number entered into your contract with the fitter. I think that the shell number will already be welded onto the shell somewhere, even before the HIN & Builders Plate is put on And always check that the shell builder has been paid for the shell.

Both our dogs have life jackets - they are Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, so on the small side. Here's Tris in his. When we were looking for the jackets we found a number which didn't have a chest strap. This meant that if you had lifted the animal out by the handle you would put a lot of strain on it's neck. The jackets should have a strap which goes under the neck and a strap which goes behind the front legs (as well as a strap to hold the rear end of the jacket down) the strap under the neck and the strap behind the front legs should have a further strap connecting the two - a chest strap. The other thing we found was that some of the jackets for small animals had such tiny handles on the back as to be useless. Our boys have been 'in' several times, either because they misjudged distances or because one pushed the other in and the handle on the back has been very useful for getting them out. Plus it makes it easier to pass the dogs backwards and forwards between the bank and the boat if the distance is a bit too wide for them to jump. Having the dogs in life jackets has been useful with the grandchildren because they know that if dogs have life jackets on, they have to have their jackets on as well and we've never had any arguments about it.

We have roman blinds and have a virtually invisible way of holding them against the window frame. Whether or not this will work with other people's blinds will depend on the profile of the window surround. Here's how: Get a reel of clear fishing line (cost about £2.00). Work out the length of line you need to go down one side of your window, along the bottom of the window and then up the other side. Allow about one foot extra. With your roman blind down, tie one end of the line onto the bar at the top of your roman blind. Feed the line down through the eyelets on that side of the blind. Slip the line under the corner of the window surround and run it along the bottom to the other corner. Keeping the line tight, now feed it up the eyelets on that side of the blind and then tie onto the bar holding your blind making the line as taut as possible without pulling it out from underneath the bottom window edge. If you have wide windows, this bit really needs two people to get the line as taut as possible. The blind can then be raised up and down as normal, and it is almost impossible to see the line. When it is down, the line keeps it close to the cabin side. You may occasionally need to tighten the line - I've had to tighten a couple of ours once in about 2 and half years. The reel of line was more than sufficient to do all our windows and I've got yards of it left. I've tried to photograph it, but because the line is clear it doesn't show up.

Thanks for the suggestions. Will print this thread off and take it with us the next timewe go to the boat.

An odd occurrence with our Beta Marine 43. We reached our destination, pushed the cut out button (or whatever it's called) but the engine didn't stop. Tried again but held the button in for a long time, engine still didn't stop. Turned the key to the off position, engine still didn't stop. Took the key out of the ignition, engine still didn't stop! In the end, the only way I could get it to stop was to put the key back in, turn it as if starting the engine and then use the cut out button, held in for a long time. Any ideas what might be happening - we've never had a problem with the engine before.

Here's one view from the other side 1. It's cheaper: you get more boat for the same money. If it's not exactly what you want, you can spend the money you've saved on modifications........ That's what we thought - until we started looking. We ended up paying less for our bespoke boat than we would have done if we'd gone with the boat the secondhand boat which came closest to our desired layout and made the changes to layout. Even then we would have ended up with a boat which had 10 year old steel and engine and which wasn't lined out in our preferred wood. ...... You don't know exactly what you want anyway until you've actually had the boat a few months/years. But we did know what we didn't want from having had a number of different hire boats and a shared ownership boat. 2. You can see what you're getting - and if you can't, your surveyor can, and if he doesn't, then you have some comeback against him. True - but if you go for a Spec Boat the same applies and if you're having a new boat built and are using a surveyor, you've still got a come back. 3. All new boats/cars/houses will have teething troubles - let someone else have had the grief. Lots of boats on the second hand market are only a year or two old - still effectively new but old enough to have had their niggles sorted out. Maybe we've been lucky, no teething problems with new cars/boats - never had a new house - but have had problems with old ones (due to general wear & tear and age) 4. You don't have to wait so long for a boat that already exists. OK, it might take a while to find one you really like, but you're learning in the process too, getting new ideas, seeing what to look out for. Really depends on how long it takes you to find the boat, but looking at loads of boats is a very useful process to help you learn more about what's available and at what price plus you get some great ideas - both do's and don'ts. 5. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of boats on the market at any given time. I can't believe the most common claim that getting a new boat built is the only way of getting what you want - especially as they all seem to turn out pretty much the same in the end. We looked at loads of secondhand boats and never came close to finding one which ticked all our boxes. 6. By buying an existing boat, you're avoiding squeezing an additional one onto the system, with all the associated pressures on moorings, prices, marina developments etc. After all, when people fail to sell their second hand boats, they very rarely remove them from the system; they're still taking up a mooring, just not being used. 7. Following on from that, it saves a potentially good boat going to waste. It saves the environmental costs of manufacturing a new one. But we are helping to keep boatbuilders/marina owners/etc in business!! I suppose the main reason we went the new build route was that we had very specific ideas about what we wanted which were derived from taking all the things we didn't like about previous boats or which had irritated us and then making sure they didn't occur. We reckoned it was easier to start from scratch than take an existing boat, gut it and then start building it to our design. We didn't have the time or the skill to do the job ourselves so we would have had to employ everybody and take on a surveyor to supervise. Sure, maybe time will prove that we have got some of the ideas wrong but then we can change them in the same way as we would change stuff on a secondhand boat. When we went for our shared ownership boat, the boat we bought in to had two things on board which we thought were great at the time - bath and multifuel stove. By the time we came to get our own boat we knew two things we definitely didn't want were a bath and a stove. At the time we commissioned our boat having to work for a living restricted the amount of time we could spend out on the Cut and we had our shared ownership boat to give us our canal fixes during the build. We thoroughly enjoyed the whole process of having our boat built, we learnt a lot and we have had tremendous satisfaction in seeing that our design ideas have worked for us. It was the right decision for us at the time but each to their own.

Closest we got to the banter was saying hello to nb Alnwick this morning on their way to pick up gas. We'd just collected Per Angusta with her newly blacked bottom from Braunston Boats. Sorry to have missed you all