Richard T

Good moorings at Kensall Green and Alperton by the Sainsburys. If you talk to the security at Tescos Rickmansworth they will let you moor overnight despite the signs. End of Slough arm is also fine but don't bother going to Slough unless you like ditch crawling!! There's not even a bollard or ring to moor to at the end. But we went down because its there.

Just been cruising on the Lee and met the section engineer. The first enquiry about mooring for 27th July to 12 August 2012 was made 10mins after it was announced that London had won the games!! He did say that BW are considering what to do about moorings for the games and that in due course an announcement would be made. At the moment they are more concerned with getting the watwrways navigable for the considerable amount of construction traffic. BW have published a guide to Waterways and the Olympics - not certain if it can be downloaded I picked up a copy in Paddington basin. There is considerable scope for moorings north of the site on the Lee eg Tottenham Hale organised stern on mooring would be possible in some areas. Security will probably restrict boat movements once the games are underway, given the proximity of some facilities to the Lee eg the Media Centre - remember the damage a boat load of explosives did to Macclesfield Bridge!!

Try an architectural ironmonger. Don't know where you are based but in Nottingham Turentek are very helpful as are JWL. Hafele do a mail order service - they do a wonderful range of bits for fitting out - they supply commercial kitchen makers with hinges drawer runners etc. I bought some very good 3inch s/s hinges from Turentek recently and then went to an engineers supplier and bought suitable countersunk M4 bolts - a drill and tap and loctite new hinges soon fitted for quarter cost of things from chandlers or DIY shops

A bit of advice please - we will be in the London area shortly with our boat. My wife is keen to do the Thames from Brentford to Teddington -she was brought up in Isleworth and would like to see the area from the river. Is it feasible to go from Brentford to Teddington on one tide moor below the lock and then return to Brentford the following day. Obviously timing will depend on tides. We have no desire to lock onto the Thames and pay EA licence fees. Can one moor below Teddington lock? Any advice from local boaters would be welcome.

Tend to use both. We use a good quality map case - Ortleib or similar - with the relevant pages from both open. They each tell a story. We like Pearsons occasional tongue in cheek narrative.They also put good railway information in the guides - the latest ones identify stations and when they closed etc - this suits those of us who wear double sided anoraks!! For maps we use a good quality road atlas and for some areas buy the OS maps eg Birmingham

RIver Soar open as from 11.30 Sunday morning. Went down to have a look and found the stop planks out and BW preparing to let a boat up. Very quickly hot footed it up the towpath to find friends who had been the second boat in the queue and helped them through the lock. See pictures - .Spoke to BW foreman the problem was that the bottom timber cill on the towpath side gate had lifted as had the concrete behind it. Therefore it was impossible for the lock to find a level. This has now been repaired along with the broken paddle. Good to find the lock open two days early.

We fiited a calorifier to our boat. The connection came from Thornycroft/AMC. For the return we used a 'T' hose - I think it was a top hose for an MGB ( same engine just a petrol version) - instaed of a straight one between the skin tank and engine. We used copper pipe for most of the pipework and mounted the calorifier vertically in the engine room. We also added CH at the same time from an Alde boiler. Next time I'm at the boat will take a few pictures.

Plenty of time to do the ring. Walsall art gallery is well worth visiting.- the teenagers might nejoy this as well. Its not the normal stuffy gallery - the architecture and contants are interesting. The basin is good to moor in. Just one word of warning Try and do the section through Hardern and Bloxwich in the early morning before the locals get up!! It can be a bit weedy in some places around Wasall. BW do permit mooring in the Ocker Hill Tunnel branch - only draw back is you are locked in at night unless one of the residential boaters will lend you akey. Just enjoy the backwaters.

Took a walk along the towpath to look at the lock. BW were hard at work preparing to drain it to try and identify the problem. Stop planks were in place at the top and bracing to prevent the locks walls moving all in place. They were fitting the bottom stop planks. The next job was scaffolding. All the pumps were on site. It was good to see work taking place on a Sunday. Incidentally they had two crane barges plus tug and hoppers on site. The foreman also said they would repair the ground paddle which has been out of action for many months whilst the lock was drained. I took a few photos with my mobile phone which I'll attempt to link!!

Don't forget to go down the Welford arm - good moorings - good beer - good sanitary station - small shop in village. Also good butcher in Yelvertoft. A very pleasant stretch of canal

Alan, I see from your picture that the oil filtter is still in its original location. AMC/Thornycroft sell a kit of parts for a remote filter. Its well worth getting one as it makes maintenance much easier and cleaner as the filter can then be mounted where you can catch it and the ineveitable oil spill.

Why not abandon the bolt and then cut off the old bracket and find an alternative way of mounting the oil cooler. On our BMC1.8 (thornycroft marinisation) it is held in place by a jubille clip threaded through a slot in the bracket and packed with bicycle inner tube. This seems to do the job. We just have to check on tightness occasionally. Working on any boat needs thinking 'out of the box' on a regular basis to solve problems

Lindsay was not always paired with Keppel - we took a party of Scouts on her as a single self drive motor in October 1976 just as the big drought was breaking and the cut was opening again. Have got some slides which I'll try and scan and post. Whilst not an original working boat I saw Laughton on Sunday on the Ashby - this was originally hired as a step up from a camper - it was a basic fitout with a solid top. The boat looked in good nick and I confrimed it was the right boat as it passed.

Don't miss the Welford arm - good pub at end small shop in village. For general shopping go down to Market Harborough its a bit of a walk from the basin to the town but worth the effort - ther aren't many things you can't buy there.

Also Peter le Marchant Trust based in LoughbroroughSee link

The real issue is that of the health and welfare of animals within the countryside. The last major foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 (not the one in Surrey last year) was said to have been caused by a casualy thrown away meat sandwich being eaten by a pig - in some countries that we import our food from such diseases are endemic. Further more the bugs are not necessarily killed by cooking!! It is why that are a complex set of regulations - Animal By-product Regulations 2005 - which govern the disposal of food waste. See link - clicky It is important that food waste is disposed of carefully and into secure bins if we are not to have a repeat of the 2001 carnage in our countryside. Take this scenario - you throw away infected meat into a ditch, friendly fox comes along picks up said meat to take to cubs, gets disturbed and drops it in a field of pigs, who the eat it and we get another F&M outbreak!!! Composting at home will not reach high enough tempertaures to kill the bugs either!! Food waste that is collected by councils has to be treated in very specific ways to ensure that all pathogens are killed. Sorry folks we really need to take this issue seriously.

Cookers for boats will be easier to find over the next few months as there have been changes to gas/building regs which require ffds to be fitted to all flame sources on cookers being fitted in apartments and I think 'houses in multiple occupation'. The manufacturers will start to fit them as the norm and therefore they may get cheaper. Mind you the gas regs are so tight that many developers are no longer putting gas in flats!!

Other places to look are the shower pump - are all the hoses water tight? And the water pump - at Easter we wondered where the water was coming from in our bilge. It transpired that a gasket had gone on the pump and every time water was used it sprayed out - not the easiest to spot as most water pumps are buried in the bowels of the boat and getting to them is never easy. Also check all the connections around the water tank - even the best flexible hose will fail eventually.

Its not difficult to fit vinyl yourself in smallish areas. The trick is is to make a template using cardboard, wall paper or whatever you will, get this to fit properly then lay on vinyl mark and cut. A word of warning vinyl shrinks when unrolled - it needs to be laid flat at room temperature for about 24hours before cutting. The edges can be stuck down using double sided tape and aluminium edge strips on joins in flooring materials.

Every sympathy with you - the water is b.......y cold at present. We have just replaced our gang plank with a 10ft aluminium ladder for just such an eventuality - there is no way my wife could pull me out of the cut. And beware there are some deep spots around - a friend went in on the Saltersford arm and could not touch the bottom!! Secondly the arrangements at Sawley for fuel etc are far from satisfactory - the pontoons are narrow and not really long enough and have difficult approaches. Hopefully when the H&S report is done there will be some modifications.

Wait untill you come up 'Heart break Hill' and then you can talk about lock surge!!! Wheelock are probably the worst.

A bit further afield - Sileby Mill on the Soar have 2 or 3 which are well maintained and always look good. I think that there may be a couple at Market Harborough - Union Wharf and Foxton Boat Services may also be able to oblige. North Kilworth marina?

What is really important is to have the tiller the right height and length for your boat. The tiller need to be a couple of inches higher than the cabin top and be long enough to extend over the backdoors by about 6ins. That way you can do as Phil suggests and steer with the small of your back whilst opening a tinny or bottle of your chosen poison!! You can also steer by sitting on the roof. As the slide runners eventually cut off all circulation to legs, you can make a nice padded seat. I've made a pair for several boats which get a lot of use. Incidentally trad hire boats often have a little sign over the top step saying 'steering position'

A friend has a Les Wilson trad boat - Beta BD3 - the gear change is a wheel with half turn c'wise or anti c'wise to engage forward or reverse. The throttle looks like its come off a lawn mower!! not my idea of trad controls.

If you go to my gallery (sorry don't know how to add a link) you will find photos of wooden top hire boats that Willow Wren Kearns operated from Middlewich. I'm not able to give a full list but they were all trees. Oak, Beech, Sycamore - 70ft. Pine, Ash, Larch 50ft. They were based on hulls built by Hancock and Lane or John Pinder. Rowan was a 60ft camper - don't know its origin.