T.A

You missed the word some in front of employers! There are employers out there that are struggling to break even whilst employing people who may be claiming hb so is it better not to pay this or create further hardship which may be the straw that broke the camels back! Then the employer and employee claim even more benefit! You must realise that it is never a black and white situation when you make generalisations!

Yes hopefully they will do something. I had a mooring at Whixall back in 2009 it was to be a temporary mooring until there was availability at Worcester I arrived at Hurleston bottom lock went in got stuck the lock keeper called back the floating lock keeper to help they suggested I reverse in after having to flush me out after I had explained I had a mooring at Whixall. Well with a bit of two and frowing they eventually got me through I had a little bit of a nip in the next lock then turned in the middle pound and went through the next two locks ok. The lock keeper said if I am coming back to let him know I was advised three weeks later that a mooring was available at Worcester. After having made some mods to the boat I returned in 6 weeks only to have the same problems. The lock keeper got me through by flushing me out. It is a shame that at this moment I thought I will never revisit the Llangollen which is a beautiful canal again.

Yes I make the root 11.14 which gives a diameter 6.68 but as Loddon says it is about the quality of copper in the cable which gives the overall cable rating which can be achieved by less strands which naturally reduces the diameter.

The 35-10 the first indicates the size of cable the second number is the ring size for the bolt clearly you are not using 35mm cable your terminal cable capacity is to big for the cable you are using.

It sounds as though you have booked a boat from Brookline it would probably be better to do the ring clockwise this gets the river section over early and then no problems with river conditions later in the trip. The river section won't be as bad as you think and going against the current is not usually a problem. Going this way down to Worcester you will do 16 locks and not go through Droitwich however if the weather forecast is good then you could stick with your original plan.

Yes the water can taste funny which is why I decided to fit a General Ecology water filter with tap on my sink. The advantage I saw to this is with limited space you do not have to carry bottled water and also to remember to buy it! When you fit filters they tend to slow the pace of water down so rather than filter all the water from the tank I chose to filter only the water we use for drinking, the tank water is ok for the rest. The filters are expensive probably somewhere in the region of £55 but they do an excellent job and usually last a season. When I saw these at a London boat show a few years back they were demonstrating that you could filter canal water through them and then drink not sure I would want to do that but they are good.

I agree with Bottle but depending on when you go the pub at the bottom is closed at present it was sold at auction but I believe is going to be refurbed as a pub but I have no idea when it's opening.

The word interlectie was my invention as indicated in brackets this was to avoid using a swear word. I was reading the thread about mooring around Oxford and a certain area was advised to avoid because you could get untied. I have forgotten how many times I have read threads that advise against mooring in certain places to avoid being untied this was why I referred to it being a recurring problem. I agree it is probably rare but it does not stop you being concerned that some scrote (now there's a proper word) might untie you in an unfavourable situation.

Whilst reading another thread the recurring problem of being set adrift by the interlectie (that's a new word) came up again and a thought occurred. I don't know whether this has come up before but what about if after securing your ropes back to the boat the loose end was secured to personal alarm the type you can buy on eBay for £1.99 which are activated like a grenade, so if your mooring line was removed the pin would then be pulled because the other side of the alarm would be secured to a fixed item preferably out of site. This would at least give a warning if you were asleep. This concerns me particularly when moored on rivers. I know there would be an issue when moored on pins but perhaps there is a way around this by for instance using a screw in type pin on one end which had to be unscrewed this would be difficult with out unsecuring from the boat! Any thoughts?

Join the FSB they have a legal helpline which covers employment law could be as cost effective as consulting a solicitor with extra benefits.