pagan witch

OK folks - It is good to see some sense prevail. I'm the guy Bargiepat - my friend Patrick quoted. It is good to see a balanced view - life is dangerous - how we manage that danger is up to us but I am totally sure that the 'safer' you make things the more dangerous they become as common sense receeds into history. I served for 12 years as a Special Constable for Debryshire Police - and also for a time as part of the out of hours doctors's service so I'm lucky enough to have been on more first aid courses than I care to remember. Final update (the lady's husband phoned me yesterday) . . . She has a broken wrist that should be fixed in around 6 weeks. She has some pretty nasty grazes and bruises which should fix sooner thatn that. She has had every scan going as far as I can tell and has no lasting damage - full return of all motor skills and memory. All in all it has been worked out (no idea how) that she was under for around 7 minutes. What I did was pretty scary, but being stood watching not knowing what to do would have been terrifying. I'm no hero - just did what needed doing. The only thing I did was put my training into practice. I'll not be returning to the thread - as far as I am concerned I'd like to forget it - job done - just my way of dealing with the situation. My 'release' is my photography, please forgive me for the plug - but if you want to see what I get up to - this is me http://society6.com/PICSL8 Now - do something useful . . . Go learn first aid - even the basics - just do it. So far I've saved 2 lives because of my first aid trainig - and I promise I'm no one special. I most sincerely hope I do not make the hat trick. Steev

GREAT NEWS - it has been found. Seems it was broken in to then set adrift and was found by a passing boater who then kindly towed it to a BWB compound. Seems that it has taken 5 weeks for BWB to get round to telling him they had got it. My thanks to all of those who acted as eyes and ears here. Not sure what was taken or damaged but at least he has got the boat back.

I think I've just invented a new name for spam then - instead of being spammed I guess we could say we've been e-mauled. Back to a more serious note then . . . I have asked him for crime reference number, licene number, photos and distinguishing features. As soon as I get these I'll add them and anyother info that we can get hold of. I'd also like to thank those of you, who within minutes of the posting are offering help and advice - this is very much appreciated.

A friend of mine has been unlucky enough to have had his narrowboat stolen from the Birmingham area. The bad news is it was 'sometime in the last 6 weeks' The good news is that :- a) It must have started by going northwards due to BWB maintenance program in the area. For much of that time there has been so much ice as BWB report 90% of system effectively closed due to ice c) It is a distinctive boat. 35ft narrowboats are not all that common. So if you live on or near a canal or you walk the towpath ,look out for a 35ft boat in GWR colours (brown with a cream roof ) called TRES and let me know if you see it,or saw it in the last 6 wks. Anyone with information / sightings please contact me via PM or e-maul me directly at webmaster at peakbusiness dot co dot uk and also contact West Midlands Police. I'm still trying to get photos

Ours is an ex-hire boat with a large holding tank - we calculate around 200 gallons. The only problems we've had so far have been with the toilet and even these have been minor. 1) The flush water selenoid packed up a few weeks ago but when I took it out to look at it there was a simple wiring fault. Seems that from day 1 the push fit connection inside the housing hadn't been correctly lined up. Took longer to take out and put back than it did to fix. 2) The macerator has jammed twice (in 5 years) both times this has been due to chunks of limescale falling off of the rubber pipes. We renewd all of the rubbers last year and also treat the whole system to a dose of neat white vinegar to kill of the limescale without killing of the toilet tank. We bought a self pump out kit - paid for itself umpteen times over, but we are lucky in having 2 BWB points that accept this nearby. With 3 liveaboard we normally aim to do a 'Poos Cruise' every 3 - 4 weeks. We don't use any chemicals and never had a smell from it.

Coates in Alrewas on the T & M Also provide great bread and a selection of local 'non dead thing' produce. Often a queue out of the door - always a good sign

We been liveaboard for a little over 4 years now. We used to live in a 4 bedroom farmhouse, the living room alone having more floor space & head height than we now have on our 62 ft boat. We filled the house with clutter in 18 months. One of the kids moved out a little over a year ago and despite this we still seem to have more clutter than we did when she lived here (this disputing the common belief that once the kids leave the clutter will go). As for the holding tank, yes, it occupies all of the space under our permanent double. Would I get rid of it - definately not. To utilise this space would at best mean having a couple of drawers that pull out about 14 inches, the rest would have to be accessed via lifting up our very comfortable and not at all light double mattress. Even with a permanet crew of 3 with an occasional 4th we can go 4 weeks comfortably without pumping out. Pumping out takes us appx 3 hours total including cruise to and from pump out. With our current crew level we'd need to empty a cassette daily. 28 trips at say 10 minutes a time carrying the cassette or a once monthly cruise . . . . I'll keep the pump out. Pump out bogs with 'dump through' are always going to have some sort of smell issue. Many boats (ours included have a macerator pumpo to a remote holding tank and fresh water flush. We've never used chemicals in ours and there never has been a smell. If ours was a dump through I'd have ripped it out and gone for cassettes but I'm more than happy with our set up.

Never JUMP a closing gap. If you can't step it then it's too far to be safe. If you fall in you'll be crushed at best or shredded at wost. For maximum enjoyment do everything slowly also do everything on the boat slowly. Careful with the centre rope use if waiting to come up a lock. Seen more than 1 near capsize when the water from the emptying lock culvert has pushed the bottom of the boat away from the bank whilst the centre rope holds the top near the bank. Aston lock on the T & M is particularly bad for this. Never run out of water. Having a qualification is no substitute for having experience. As you already seem to have a reasonable amount of experience I'm not convinced that having a piece of paper to prove this will improve matters. Im sure you asked for 1 gem but remember there ere 3 types of people - those who can count and those who can't Edified 'cos I managed to post the same message twice twice

Thanks for bringing the topic back into line Patrick. Sheeeesh . . . If I'd have known that a man's death would have resulted in 7 pages of talk about ladders I don't think I'd have posted. The death is very sad, but at that part of the canal the water is less than 3 ft deep + another 1 ft for bank and the reports say that 1 person pulled the poor chap out. At the end of the day it seems a tragic accident took place and my post was just to point out that we need to be carefull. Last thing we need is more rules.

Totally agree - we had a chap fall in here last year. Fell in the drink on account of too much drink. Water only waist deep but he was one very overweight, short chap who really couldn't help himself and needed 4 people to haul out. These 'boarding steps' built into the back of the counter are hopeless, the only real option in my view is a ladder - and I don't go for these rope jobbies either - far too floppy to be any good. A short section, 5 - 6 feet would do for most canals. I do remember some years ago - like when I was in junior school learning how to get someone out of the water with just one person - it isn't that difficult in a swimming pool where the water is warm etc. but in the real world what normally happens is too many people with differing ideas on how to 'help' get in each other's way whilst the person in water gets colder and colder and becomes increasingly weaker and less co-operative.

Just a thought but I can't see any reason why you couldn't buy red and declare full 'non propulsion' and then buy standard ULS 'white' from a petrol station then put this into your tank. You'd not be evading any duty and would be in theory at least be 'improving' the quality of the fuel if you are of the 'red we buy is of a lower grade' line of thought that is often a topic on the forum and if you don't subscribe to this view then you must accept that mixing the two is certaily not going to make the mix any worse than 'standard' red. A simple note book to prove purchases should do the trick as far as record keeping goes and I guess a fair number of us keep cruise logs that include engine run hours (yes I know that doesn't perfectly equate to fuel use do to variations in engine speed but we all have a pretty good idea of our propulsion fuel economy). The place I normally buy red from does keep a register, as is required but openly has no interest at all in what proportion you declare for propulsion. The same supplier tells me that there are no plans in place for HMRC to inspect the marina records, though they do have the power to do so. All he does is 'keep a record' it is up to the boater to sign the declaration, not the reseller to check it.

An extremely sad and distressing item of news . . . . On the 'This is Derbyshire' web site today (3rd Feb 2009) there is an item on a "63 year old man who lived on a narrowboat at Willington and today fell into the canal". Passers by pulled him out of the water but he had died. A gas bottle was nearby the boat, the implication being that he'd been trying to change a gas bottle and fallen in. How easy it is for our 'safe' way of life to take such a sudden and tragic turn.

I've chipped in to several 'how big a generator' / 'how much electricity' questions. Also 'mobile computing' - wireless modems etc. Would be happy to write something for consideration.

Horses for courses. We use a 2 kw inverter - that's 2 kw peak - 1.2 kw constant. Bog standard modified sine wave. Works everything fine - tv dvd, fridge freezer, computers etc, and either 1) electric kettle (720w) or 2) hair drier on low heat (around the same wattage) or high heat for a few minutes (limited by battery power not inverter ability) or 3) hoover. For running the washer / tumble (2.2 kw) we run a diesel gen set at 2.5kw. As the washer only peaks at the 2.2 when it is starting to turn the drum it all works very well. Any gen set that is over 3.5 kva (appx 13 amps) should run any one domestic item no problem as 13 amp is all a mains plug is fused at. running more than one would of course mean needing a bigger gen set. Howver - with a little care you should be able to avoid 'conflicting loads'. Our cheap 'n' cheefull 700w 2 stroke gen hasn't got enough ooomph to run our battery charger so hasn't been used in yonks.

Why have traps on a boat ? Simple - it stops draughts. Not bothered by the spiders we have a few 'pets' around the boat and so long as the webs don't start taking over the world we leave them be. Cheaper than fly spray an better too.

Glad you've got it sorted. IF you have a timer panel it can be used to diagnose faults - it stores a history of 'failures' in memory too - 5 if I recall. As for the white issue - this has been talked to death at various times. Been running mine on red as a residential for 4 years now - only ever had 1 fuel problem and that was the internal filter becoming blocked. I do confess to adding 'Fuelset' though. On the overheat front - we turn all of our rads off all over summer and only use the Eber to heat the domestic hot water so I'm not convinced that there was an overheat due to lack of load. If you haven't already discovered it there is a bleed screw on top of the Ebby too.

Barton Turns is know far and wide as 'Windy City' because it is, like most modern marinas, so big that there's always a fair wind on it. The new marina at Willington despite whatever they may be saying still only has around 80 boats max in it but they have only very limited ressi moorings - though they have some for 'workers' - we know someone who's work there is to make sure the gates are shut at night. Barton is however a good place to be as you can go either way for anything from a few hours to a few days with easy winding holes along the way and being all canal at that point until either Alrewas or the Trent it doesn't get closed for floods.

Agree with that possibility and in the absence of a flood we'de have had the pump out to check. Luckily our youngest's keen ears heard the drip first. Saw Squeers on the T & M yesterday or day before - went through Willington

Yep - oil + water = white gunge. We have a thin film of oil in our under engine area but this is from the breather pipe which vents down there. Clean it out from time to time but it is truly stunning how far even a tiny amount of oil covers - last time we cleared it only around an egg cup full was oil and that was after 3 yars or so. Now all you need to do is find the water leak - sometimes renewing the antifreeze can prompt leaks - it alters the surface tension so and 'weak' areas become leaks. I'd start with tightening all the jubilee clips you can find and possibly look for a leak on the engine header tank rubber seal. The oil water mix will almost certainly settle back down to oil on top, water underneath if left, but then when you use the boat engine will be shaken into white once more.

I know that there have been many "Why does my water pump keep cycling ?" questions in the past and tghe answer is always there is a leak, the pressure switch is faulty or the accumulator tank is knackered but here's what caused ours. . . Wych Way's water pump doesn't cycle - end of - never has. Then one day it did - just once. Then over a period of some days / weeks it got more noteworthy to the point where we'd got so used to it we could sleep through it. The problem we had was simply that we couldn't find the leak - or evidence of it. By turning a tap on then off and allowing the pump to re-charge the accumulator, then filling a glass until the pump kicked in again we knew that we were loosing around 1 pint every 45 minutes or so - surely that can't have been hard to find ? In the end our youngest crew member heard a drip - it was coming from behind a wall panel that we know has the heating system header tank behind it. We found a blamanche like 'gloop' had formed on top of the header tank and was slightly pressing down on the float, allowing a very slow dribble of water into the header tank. This then overflowed via the aptly named overflow pipe directly down to bilge, where being clean it got lost amongst the contents of the bilge. Due to the bad weather at the time we'd put the extra bilge water down to rain water (we have a typical ex hire boat large cruiser stern deck). Still don't know what the gloop is / was but cleaned it out, checked float valve level was OK and we're back to no cycling pump.

Most certainly is . . . Bubble Inn, Bridge 19, right next to Stenson Lock. Seem the area has been plagued with 'reporters' for days now and an unusual number of people who 'just happen to be walking in the area' with big cameras. The tractor driver is fine - or at least he was when he was seen stuffing his face later that day. The Mercia Marina folk can get to Jannels in around 3 hours - just turn right and follow the ditch - so no great plight

As an ex aerial rigger I can tell you a decent masthead amp & power supply would come in at around £40, add a bit of labour and your most recent quote doesn't seem out of the way. The others are a rip off. Would take me longer to put the ladders up and down than to replace the amp. On the heater front remember that most of the heaters we use are fitted to other things too. If my Eber is beyond my skills I take it to an auto electricians - Ebers are used in a lot of trucks. Could try cross quoting against auto electricians, caravan / motor home dealers ?

I did post some months ago that I was looking for nb Cahoon, last known to be bridge hopping around Stone on the T & M. It is around the 50ft mark, last known to be darkk blue and green, with a quite large coat of arms design on each side and unless the subject of much recent tender love and care is looking a 'little tired'. I cruised T&M from Burton on Trent, up to Stoke on Trent, then Leek & Froghall arms in June I couldn't find it then so presumably it has moved on. The owners are Tom & Maragaret Booth , Tom is in his late 50's, appx 5'10", slight build and with grey hair, talks with a a very gentle lilting voice. Margaret I have only ever met once and would reasonably describe as a small, wirey, firey Scot. Didn't like to give a reason last time, trying to be discreet and all of that but perhaps if I explain why people may be more willing to help. My company is owed rather a lot of money for services he was paid for but did not provide (we had to re-imburse his customers) we'd quite like to find him to ask for his re-payment proposal or to serve summons. Any help much appreciated by reply, pm or call my office on 01246 55 65 55 Thanks all Steev

I remember being told at school a Veeeeerrry long time ago that the introduction of 'tin' helmets to soldiers in WW1 resulted in MORE head injuries. The explanation we were given was that previously they'd have been killed, hence on a 'different budget'. As a driving instructor trainer I get to hear the DSA figures on Killed & Seriously Injured figures and despite all of the safety inventions the 'killed' rate hasn't gone down in over 10 years - still tops 3,000 a year in the UK. Too much safety stops people taking responsibility for their own actions and adds an 'invincible' factor. Or as someone once quoted to me recently . . . Health and Safety is killing us.

My normal digital SLR with a 200mm on can show tread pattern on tyres at over 200 ft and reading a number plate is a doddle - you can see fixing bolts too as well as read the details off of the tax disc. I know that the roadside speed cameras can read a plate from well over 1/4 a mile. I was at Chatsworth last year and they were demonstrating the range of these things. Look through the eyepice and you could read the prices chalked on the burger van that was so far away you could only just make out there was a burger van there.