Grassman

Yes, and I've seen them do it. It's reckoned that rats can get through a hole the size of a 50p coin. Perhaps young ones can but I think generally a golf ball size hole would be about the limit. I once had a rat get through my scupper drain hole when I'd forgotten to put the lid on some duck feed in the cratch.

No, I only received the closure notification.

And you too mate. Yes I do a lot of my boating around that area in between going for a few months a year further afield.

On the Staffs & Worcs near Penkridge. Strangely there's no photos showing the M6 Motorway 20 metres from their garden 🙂 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/137159375#/?channel=RES_BUY

Yes I heard that as well. Fair play to them 👍

Good news. A boat has just gone past us and said that CRT had done a temporary fix so the lock is now open.

It's a 2006 so hasn't even reached the 25 year supposed lifetime. If there's a winter stoppage it might well mess up our winter offside vegetation cutting programme 😟

It happened about 2.30pm. A boat had just gone down in front of us and as they closed the top gate before descending they said there was a loud cracking noise. A boat then came up and a few of us managed to open the gate by lifting the sagging end of the beam off the ground. We went down it using the same method. It was only the handrail that had prevented it breaking off completely and one end of that had begun to come adrift from its fixings. Then a CRT person who had been doing some vegetation clearance in nearby Rugeley, turned up and closed it. Apparently more CRT staff arrived shortly afterwards and said they planned on returning tomorrow to effect a temporary repair.

14.30 Top gate balance beam has snapped. At the moment the hand rail is just about holding it together so the lock is workable but slow. CRT staff in attendance to assess. Not sure how long it will hold before completely unusable.

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but a few years ago a reputable boat yard installed a Webasto boiler and 5 radiators. They used 15mm pipes throughout, and in the following two years, 3 of the heaters packed up. I discovered that the cause of the failures was that because of the small 15mm bore pipework the boiler was having to work too hard pumping the water/coolant around the system. Amazingly Webasto replaced all of the boilers under guarantee and it was only a chance meeting with a heating engineer that alerted me to the fact that the pipes were too small. After some wonderful advice from this forum I tackled the boatyard, armed with all the facts I needed, and they changed all the main pipework from 15m to 22m (except the feed to each radiator which are supposed to be 15m) with no quibbling. Re your other question, all but one of my radiators are on the starboard side, and they fed the pipe to other one under the floor, but cut an easily removable hatch in the floor in case of a leak or an inspection was needed.

I've just read through this torrid tale and although you've made some mistakes you've been so unlucky, and it's heartbreaking to see what you've been through. I was ripped off by the same yard (the place I'm pretty certain you've been dealing with) a few years ago, but thankfully only to the tune of about £600.

A simple solution, just put one of these on the roof of your boat. It's bound to work surely 😀

If you do decide to go into Birmingham city centre (recommended) moor at the Sea Life end because it's much quieter at night than at the Gas St Basin and Mailbox end. Like with most large cities the approach from the outskirts through the suburbs sometimes aren't so nice, and often aren't recommended for an overnight stop, but once you get into the main city centres they are great. Whichever direction you are approaching Birmingham from, there are plenty of threads on here advising where to overnight on the outskirts before making the final day's journey into the city centre.

I have the same problem with the bottom step draining into the bilge. I put a bowl underneath with an additional (automatic) bilge pump inside and joined its hose to the existing prop bilge pump hose. It's worked well but make sure the bowl can't move and that the drain hole(s) are properly lined up away from the edges of the bowl. I replaced the bowl with a bigger one when my engine came out a while back because occasionally the previous smaller one didn't always catch the water properly.

We've been doing it for the last 6 years but this will be the first time we will be doing to 5 days a week and have two operations on the go at the same time. Fair play to CRT because despite all their faults they seem to be backing us more this time than they have in the past because, despite the 'free labour' there's still a necessary investment in the equipment and training etc.

They had a Press Association guy there, apparently a relative of an IWA Lichfield member. As a result it went out on most of the internet news channels. Here is one of them https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/birmingham-canal-funding-protest-narrowboat-b2392386.html

Every little helps. I carry some shears too, and snip away as we cruise along, or pull/snap branches with my hand. Last week when grabbing a weeping willow as we went under it, a load of black bugs came down with it and we were covered in them 🙁. On the subject of weeping willows, unfortunately we can rarely reach the actual branches even with a long reach pole chainsaw or hedge trimmer. So we are only able to give them a 'haircut' and in no time they re-grow so quickly.

Just to make you aware that starting in October there will be a joint IWA & CRT offside vegetation cutting programme (all volunteers) on the T&M between Fradley Junction and Great Haywood, then down the S&W as far as Gailey. There will be another operation starting in Coventry and heading north to Hawkesbury, then to Fazeley then on the B&F to Curdworth. Obviously neither will require a stoppage (although there is one at the Great Haywood end of the S&W in January for weir maintenance), nor will there be any formal navigation restrictions in place. However if any of you are moored in those sections and hear the cutting being carried out approaching your boat, it would help a great deal if you would move forward or back briefly if asked to do so. Many of the spots with encroaching vegetation are opposite popular moorings so it’s in everyone’s interest if we can pay particular attention to dealing with those. As you all know, the encroaching vegetation on many parts of the system has been neglected and is probably the worst it’s been for years. Unfortunately in order to help catch up we need to make enough progress to complete the whole of those sections if possible, before we have to stop in early March when the wildlife begins nesting. We will be working Monday to Friday. We will therefore have to just concentrate on the significant places such as on bends, sightlines, opposite popular moorings, bridge and lock approaches, narrow sections etc, and on the straighter sections we will have to leave sporadic tree encroachments on the basis that if two boats meet, one will have to hold back briefly, and on some sections just create passing places. I also ask for you patience if you come across us and we are unable to move out of your way straight away. We are usually pretty good at doing this, but occasionally it may take a few minutes for us to tuck in out of your way. Afterwards you will no doubt see some places and wonder why we haven’t addressed them, but I’m afraid that in the circumstances this will be the best we can hope for, at least in the short term anyway. And it will certainly be much better than it is at the moment!

Resources?? I thought Sutton Cheney was in England not America 🙂

As Simon mentioned, leave Limehouse before 7am ish and you get through central London before it gets busy with the trip boats and those 'thrill ride' RIBS. Both times we've done it we left around 6am and the only traffic was a couple of UBA clippers, and they slowed down for us anyway. My wife had previously been very apprehensive but ended up absolutely loving it.

I believe Ivor didn't want to put his organisation(s) on that notice because he didn't want it to look as if it was just an IWA initiative because obviously there are many waterways related organisations involved. IWA are leading and co-ordinating it that's all.

I commented about it to the staff when I had my short stay there a few months ago and they agreed that they probably weren't useable any more, and said ' we will just have to hope that there are no breaches/leaks'. This to me indicates that they don't have any new ones stashed away. I'll rise above your abusive comments about me. I started this thread out of interest merely to find out whether the neglect of planks was commonplace, not to have a go at this particular marina (or any marinas), and I'm surprised and confused as to why I seem to have hit a nerve with you about it. Thank you to you others for your comments and something I've learnt is that they are to protect the canal from a breach in a marina and not the other way round as I'd thought.

Being as 'your' marina has gone about it the correct way (i.e no bad publicity) perhaps you could name it and I'll tell you if it's the same one I'm talking about?

You've got the wrong marina. I moored at this one for a few months over the winter and they definitely don't have any other stop planks other than those in my photos.