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Starting at Spon Lane Junction then? Of course I won't mind if we end up in the same place because Vulpes and Carpe Vinum can fit in a lock together. JP

I have no idea why Smelly finds that funny Rob, do you?

Lots of bottle conditioned beers available in any supermarket and not all of them good since it became a bit of a marketing ploy. Some excellent beers in cans too. Flavour is the only criterion to be used to judge quality. JP

Really? 16 miles and 18 locks. Pretty standard day. JP It's an instruction to the towpath. I figured it was being done cos you got stuck. JP

Ah, but then Nick might have to count as crew. And I doubt he would risk Telemachus' paint. Challenge crews generally aren't afraid of a bump or scrape. JP

If you find the old fox don't set off before i get there! I've just sent you the proposed timings for the route(s). I knew I would be able to count on your support.

In the old photos I received when I bought Vulpes was the photo below with the words "Ahead of Malat. Barton Tank. August '76" written on the back. Both boats were built by Canal Transport Services in the late 60s/early 70s. These days they are both kept in Worcestershire and yesterday morning I got the chance to photograph them together again 42 years on from the earlier photo. I am assuming it is one and the same Malat.

Vulpes is now in a safe, secure and secret location after having a much needed shake down of the engine. Most of the essential provisions remain intact but a small re-stock is in order. Next move to another secret location on Friday. JP

Vulpes is ready and the journey toward the BCN starts tomorrow. I shall load essential provisions this evening. JP

If I had asked about Vulpes on here before I bought there would have been a lot of folk who would have said "run away". Go and have a look. Nothing to lose by doing so. Strikes me though that if you have a budget of £20k and want to control the cost and effort of maintenance then a share may be the answer. I wonder if that has been considered and discounted for some reason. JP ETA - seeing above post I guess not really possible for weekend use

It struggles to sell because the basic specification has very limited appeal to the market. That would be the case even if it was a new build by a builder of the highest repute. No great mystery or intrigue here. JP

I am wondering if the boat is more double hulled rather than overplated in the conventional sense. To weld a steel plate over a curved riveted hull would require some very precise cheeseplates over the rivets prior to welding the new baseplate sheets. This would be made even more complicated by the original plates being overlapped and riveted rather than joined via butt straps. Additionally wrought iron can't (or shouldn't) be welded in the same ways that would apply to overplating a conventional steel boat. That seems like a very onerous job. If the doubling plates were laid over the top of the rivets it is essentially a double hull and there would be an air gap the thickness of the rivet heads which may explain how it has been pressure tested with compressed air. JP

I phoned them up this afternoon and arranged to leave mine in the basin. I wouldn't bother about being in the basin if I was staying on the boat however. The visitor moorings would be fine. JP

k999, If you like the look of the Mon & Brec just hire there and find out what it's like. If you have chosen - or are forced to have - dates in summer then you will have to deal with whatever that throws at you. Getting bothered about what everyone else is up to doesn't seem conducive to enjoying your own holiday. Such issues are usually worse in the theory than they are in practice. JP

There are two different processes being described here. Products such as Fertan and Kurust are rust convertors in which the important ingredient is phosphoric acid which reacts with the rust to form iron phosphates which form a chemical barrier to further rusting. This process can be observed in the rust turning black in a relatively short space of time after application. A rust converter on its own won't stop the adjacent metal rusting so the whole surrounding surface must be subsequently properly coated with a full paint system. Often the places it is needed are the ones that take repeated damage or are difficult to access to do a thorough painting job. As described above Owaltrol oil would inhibit corrosion by penetrating and sealing below the rust and thus preventing the ingress of further moisture into the parent metal. It wouldn't chemically alter the rust though. As stated by Tony to then also convert the rust to provide a surface on which to paint seems logical but only if done in that order. JP

Just seen that the canal has been re-watered between Dudley Port and Tipton and the stoppage is lifted. It was originally scheduled until the Friday before the challenge. There is a lot of floating rubbish though. JP

I think that's it. Patently obvious now you have pointed it out. JP

The style of Banbury Navigator in those photos is typical of the vast majority of the fleet as it was in the late 70s and early 80s. However I am fairly sure that the 50' boat we hired in 1983 - Measham Navigator - had square louvre windows. JP

I shall be crewing for Rob-M again this year. I wonder if there will be more CWDF members on board Tawny Owl than there will be in the rest of the field put together. JP ETA - any unwanted supplies of Aberlour and Talisker will be gladly received.

The handrails depicted onBanbury Navigator are as I remember them and they look different to those on the shot across the roof of Isis Navigator which seem to have a separate upstand on which the wooden handrail is fixed. I didn't mean they were one piece along the length of the roof. That would have needed a very tall tree. Note the lack of a centre line. I guess the cabin structure wasn't strong enough to take the forces. JP

Generally I agree with the idea that visits to canalside attractions are best avoided when you have paid to hire a boat. However the Black Country Living Museum is something of an exception because the canal is an integral part of it and it's a great place at which to moor. There is also the Dudley Tunnel boat trip which I recommend. I agree with Rob-M that Compton is the best place to spend the last night prior to returning to Autherley and it's easily in one day's range from the BCLM even allowing for the fact you have to go to Wightwick to turn. The difficulty with the idea of spending a night in Birmingham and two at the BCLM is that the fourth night of the hire would be in Birmingham and that's three quarters of the cruising in half the time. Not impossible but it will be a very full first few days and could be a stretch. It's also only about four hours from Birmingham to the BCLM. Nonetheless there is plenty of room for contingency; such as making an early start from Birmingham after spending the fifth night there and spending the afternoon at BCLM followed by one nights mooring and perhaps getting on an early tunnel trip the next morning before heading to Compton (or anywhere below Wolverhampton locks). Alternatively if you were at Curdworth by the fourth night you should be able to reach the BCLM the next day. I would stick with what you want to do but keep an open mind in respect of adapting to what you find is comfortable. You won't fail to get round the ring in a week. Which ferry are you using? JP

I thought the most obvious clue was that the bridge was built in stone. That pointed to a northern waterway and one that doesn't look heavily used. I discounted the Macclesfield and Lancaster and then noted that the duck was seemingly without boat. JP

Polmont, Forth & Clyde Canal

I take it Lutine Bell is 45'? As was stated earlier it was big fleet so it's quite possible. Gordons' agent was Hoseasons. JP

The wooden handrails were very distinctive although I remember them as made from single pieces of timber rather than fixed to upstands from the cabin roof as they appear to be in the photo. It could be my memory playing tricks or perhaps the fact that not all the boats had the exact same construction details. Reading the thread from last August I recall that Thrupp, Cropredy and Claydon Navigators were the three boats that made up a class of 40' sleep 4/5 boats. These boats also had a relatively large cruiser stern so cabin space was efficiently used. They were reverse layout which was galley/double dinette/shower and toilet/front cabin with 2 no. singles plus a bunk a wash basin; all in a cabin of 25' or so. We hired Thrupp Navigator three years in a row from 1977 - 1979 with a family of five and visited Coventry, Oxford and Snarestone and then moved onto the 50' Measham Navigator for a trip round the Warwickshire Ring with granny before going back to 40' for four of us to go to Aylesbury and back in a week once Blisworth tunnel had reopened. JP