Tiny

Some years ago we had a chap who hired a boat and went off single handed (with dog) on a boat. Later the dog was noticed sitting under a tree and the body of the hirer was found dead near by. The body was naked and it was later found that he had been dead for two days. Although the police were somewhat reticent the strange story finally came out...That the chap was a cop on special leave (but quite normal according to the police) and that his known hobbies were boating, naked rambling and climbing trees! The police deduced that he had left his boat on an early morning ramble with his dog and, having passed through one hamlet and crossed the odd main road he had climbed a tree to look at the view. From the tree he fell, killing himself and the dog then sat beside the body for over 36 hours until it was discovered. Real life is often stranger than fiction.

Yet even now the boat has been seen sightings are spasmodic - the last being a couple of days ago. Given the keepers at Foxton are now not full time it could be that they missed the boats passing - or maybe by the time she was reported at Kibworth etc., Holly was already passing through Foxton and is now north of there in an area with few bases and less boats than further south. Of course, as the boat becomes more (in)famous there is always the danger that someone may meet the boat and attempt contact - which, as has been said might not be a good idea. With all this in mind it might be an idea to emulate the boater who got on his bike and rode the section to near Crick. If something similar could be organised between Leicester and Crick (including all arms) - with those that do it just passing by if they saw Holly and reporting when out of sight - then at least we would know if the boat is in the area. If it is the police could take it from there.

And maybe phone Middlewich as it might confuse the police - or is the boat not now listed as a stolen car?

"Thanks for slowing down" (said with a smile) is one which often causes the passing boater to cut the revs and say "Wot".

The best place to lose a needle is in a lot of other needles. The best place to 'lose' a boat is in a lot of other boats. Around Braunston are more boats than anywhere else on the system. So - are there any new (to the area) boats in your marina or on the canals around all you readers who have boats in the Braunston area? Do they look a bit like Holly in size and shape but not necessarily in colours or outside looks? If so...

We have owned a Triton for 8 years. It was built to our design - a thing that Triton were happy to do at no extra cost. As we were not bothered with engine type we were happy to take the Triton standard one for our length of boat... The Lombadini engine in it is a 4 cylinder rated 34hp and is at the cheap end of the engines available range. Running it from new we found it perfectly normal and reasonable for the first few years. When it needed a scheduled service (at 2000hours) I did have problems at first finding an engineer who knew the engine. However we were luck as at Warrington a firm (who is on the servicing lists as being in Liverpool but had moved) had an engineer who was previously a fully trained Lombadini engineer (when that firm had their own engineers rather than using agents) and he knew their engines backwards. He stripped and tuned the beast and the final result compared to the original is amazing! Now engine is smoke free and can be run flat out (3,400rpm in gear). In fact we only wind it up out of gear (to 3,600rpm) as once moving even on a shallow canal at a third throttle the engine can move the boat at fast walking place. Overall the engine uses a litre of fuel per hour when running and all spares are available. Some say that our engine - being shiney unpainted metal - does not look as good as some engines on the market but ours works very nicely thank you! Mentioning servicing the engine is fully marinised, with spares under the fram label or lombadini originals widely available and all oil changes, filter changes, etc. are done from the top rather than in back-breaking positions. Of course you need to put a tray under to catch the oil when you change the oil filter. In fact the only difficult bit of maintainance with our boat is oil change for the PRM gearbox whose drain plg requires a large 1" spanner and is located under the box. In theory the oil in this gets changed with the various engine filters at roughly 200-250 hours running, while the engine oil gets changed every 125 hours. Finally on the subject of fuel, although Triton did not fit one we were advised to fit a rough filter/ water trap between the fuel tank (rated 40gallons but holds 52) and the other filter. This we would recomend as the rough filter while catching a lot of the crap one finds in red diesel only uses a cheap replacable filter which we found from experience extends the life of the more expensive filter up the line. It also stopping watery fuel reaching the engine. Such impure fuel in a Lombadini can lead to erratic running - this usually when you above a large unfenced weir - which is not a pleasant experience. To finish the engine comments we were told that this line of engines were originally developed to power milk delivery trucks in Italy - which may account for ours not being too worried about being worked at high revs! As for the rest of the boat as Triton is a firm at the cheap end of the market they tend send boats out with little jobs that need to be done to make them into your dream boat. Having said that I have looked at boats that cost twice as much which have a lot more wrong with them when they are handed over. Certainly, after getting over the initial teething troubles and having fixed the bits where screws are better than nails or glue we have been very happy with our boat and continue to enjoy it.