Ray

The local trip boat (Indian Chief) is very noisy as well. I'd not want to work that through the tunnel even once without some kind of hearing protection. I'd go so far as to say that it may even breach some employment regulations for its steerer. That said, the twice we've seen it the steerer wasn't wearing any obvious ear protection but that doesn't necessary mean he hadn't been issued with it (although I presume the employer has a duty to ensure any protective gear is used).

I presume you have a room thermostat. That will remain "closed" until the room temperature reaches the level that the thermostat is set for whereupon the thermostat will open and turn the boiler's pump off. Until then the pump will continue to be on and although the boiler's internal thermostat may turn the burner down if the water circulating in the boiler gets too hot, the pump will continue to run and the burner will eventually flare up again. There's nothing to stop this happening as there's (probably) no thermostat on the calorifier . Unless the calorifier is isolated, the water will continue to circulate through the calorifier coil as long as the pump is running and will continue to heat the water therein until the room stat opens. The mixer on top of your calorifier will stop you getting scalded by adding more and more cold to the mix of water leaving the calorifier. Was your 2 day per bottle usage a regular occurrence or just an isolated instance? Did you get a faulty bottle that wasn't full or had a leak or have you got a leak in the gas locker which might not be so noticeable as one inside the boat?

My shaver point is 240v as is my toothbrush charger. So I need to turn the inverter on to convert the 12v battery power to 230v AC

I would say that the radiator is far too small and because it wasn't heating the boat sufficiently the thermostat was never satisfied by the ambient heat level and so the boiler simply remained on. I'd suggest that you need to get a bigger radiator (or possibly even more than one), see how that copes and then consider whether you still need the diesel heater. A radiator is going to be a lot cheaper than a new heater. You also need to consider being able to isolate the heating and domestic hot water functions of the Alde otherwise a large percentage of the heat it generates will take the shortest route back to the boiler - via the calorifier - and not even reach the radiator. We certainly noticed this on our boat until I fitted electrically controlled valves to isolate the circuit we didn't want to heat. The 29xx series of Alde boilers aren't renowned for their economical use of gas but 13kg in two days does suggest the boat was wasting a lot.

When we had our first BSS and were considering the relevant paperwork to meet the RCD, the surveyor accepted that the cabling I'd used between batteries and inverter was probably of sufficient size for the short run but said that unless that cable size met the recommendations in the inverter documentation, the boat would not be RCD compliant. As a result we ended up using 90mm2 cable because we were unable to get the recommended 70mm2 and had to fight to get it through the grommet.

They'll be motorising boat poles next! Seriously I have a Mastervolt 2000 inverter and a Boots electric toothbrush. They work fine on the boat. I was more concerned that the toothbrush charger wouldn't draw enough current to fire the shaver point into action as apparently said shaver point is only supposed to draw current when something is connected to it. I presume the usual inefficiencies exist with the inverter when being used to power the charger so I only re-charge the toothbrush when the engine is running (whilst we're cruising).

Don't necessarily buy the cheapest faced plywood as it is liable to be full of voids - some of the far eastern plywood apparently falls into this category (so I was told a couple of years ago by a timber merchant) and the layers can delaminate over time. My colleague who has fitted out a number of hotel & hire boats over many years tells me to apply 50/50 varnish/thinner mix as a first coat, a 90/10 mix as a second coat and at least two full strength coats afterwards to both sides and all edges, cut or not in order to seal the wood completely. Water based varnish may be OK for walls and ceilings but probably not where the intention is to place things upon the surface (like cups and the like). Water based varnish doesn't tend to darken the wood like oil based varnish did on my boat. Water based varnish dries a lot quicker and smells a lot less! I presume that either type of varnish applied with a roller will require laying off with a brush and sanding lightly between coats (although I don't know whether that is strictly necessary on the reverse side).

I'd hazard to suggest that to consistently achieve a good all-round - i.e. 360º - visibility on a narrowboat you would need one person at the bow looking forward, one doing similar (but looking backwards) from the stern and one looking each side (of whom one could be the steerer). You'd then need at least one extra person unless you moor up every so often for the lookouts to take comfort breaks. A good steerer of any craft has a sufficient idea of what is going on around them and their boat such that apart from more precise movements no further lookout should be necessary. From a recent trip on one of the Thames Clippers I gather there is normally a crew of three (plus the catering staff). Two are concerned with assisting boarding and alighting and the other steering. I was told that there are cameras all around the boat. Like others I suspect, I have assumed that last week's incident was the front of the bigger vessel tail ending the stern of the smaller vessel. I presume it may also have been a case of the bigger vessel's stern clipping the rear of the narrowboat as the bigger vessel swung or briefly reversed away from one of their stopping spots. There is of course always the chance that either vessel was making a sudden but necessary emergency manoeuvre to avoid a third vessel or other object (probably) in the water and, in the process of doing so momentarily forgot the presence of the vessel with which the collision occurred. As has been said above (and is frequently said in conjunction with railway accidents), let's not jump to too many conclusions until the full story is known. In many rail accidents the conclusion is all but a foregone conclusion based on the aftermath, location and witness reports. I'm not aware that we have the benefit of most if not any of these in relation to the river incident. We can but hope that lessons are learned from the incident, steps will be taken to minimise the risk of a repeat incident and, more importantly, the MCA don't put even tighter screws on canal (and small river) trip boat operators that will put many more out of business because of a need to meet totally irrelevant requirements on a canal e.g. (but only one small example) the need for a canal trip boat to have all life rings clearly marked with the boats name when they're the only trip boat for miles and much of the canal is shallow enough for persons in the water to stand up in. Another example (which comes for free!) is an expectation in a person overboard incident to reverse the craft towards the person in the water (presumably because it is realised that it is normally impossible to turn the craft around). There's no way that I would take a revolving propeller anywhere near a person in the water.

As a now almost ex Tier 1 Boatmaster - the licence expires next Wednesday and I'm 65 on Friday so can't be bothered to face the annual medical - I am only too aware of the restricted visibility in front of a (canal) trip boat, let alone the sides. Can I suggest that you try standing at the stern of your narrowboat and see how much in front of the bow you can't see - think canoe in water ahead. And how much can you see down the port side of your narrowboat when you're checking the starboard side? The same applies to cruisers especially when steering from the inside cabin rather than a flying bridge where visibility to the side close to the boat is as poor as it is to the front of a narrowboat. No vessel of any significant size - large row boat upwards - is going to have a permanent good all round visibility. What is more critical is to keep your attention focussed on where your boat is going so that the only thing that could surprise you is a boat approaching from the rear and this can be mitigated by frequent but brief checks astern - something that many narrowboaters find difficult to do. And please let us remember that BMLs only came about because of the Marchioness tragedy.

May I be permitted to enquire whether a PC, TV and battery charger should go anywhere near tripping a 6 amp supply (although I can recognise that something like a kettle might? There are about twenty boats moored where we are. A number have appliances running all year but more so in the winter - when electric heaters are left on to minimise the risk of freeze ups. If even half of the boats were to draw the full 6 amps each (and electric heaters can draw far more than that) that's upwards of 60 amps being drawn. That's a significant amount of power when added to any other appliances being used around the marina and unless there's a 3 phase supply it is likely to exceed what the electricity board may be reliably able to provide in more rural areas. I hate to think what the peak electricity consumption is at somewhere like Ventnor Farm (or similar sized) marina.

Have you tested it in an area that you know to be gas "safe"? We had one on a trip boat many years ago and that developed the same symptons. I think it had something to do with being situated near a gas boiler and both were well below the water line and even though the boat was open at both ends there wasn't a sufficiently strong air flow to disperse the minute particles of LPG which is heavier than air. Unfortunately we couldn't put the sensor anywhere else so it got removed due to its (over) sensitivity.

Alde quoted me £45 for a burner service (plus parts). Graham quoted £85 for similar. Ironically, from what I could make out, Graham actually does the Alde services for them. I shall take a closer look at the washer and try reversing it when next at the boat.

I'll be interested to hear the solution. Our pump does similar until we learned not to run the boiler at full tilt for any greta length of time. And our boiler's only just 5 years old. BTW, Alde will also service their burner and appear to be about 50% cheaper than Graham even though Alde implied that Graham is the person that ctually does the servicing on their behalf!

Is a 6 amp shore line limit actually that unusual for a hook-up? I would have thought that anything greater was actually more unusual.

No problem. Seems strange that the drain is arranged like that on a hire boat. I'd have thought (from exerience of turning them round weekly) that the last thing the hire company would want is any arrangement whereby there was a risk to the craft because of the bilge flooding. I don't suppose there was evidence of anything of a similar colour on the stern deck. I wondered if somebody may have (for example) discarded a red drink that then dripped into the bilge. Hopefully your current investigations will reveal any leaks but you may have to wait until it rains again to see if the same problem arises once more.

I used to curse the locking bolt on the bridge that needed a BWB key to undo it so the bridge could be swung open and have been grateful that the lock on the bolt has been missing of late. However, perhaps the (bolt) lock should be restored and modified so that the bridge can be locked open and closed with a BWB key. That should stop anyone moving the bridge when there's a boat about to use the (canal) lock. On the other hand, maybe it isn't boaters that disabled the (bolt) lock. Local residents (and other non-boaters) wouldn't do that. Would they?

Slightly changing the subject but have you cleaned the drain from the rear deck so that any (rain) water that escapes the deck boards and would otherwise drop into the bilge drops into the drainage channel on which the deck boards rest and drains overboard? Its also advisable to remove as much of the crud in the drainage channel as you can. That said, if the boat has more than a very slight list in the opposite direction to the drain you may be wasting your time. That might help keep your bilge dry.

We slapped a coat of red oxide on any steel that we used as ballast. (standard gauge) railway fishplates are a convenient size and reasonably easy to move around. Unlike rail they're generally flat and easier to stack. It might be worth asking Quainton where they get there requirements from although as their requirement is probably a bit on the small side - no offence meant - it may not be something they readily know an answer to. Anything you're liable to get from the railway in Leighton is going to be quite light as they only use a lightweight rail so it would be a bit like using broken paving slabs.

We looked at "doing" the Nene this summer but the licence cost was astronomical (as far as we could work out). Something like £250 for a couple of weeks. Did we get it wrong?

Is the calorifier vertical or horizontal? I used a couple of piece of softwood clamped together with the hoses from the engine in between to minimise the escape of water from the engine cooling system. I'd loosen the lower of the two connections from the boiler and let the water drip/drain into a pot below and suggest fitting a drain off point when you re-plumb into the new calorifier. I believe that water should only escape from the inner part of the calorifier if there is a way for air to replace the water that is leaving it. Consequently, (I think that) provided that you remove the highest connection first and replace it with a blanking plate you should be able to do something similar with the lower connection afterwards. You can then drain the water from the calorifier off the boat but the calorifier and water will weigh a fair bit so this may not be an ideal solution. Another option could be to turn off your water pump, open all your taps and let the pressure escape from the system, Close all taps again. if you haven't got a non return valve on the cold feed to the calorifier you should be able to cut into the supply pipe and fit a drain off point or valve to control the exodus of water from the cylinder. If you then remove the hot water (out) connection from the calorifier you should be able to drain the cylinder through the drain off. Just a few ideas with no guarantee that any is better than the other or that they will work in your situation. Others may know better.

I think you may need to be more concerned about the need to change your boat before you have to worry about needing to cease boating. Some boats will last for 35 years others may not. Buy an older (and possibly cheaper) boat now and you find yourself shelling out again for a replacement within twenty years. I would question whether small quantities of fuel for a boat work out much cheaper than larger quantities of fuel for a house (assuming you have a loy more storage capacity in a house than you do on a boat). This presumes that there is a premium for buying the smaller amounts used by boaters. Forget the point if there isn't

Can you not push the back out from the bank, go astern briefly to get the boat moving and then with someone on the bow rope and someone else on the stern rope gently pull the boat back clear of the winding hole? Repeat the pushing the stern away from bank as often as is necessary. Once the boat is moving it shouldn't require too much effort to maintain some kind of movement. Another idea would be to knock on the GRP boat agin, ask them to turn around, breast up to you and "tow" you back clear of the widing hole. What they do after that is their problem!

The Avonbelle web site says, on the coach party related page (and in several other places), that they can accommodate up to 40 passengers but I note that the About Us page does say 70. Having skippered a canal trip boat that is 62ft long and 13ft 6ins wide, we only had capacity for 60 people and that was pushing it. A boat a little over two thirds that length cannot accommodate 70 on a single deck, which is all the Avonbelle appears to have. Are they really allowed to cruise at 12 knots per hour?

The latest CRT document has a number of holes in it. I have responded seeking an explanation for them.