DRP

. . . and getting back to Harland and Wolff, Maybe Boris could get them to build some of the frigates we've just realised we need?

Oh come on,chaps, get a grip! Alright, it may not be Solihull, or the Home Counties, but Wigan is OK. As has been said, tie up in the dry dock pound; you can cross the bridge at the end of the lock and walk about 100yds to the end of the street where there is a handy convenience store and a nice local pub called the Honeysuckle. If you like a huge selection of real ales, walk up to Wigan Central as suggested by The Biscuits. You could even visit the Uncle Joe's factory and buy some mint balls. Granted it's not a destination for a fortnight's holiday, but a perfectly pleasant overnight stop.

Leave him alone! he'll only have to read a few threads to realise he'll soon get nonsense like talking sense knocked out of him.

We were at cross purposes here, and if the railings in Netherton were fixed, it's just as well. As far as Manchester is concerned, it's always been awkward enough to boat those locks, without trying to defeat Darwinism,and making it more difficult, just because drunks fall in and drown. I'll try harder to keep up in future☺️

Good for narrow boat decks.We've got a bit too much for fitted carpet treatment, but a horse mat is handy for steering area.

Boat looks nice. If you've got cover, the world is your oyster regarding paint! Whatever you use, I think I'd try adding Owatrol; it just gives you a little more time. If you wanted to give it a try, I think the floor paint comes in red and grey. I've used the grey for decks, but found it a bit on the light side. Best of luck!

Good. So now the drunks can find even more inventive ways to drown themselves,perhaps enlisting the help of their drunken mates to tip them over the railings. What will Manchester do if drunks start falling under trams and buses?

We've used B&Q floor paint for repainting decks that already have a texture, but if you're not going to be walking on it, non slip doesn't matter.When you say "no room", is that because you pile a lot of stuff on the roof. If that's the case, you don't need a coach finish, just fairly tidy waterproofing. I'd stick with several coats rolled on. If you're obliged to paint without cover, the biggest problem with roofs is picking a dry but dull day. Even on what seems to be a cool sunny day, steel tends to heat up, the paint dries too quickly, and you have to go like the clappers to maintain a wet edge. I've tried adding Owatrol with only limited success . I'd paint all the sticky-up bits like hooks and rings with enamel before you do the main roof, and unless you enjoy polishing brass, I'd paint the ventilator as well. I would stress I'm no expert,just someone who's wrestled with the elements for years to stop boats dissolving in the rain. That's a lot of roof, and I see why you won't be walking on it!

?comfort station for the crew - done in timber to look traditional?

Sorry to come so late to this. Do you have a written reference for this, or even remember where you heard it. Or have I missed someone posting confirmation?

Generally agree but would it be any less enjoyable if the producers took the trouble to give the celebs some proper instruction to begin with, and got someone out from the hire company to show them how to overcome common problems like getting stuck - instead of sending the message that it's all a bit of a boozy lark for idiots? And why perpetuate stuff that is plainly wrong, like calling the boats "barges", and windlasses "lock spanners"? Obviously none of these people are the hapless duffers that we are being asked to believe they are, but they are self-declared novices, and it would be a better advert for the holiday industry if it was made clear you can soon get the hang of it all and have an enjoyable time. Without wishing to seem unkind - some other time, perhaps.?

So do you think BW simply forgot they had trade in the North, or had none of them ever been further north than Watford, so they didn't know the boats weren't narrow boats? Considering the uniformity of livery of the narrow boat fleet, it seems odd that the yards up here were left to do pretty much what they felt like.

So by the time the instruction made its way north, it had become,"All the boats have to be dark blue,now. Oh, and there has to be some yellow lining". Makes a traditional BW job on Ribble hardly worth the bother.

If that's narrow boats sorted out, does anyone know of any colour pictures of Leeds & Liverpool short boats after nationalisation? There is the Bacup at Ellesmere Port, which has an elaborate livery; but the black and white pictures of short boats, such as this one of Ribble loading machinery at Church, don't seem to have an elaborate paint job at all. . I think this photo belongs to CRT Archive.

Has anyone got any evidence that these government "consultations" ever result in any modification of the original intention? I suspect strongly that some anonymous civil servant has decided what government policy is going to be, a "consultation" has been floated. the result will be completely disregarded, and some politician will be presented with a bit of new legislation that has been thoroughly consulted upon and is now ready for implementation. Get your historic boat now, before it's too late; or start saving up for batteries and electric motors.?

I'm late to this party because I've been away docking the Ribble. I note the calumny from JonathanA, and the noble defence from The Biscuits. People have obviously described some very bad behaviour from others in historic boats, and there is no excuse for this ; I wonder if it was more memorable because it was historic boats involved? As I recall, the CRT licensing review showed there were about 19,000 modern boats on the system, and only around 200 claiming "historic discount". There are probably more historic boats than that , but they are still much in the minority, and therefore memorable when seen. Truly ghastly behaviour aside, I think there must be more to the animosity towards "historics" that seems to surface regularly on this forum. As has been mentioned, most owners of historic boats are not professional boaters, and don't pretend to be.Most are not any richer than owners of modern boats, which is why they do a great deal of the work of maintenance and restoration themselves. Ex-working boats do tend to handle differently from modern boats.When they are loaded, it can be very differently - taking much longer to stop (If they'll stop at all!) in an emergency, or responding to reverse gear by going sideways. They catch the wind when empty, and a Leeds &Liverpool short boat loaded with 30 tons can't just reverse out of a bridge hole because a narrow boat wants to come through.They do need to stay in the channel (if there is one), and people coming the other way would have an easier time if they slowed down, came close and didn't try to give us such a wide berth that they are boating at full throttle through the trees on the offside, or through the lost coping stones and shopping trollies next to the towpath . Failure to understand these realities can easily lead to the mistaken impression of arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Most owners, I think, have historic boats in the same spirit that people have traction engines (another hobby for the really rich, unless you can do a lot of the work yourself) - and get pleasure from the evident joy people show when they see them. Sadly, some of the animosity expressed here, I suspect, comes from people who wish they had a historic boat themselves, but don't.Obviously the answer is simple; get one - OK they don't come up for sale very often, but there is a steady supply, and you can sell what you've got at the moment while you're waiting. Here's a picture of Ribble looking spruce after her recent docking: Enjoy. Or if you don't, accept a friendly middle finger to show there are no hard feelings.

I'd agree, "Peek" is good, but I think "Daveyshine" is better.

If you must have shiny, we've recently discovered "Daveyshine". www.davey.co.uk . It got the green brass on Ian looking like brass again.Still requires elbow grease, but you don't finish up stinking and covered in black stuff ,like you do with Brasso.It isn't cheap (our local chandlery sells 170gram tub for £11, but it is good.

Polishing portholes: Wash, allow to dry. Apply etch primer, undercoat and the colour of your choice. Job done!?

Absolutely right BWM.Depth and vegetation are problems for historic craft throughout the system. With the exception of a short section just outside Leeds,the Leeds & Liverpool is pretty good on the Yorkshire side, thanks to a major dredging programme a few years ago, but on the Lancashire side, from Foulridge to Wigan, it is between not very good and shocking.We spent half a day two years ago, getting off a mudbank in the middle of the canal under a wide bridge, just outside CRT's own yard at Burnley. The absence of permanent lock keepers means that paddle gear stays broken for years, and silt behind lock gates goes similarly unattended, until we get stuck.( Modern "wide beams" don't need the gates to go right back, because their beam is not 14ft 3ins ). As regards getting disgruntled when the canal is unusable, it should be borne in mind that we have a somewhat restricted cruising range, made more restricted by lack of foresight on the part of British Waterways. The Lancaster canal is inaccessible, despite the fact that it is a broad canal, because some fool at BW thought, when they built the Ribble link, that a 12 ft access lock would be good enough, and we can't access the other northern barge canal, the Rochdale, because when an office block was built across the top of the locks in Manchester, nobody thought to ensure that the pillars that support the building were sufficiently widely- spaced to allow passage of a barge-sized boat. It could be argued that we could just put the boat on a lorry and take it to some other waterway, but that would rather defeat the purpose of having it. We don't see boating as an opportunity to "show off" our historic boat, but we do try to let people see what their canal was for when they don't already know, and if they do already know, the joy on their faces at seeing a "proper boat"again, wipes away the annoyances of CRT and idiots who think they are subsidising our boating. On the subject of the Kennet, I really don't think it would be too much to expect for CRT to crane her out and move her round the stoppage. The Kennet is the L&L Canal Society's boat. The volunteers work extremely hard keeping her in tip-top preserved condition, travelling to a programme across the canal, enhancing various canal festivals and providing a much looked-forward-to resource.I would stop short of suggesting that the rest of us should receive the same treatment, but seriously believe that Kennet should be the exception.

"they give you a very generous discount on your licencefee. Other non historic boaters are subsidising your passion to show off your boat." There clearly is never going to be a meeting of minds here, as revealed by these remarks. The historic boat discount is not particularly generous; and it is an odd bit of logic to claim that it represents a subsidy paid for by other boat owners. There are approximately 19 thousand boats on the system, and around two hundred historic boats receiving discount.If Flyboy thinks his licence fee would be lower should all those two hundred disappear, he is living in a parallel universe. Fortunately, we won't be sharing a lock any time soon.

Why not get them to crane her out, and put her back in west of the stoppage? We're a bit sick of hearing "sorry but. . ." from CRT. We know they inherited a poisoned chalice from that bunch of incompetents, British Waterways, but they've had it for a long time now, and there is no sign of a willingness to seriously consider looking after the Leeds & Liverpool canal properly. Further, there is no interest at high level in accommodating the historic boats of the canal, and I can't escape the conclusion they'd rather we just buggered off. Doesn't stop them collecting our money,though; and reminding us "licensing does not imply a right of navigation".Rant over.

Looking forward to seeing it when it's done.

Got the videos to work on You Tube after little fiddling. Nice tidy bit of engineering. Can you start it on one cylinder, the switch the other in? And if so, is it any easier (perhaps I should have said"is it any less difficult?")?

Can we see some pictures when you've got it together?(Interested custodian of handstart-only RN).