gatekrash

Not many canals down here in my part of the world, but we do have the Tavistock canal, built in the early 1800's to connect Tavistock to the River Tamar, to transport various metal bearing ore in both directions. Although it's not exactly the most impressive looking canal ever built (it's only 3 foot deep, generally), it is still in water, as it serves a hydro electric plant these days - it was intentionally built with a very slight "downhill run" - and it does have a 2500 yard tunnel (no access by foot unfortunately), an inclined plane and an aqueduct along the route. As it was a nice day today, we thought it was a good time for an end of lockdown walk. "Arty" type sign attached to bridge : Approaching Shillamill viaduct, the now disused double track main line which used to run from Plymouth to Tavistock and which crosses the canal. Lift bridge and sluice, which leads to someone's garden ! Culvert carrying the canal over farm track. Even in rural Devon, in the middle of nowhere we still have the obligatory "tagging" graffiti !

Some of the buses around here have been converted to run on gas. They've got a solid tank on the roof rather than an inflatable one, so no bayonet issues!

Lumpy water yacht, many years ago, we'd booked her to come out of the water at a yard up the river at about 7pm on a November evening as that was the right tide for the docking berth. We came in alongside the berth and I stepped over the guardrail to step ashore, instinctively reaching for the upper shrouds as a handhold as I did so. Shame I'd forgotten that we'd taken the mast down an hour before to get under the low bridge between the mooring and the yard, and there weren't any shrouds to grab (my excuse being it was dark...). I did manage to grab the toe rail on the way down and the skipper saw the look of shock on my face as it went past deck level and had turned away from the dock in time to prevent me being squashed.

You may well have built my Mel Davis boat then, and I can say for sure she's still afloat !

My lumpy water sailing boat is a 1979 build, surveyed at 25 years and they said they wouldn't ask for another, now 41 years old and they haven't. Put the NB with them as well as they gave me the same no claims, they didn't want sight of the survey (boat is 22 years old). I'm expecting to be asked for one at 25 years and then not get asked again. Been a good company to deal with over the last 30 years.

100%. Our boat had an almost faultless survey, right up until the time I confirmed that I was going to go ahead with the purchase as there wasn't anything to negotiate over, and I advised the yard to do the pressure washing prior to blacking. At this point they removed the tube guards to wash it out, the surveyor had a good prod around the now cleaned out BT tube and poked a chisel right through it... On our boat the tube is in an entirely separate watertight compartment now fitted with it's own bilge pump as a backup, just in case.

We bought our boat in July, with BT fitted. It wasn't a deal breaker when we were looking at a boat, but the one we liked had one, and I thought it would be useful. In reality we've almost never used it, and prefer to do the manouvering without it purely because it's more satisfying, especially things like reversing onto the marina berth for example. We have now deemed it a purely "get out of trouble" tool in case we really mess things up, so I'm sure it will get some use before too long ! Definitely wouldn't bother about fixing it if it ever broke though.

I've had a 2 ton load of split oak seasoning in the garden in bright sunshine and a single row stack so good air flow since last September (2019). Tested a cut piece this week and still at 35 % on the moisture meter in the middle, ends nice and dry. Sticking with the ash for now. I used to shoot rabbit and pheasants, had permission from the farm we back on to, but our local butcher sells rabbit for less than £4 and pheasants at £7 a brace so it's not worth the mess of cleaning and gutting myself at that price.

I doubt it. We were chatting to a couple on the towpath when we stopped outside Brum a couple of weeks ago who had been employed by the hire company to move the boat they used for this series down to the Thames for the filming. From what they were saying they spent a lot of time getting the boat to certain locations at a specific time for the filming sections and then moving it on again without the celebs.

As well as making sure you practice throwing it, also make sure you practice re-throwing it once you miss the first time. If it's a drowning situation you don't have time to re-stuff the bag. Some throwlines you can fill the empty bag with water and use that as the weighted end to re-throw, in the Coastguard we practice with making flat coils over the hand and throwing that, which is more difficult.

It does seem less clear than last time. The marina locally where I keep my lumpy water boat completely shut last time - no owners allowed on site under any circumstances, even though it was only a 15 minute drive away I wasn't allowed to visit to check / do maintenance etc until the original tight restrictions were eased at the end of May. No such restriction this time, they're staying open to allow maintenance checks. Unfortunately the nb is 3 hours away from me, and we left her last week shortly before the rumours of lockdown came out, so haven't fully winterised (we were planning on going back up in a couple of weeks). Watching the weather forecast very carefully for the next few weeks...

I'd have been drinking a hell of a lot of tea...then, there'd have been a lot of stopping to empty the toilet cassettes so might have worked...

Just had exactly the same, all the way from Tardebigge to Alvechurch the entire way at tickover catching up with the boat in front. Thing is my boat has quite a slow tickover, 800 rpm and snail pace, but we still kept catching it and even the Mrs (who is really steady with the throttle) was getting frustrated with the continual neutral / tickover thing. Then again today with another boat from the same hire company from one end of wast hill through the tunnel to Kings Norton doing the same thing. Perhaps they're trying to save diesel !

Bought my Defender with not many miles on it 22 years ago - it was 18 months old then and I bought it to drive it until it fell apart. It's well over 200,000 on it now, still starts on the button, no smoke and has cost me peanuts in spare parts. When something does go wrong you can generally fix the existing part, rather than just swap it out for a new part, so it's not just the vehicle longevity. Admittedly you have to put up with noise, leaks, draughts etc, but then there aren't many cars that still make me grin when I drive them. I reckon it's got at least another 20 or 30 years in it (assuming I can still buy diesel). I've also got a 62 year old Land Rover still going strong, so that must be *really* green !