MikeHing

Have a look at the Ultra PIR battery GSM alarms from Ultra Secure Direct. They do 4G & very cheap 2G (£69) shed alarms. It needs a SIM. I have used the 2G version for years. 2G being phased out eventually though although 3G is going first.

Had a rope round prop after assistant lock keeper on Thames dropped our stern rope and it wound around prop and stopped the engine dead. All seemed to be OK but engine ran progressively rough. Some hours later I had a closer look at engine and could see that a rear engine mount bracket on Barus 1500 had cracked. This too was a PRM120 gearbox. Got it welded and next day other rear mount bracket failed. It wasn't obvious on initial inspection that there was a problem with the mounts.

Our Indecit IWDC6125 works fine with our 3000 Multi. Economic use of water too. This is a washer drier but have rarely used the drier function. We only use it when we are under way with the engine running though. A couple of years ago I set the Multi to output 220V instead of 230V but the washer did not like that at all and kept stopping mid program.

Midshipmans hitch. Google it.

Animated knots by Grog is the place to look. https://www.animatedknots.com/

Just tie a loop onto the hook with a Midshipmans knot and the length can easily be adjusted

£16.80 per day in the floating harbour based on a 15 day mooring license. £35 for a single day stay though.

Just had a quote for 14 days visitor mooring for a 57' nb on River Avon (Bristol way) of £657. That's about £47/day. Unbelievable. Needless to say we will stop somewhere else.

Had our new Beta 43 painted Kubota blue by Betamarine, ie the colour the original Kubota engines are supplied. Makes a change from green.

Came past Beale Park this morning and all the no mooring signs have gone, every one of them. There were lots of them mounted on posts when we passed over a week ago going down stream and no moored boats. No sign of them been broken off, just gone. A few boats moored there this morning which were mostly day boats. Whitchurch lock has still got a blackboard sign saying no mooring at Beale. They haven't been replaced with the original 24 hr mooring allowed signs though.

Those green starboard hand buoys have been gradually getting closer to the bank over the past few years. There are EA 24 hr moorings just below the lock and adjacent these buoys making it increasingly difficult to pass them on the correct side. Not too bad in a NB but widebeams and large cruisers must struggle when boats are moored on the 24 hr moorings. Add some flow in the river and life could get quite exiting. It is though very advisable to pass these on the correct side. I pulled a large hire boat cruiser off the mud last week just below Benson lock who had tried a shortcut.

I have a redundant one of these in my garage. As you say about 500mm tall. Had a look at the back of it and it definately has a compressor. There is an electrical circuit label inside which identifies a compressor in the system.

https://www.stickonsigns.co.uk

Have a look at www.stickonsigns.co.uk. Several members of this forum have in the past used their custom designed vinyl lettering. They can and do supply stencils as an alternative to vinyl. Regarding letter heights; most fonts have larger O, C, G & C capital letters to give the lettering a balanced look. It's nothing to do with the vinyl cutting.

Currently at the Pig Place heading south. Levels here are fine but the pound between Grants and Kings Sutton was a challenge.

Just noticed this post regarding facilities at Lechlade. Good slip in marina. Regularly used for boats such as Freemans, Normans etc. Marina should have new owners by next Spring and hopefully will be well run and organised. New name will be Lechlade Marina Ltd. It is currently called Riverside Marina. Not likely to be fuel in marina though. The other Lechlade slip is only suitable for dinghies and canoes. It is a public (no fee) slip.

Good to hear that the graphics are still OK Dylan. We are still in business producing vinyl graphics or paint stencils to individual customer requirements. We like to think that we provide a custom job to individual requirements - no online order forms. We like to discuss the job with the customer to be able to supply exact requirements. If we have a photo of the boat then we can produce a draft image of the final graphics. Paint stencils are a good alternative to vinyl and can include shading on a single stencil. Mike Stick on Signs

Thanks all, that is exactly the information am looking for. I am a little annoyed that I have gone and spent £20 on a so called Ouse windlass only to find out it is the same as the numerous canal windlass' I already have. I have joined GOBA.

Hoping to cruise the rivers Nene, Great Ouse & Middle Levels this summer. I am having difficulty getting details of the lock windlass' we will need. I have read somewhere that the Ouse windlass is special in that the lock spindles have a shroud that makes the use of a canal type windlass impossible. I have got a Middle Level windlass now and also bought what was sold as a Nene & Great Ouse short throw windlass. However this Nene & Great Ouse windlass has identical cut outs to my standard canal windlass! I also now have an EA Abloy key for the control boxes. Any other keys needed? Any information on this would be gratefully received.

Thanks for your inputs on this. II will go for sprayfoam.done by someone who knows what they are doing.

What type of insulation do forum members recommend for a new build shell? My first feeling is to go for sprayfoam but I know that there are other materials, ie sheet polystyrene, Rockwool & 3M Thinsulate. Is sprayfoam fire retardant? I would have thought that it should be to comply with BSS

Our 43ft boat lives on the Thames at Lechlade. The huill was 2 pack epoxied about 6 years ago and this coating is still in excellent condition. However, there is now quite a thick lime scale deposit on the underwater surfaces which will not jet wash off. Maybe this is a side effect of being on the Thames as the water must have quite a high calcium content with some of the water coming off the Cotswolds. I have googled lime scale remover and there seems to be a few acid type products that may be suitable without causing damage to the epoxy coating. Does anyone have any experience of lime scale removal on this scale? The boat is currently out of the water until Spring so now is the time to try something.

Our cat has been cruising with us for her whole 7 year life. She first came on board as a kitten of about 7 weeks old. I am sure this had the effect of imprinting the boat as a second home. We do not live aboard but live within about 30m of the boat, so whenever I go down to the boat she normally follows me on and is very reluctant to then leave. All has been OK up till now until our 3 week cruise this summer. The planned route was down the Thames and then visit the River Wey. After a week we got to Coxes Lock on the Wey and the cat went for her normal evening hunt but did not return. We stayed at Coxes Lock for a week looking for her without success. Eventually we had to leave for home. Two weeks later we got a call on a Sunday evening from some dog walkers out on Chertsey Mead who thought they had seen our cat. We had flooded the area with lost cat posters. My wife travelled down to where the cat had been seen and within half an hour of searching she was found safe and well but very skinny. This is a bit of a long drawn out story showing that cats will always do what they want, when they want to and cannot be relied upon to always return for one reason or another. We still do not know why our cat wandered of, she had never done so before.(she was found 1½ miles from where she went missing)but something out of the ordinary must have happened,ie been chased by something. In an attempt to make finding her easier should anything like this happen again, when on the boat she now wears a collar with a Loc8tor radio tracking device. It has a limited range of about 120m, but had she been wearing one at the time she went missing during the summer it would have made the task of finding here a lot easier. You can walk within a meter or so of a cat hiding in a hedge and you would never see it. This has now been trialed for a week in early September and although the cat never strayed too far away, I could always detect where she was. Cats are great fun to have on a boat but you must be aware of the potential problems should the animal be allowed to roam. Mooring locations have also to be chosen with care. We were concerned last year about our stay in Limehouse marina but the cat took it all in here stride much to the amusement of other moorers. She wasn't impressed with the lumpy ride down the Tideway though.

When we first had our boat it was built with a single R & D coupling and I was unhappy with the amount of vibration transmitted to the hull. This single type of coupling is pretty useless when combined with an engine fitted to flexible engine mounts. Very soon after I fitted a second R & D coupling pretty well exactly as shown in the photo. This creates a rudiomentary universal joint assembley allowing a small degree of parallel motion of the drive shaft. The reduction in transmitted vibration was noticeable. I used this set up for several years before finally fitting an Aquadrive unit.

OK,I have installed the relay after the battery isolator switches and all seems to work fine although when the relay is energised and the contacts are closed, the coil sings/buzzes. Is this normal? I was surprised to hear this assuming the Smartbank puts out a DC energising voltage to the coil.