booke23

Indeed. You could cut the irony with a cricket stump!

Yes boatclubs are worth considering. They are all different, I didn’t get interviewed for the last club I was in (to any newbie thinking of starting a boat club - I’d recommend you always interview as there are some funny characters on the canals!), there was a grass cutting rota that required you be responsible for the grass one week a year so that wasn’t onerous, and a couple of working party days a year to do odd jobs. There was water but no electric or elsan. The downside from my point of view is they are much more social….no such thing as keeping yourself to yourself. This is great if everybody is easy to get on with but as the saying goes it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel, and I did come across a few rotten apples. It was very cheap though….paid £1200 for the year 2023-24 for my 40 footer.

Absolutely. Sea otters are brilliant, a great and innovative product and I'm surprised no one took up the mantle to build them, especially in the last few years where the market has ballooned. I think HDPE could be similarly innovative and great in the small narrowboat market.

It was and the MAIB report is a good lesson for a new narrowboater as it shows how things can get out of control fast. The crew of carers were quite experienced and had done many trips with disabled clients, but they were clearly distracted when operating the lock as the first to notice the boat was hung up was the crew onboard when by this time water was flooding the rear of the boat. They shout to drop the paddles, but the crew member instead ran to the top paddle with the intention to open it to try and raise the water level...of course he didn't have the anti vandal handcuff key in his pocket as it was on the bottom paddle so couldn't do this. The boat then released from the hang up and the resulting wave completely sank it. They emptied the lock and it was actually a 15 year old lad who managed to get in the cabin and drag most of the casualties out. This accident would have been prevented if any one of the points raised in this thread had been adhered to i.e. having a weak link in the bow fender and paying attention to the boat while operating the lock. After this incident I think BW did install anti hangup plates on top gates, but that only reduces the risk. It's still possible to hang up on a top gate.

Excellent point. I hesitate to mention it as acatual fatalities are exceedingly rare but this very issue was the cause of the Steg Neck Lock disaster in the 1990s when 4 disabled people drowned when the bow fender got caught up and the boat sank when descending.

I'd agree with all the advice given. But as a first time single hander, be very careful to keep the boat forward of the cill when going down. It's easy for boats with multi crew as one stays aboard and controls the position of the boat with the engine but as a single hander you'll have to use the centre or bow line to achieve this. But you must not tie it as the rope needs playing out as the boat drops in the lock. After doing a few locks you'll be a pro.

Ditto. I've reported a handful of clear rule breaches on use of bad language over the past 6 months, which mostly don't get upheld. Maybe the mods are very stretched theses days and perhaps have to triage reports to a degree and target their resources at the most serious breaches.

No it bloody isn't.* *Joking, you're right. It always amuses how some seem to always try to turn any thread into an argument.

That's a good question. Spray foam is ridiculously sticky stuff.....but so is epoxy adhesive and in my experience that doesn't stick at all well to shiny plastic. That would be ideal.

Is that not obvious? It's insulating a HDPE hull which is already a better insulator than steel. Besides the manufactured insulation sheets have uniform thickness and quality unlike spray foam which often ends up a bit thin in places.

Thank you for this update @shaun15124. It's really coming along well. I like the Celotex/kingspan style insulation. I should imagine that will perform much better than spray foam insulation.

As long as they only charged you for a narrowboat you're quids in!

Ah, diesel backup generator, that explains it. They should fit lithiums and a large solar array!

Probably because they were all out of Plutonium! I’m sure the US Navy retired it’s last diesel sub many years ago.

Certainly in the diesel eruption incident I described earlier in the thread, the guy with the cigarette might as well have had a bucket of water thrown over him from a flammability point of view.

As long as you’re reasonably mobile you’ll have no problems bow hauling. Yes it is tricky. I lay on my front on the bridge and swung the rope under…..I think I managed it on the second go. Luckily it’s quite narrow.

I just bow hauled the boat at that lock……..when you pull it out of the lock after descending the bywash handily pins the boat right against the towpath.

That’s lovely. I wouldn’t mind that boat myself! (to the OP, don’t worry I won’t bid against you!)

I agree. It's actually good when the locks are a bit busy with hire boaters, it creates a good atmosphere and it's nice to have a chat with people. I once got stuck in a 12 boat queue at New Marton a while back and even that was good fun! You can usually find a quiet rural mooring even in summer, although sometimes you and up with another boat mooring right next to you in these situations. Even in the busiest stretches of canals I find not much movement happens after about 4pm, so if you do your cruising late in the day you can have the canal to yourself, although arriving late can limit mooring options at popular places. This never bothered me as at worse you might end up a 1/4 mile or so outside town. *This is comedy gold...really made me laugh!

All the very best to him. I never frequent the politics section so have no experience of him there, but he was always one of the better posters on boating matters......although I don't quite agree with him on lithium batteries!

That's how they finally fixed the problem of the Llangollen canal breaching between Trevor and Llangollen....mind you it must have breached about 4 times over the years before they rebuilt it in concrete.

I was wondering this myself. The Middlewich breach was completely fixed in 9 months, and while this is undoubtedly a worse breach, technically it should be possible to fix in a much faster timescale than mentioned, assuming there is the will and cash from the owners.