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gatekrash

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Everything posted by gatekrash

  1. The Body Brook and Salwarpe were fairly well up when we drove up to the boat today, Droitwich canal shut where it joins it and you'd not get through the M5 tunnel at the moment. We're going out and turning left tomorrow heading for Brum direction and not sure where afterwards, forecast for the next few days is ok then going downhill from Monday. Might pass you inbound 👍
  2. And here is the reason he got hung up, from Rich on Roach who was moored below him.... Further info on the boat that sank in Gregory's top lock. He is now tied up below the lock and drying out. He had gutted the boat prior to a refit (so not much damage inside) but is now trying to get the engine working. A local said it had caught up on a sunken motorbike, but then we stopped to buy coal from Rich on fuel boat Roach who had been moored below when it happened. He said it had been overplated and the chine was now much wider than it should have been, so his boat was effectively over 7' wide. Gregory's top is apparently the narrowest lock on the W&B so he got stuck. He went home to sleep till CRT came back in the morning, but as Rich explained, the canal weirs through these locks (ie no bywash) so his boat was functioning as a gate ... till the water came over the stern and into the boat. He looked quite cheerful though down his engine hole!
  3. Photo from earlier whilst they were trying to free it
  4. One of the guys off our marina passed him earlier that afternoon before it happened and says he definitely didn't have his fenders down, he stopped to chat to him for a while. The fb posts from earlier on say they tried to flush out from the top.
  5. Looking at this week's forecast I reckon it'll be back on reds by the end of the week. At least they've finished the dredging on the Droitwich now, so if the Severn is passable you've got a couple of options for the last bit.
  6. Yeah, but at least it's downhill on the way back 😀
  7. Funnily enough whenever we plan the shroppie from our mooring in Droitwich canalplan always sends us via the Severn /S&W. But we always go via Tardebigge / Brum / Wolverhampton, partly cos we like Brum and partly cos we think it's faster that way. In reality I think there's little in it, maybe an hour or 2 at best.
  8. I wouldn't, I'm sure it makes good fire lighting material for your stove 😀
  9. We've got a piece of 3mm twinwall polycarbonate sheet (they sell them in sheets as replacement for greenhouse glass) cut to the size of the wooden frame. We attach it to the hatch with a small rubber sucker which has a string and a toggle attached (like the adjuster toggle on the bottom of a coat), the string is passed through a hole in the middle of the polycarbonate so that the sucker is one side and the toggle the other. To fit it we just pull the string through the toggle to the max length, stick the sucker to the hatch then pull the string through the toggle to tighten the sheet up to the hatch. Simple, and it stops nearly all the condensation. Without it we need a bucket under the thing !
  10. We've used Newburn at home for a few years, works really well on our stove which is fitted into a very large unlined stone chimbley and quite fussy about solid fuel. I've noticed that this year's tonne of Newburn we've bought is different from last year, the briquettes are softer and aren't burning out fully to ash, plus they're needing a lot more depth to get the burn right. I guess there are so many variables when they make this stuff that it's only to be expected that reach batch is slightly different.
  11. It was about 6 or 7 years ago they switched over I think. The new stuff has some advantages, you can light it with a spark, it's a whole lot cleaner, but it doesn't seem to put out as much heat as hexi did. Keep that hexi sealed, the last lot I stored loose in their wax packets in the shed had done the whole sweating thing. Still lit fine though. The rest is in sealed plastic bags and still looks ok.
  12. Not any more, the MoD has banned it and now supply alcohol based 'fire dragon' cookers and fuel as the standard 'tommy cooker'. I'm using up the last of my stock of hexi (I had a crate in the store when they stopped us using it) as it makes brilliant firelighters.
  13. We're a bit 'old fashioned' compared to modern boats, but we like it. The tongue and groove is solid cherry, so it wouldn't have been cheap when the original owners had it built. We use ours for this as well !
  14. Yeah but there are cratch covers and cratch covers. There are some seriously fugly ones on some of the boats in our marina. We think ours works cos it's level with the roof, not raised up in the middle, so it nicely follows the line of the roof, unlike the ones that are six inches higher in the middle and look like someone just stuck it on as an afterthought. Personally speaking I agree and think pram covers are the work of satan. I wouldn't have one. Ever. But I totally understand why people do for the space. Their boat, they can do what works for them. And I agree about the stove, I've literally just fitted ours a few weeks ago, back of the saloon just forward of the galley so it heats the whole of the boat. It was the one thing missing then we bought the boat a few years ago (yes I know there's no flue fitted yet, am I ever regretting that with the last couple of days weather...)
  15. This morning, 2023. Tibberton on the W&B. Frozen in overnight, about half an inch thick. That's stuffed the Mrs' plans for the Worcester Christmas market tomorrow 😀. Shame we're trapped at the bottom of the pub beer garden 🍺
  16. We're probably similar to @robtheplod, semi-trad, down the rear steps to a fixed double, then a corridor on the stbd side past the bathroom to the galley, which is walk through with the walkway through the middle, then an open saloon space which is 14foot long. There's enough space for a fold down table attached to the gunnel towards the rear of the saloon which sits 4 if we have visitors, and then a couple of recliners right at the front of the space with a TV / laptop area in the corner. Cratch does for the porch / storing random rubbish. Used as a fuel store in winter and a conservatory with a very small folding table to sit at for 'special occasions' during the summer. That's on a 50 foot boat, so there's a bit of compromise with space such as the folding tables. In reality, the Mrs has too much stuff so the big folding table in the saloon doesn't ever get folded away as she doesn't keep it clear of her stuff. If I was changing something I'd probably remove it and swap it with one of those 'butterfly' type collapsible tables as it'd force her to be more tidy 😂
  17. So they've turned up with a potential water rescue required based on the info they were given, boater on ledge and boat stuck. Before committing someone into the water they require the following resources just to put 1 person in : Bankside safety Upstream spotters (to identify any debris coming downstream that might injure the water rescue tech) Downstream spotter Downstream protection (deployed with throwlines in case rescue tech gets washed clear or needs to disconnect from his line) Water rescue tech to do the in water bit. Belayer (holding tech's shoreline tether) Then add an officer in charge to direct the rescue, and they're not allowed to be involved in anything practical. Then as he's stuck on a ledge, not in water when they arrive they require a rope rescue team. Minimum of 8 people, rope rescue tech, main line belayer, safety line belayer, edge safety, 2 additional line tenders for hauling, officer in charge and safety officer. Plus the 'crowd management' team because the dense general public will put themselves in stupid places to film the rescue on their phones. Sounds to me they were under resourced from a safety point of view. As someone on the pointy end of this stuff we get these comments about numbers all the time, but the general public really have no idea of what is required to do this sort of rescue. I'd love to stick one in fast water as a rescue tech and tell them to get on with it without any of the safety backup and see if they still thought the same way as they swept downstream with no way of being recovered....
  18. Our next door neighbour feeds the birds excessively, she has multiple bird feeding stations and refills them 2 or 3 times a day. She also insists on throwing chunks of white bread down on the ground under the feeders. Unsurprisingly we have a rat problem in the area. Admittedly we back onto a farm, so it's sort of expected, but we have loads of them. I can usually shoot one or two a week as they transit our garden and if I've put the night vision on the rifle then later evenings are a free for all. I've shot several hanging from the bottom of the feeders, they climb up the trees to get to them then just dangle. I told her I was going to shoot the rats and she was quite happy about it ! She's also created a feral pigeon issue. Fortunately the guy up the road breeds racing pigeons and he traps the ferals because they pass diseases onto his birds. His record was 24 birds with stretched necks in a day. We spoke to the council environmental health about it but they told us there wasn't much they could do, they'd issue a 'desist' notice but didn't have the time or money to follow it up if she ignored it.
  19. We've already emailed C&RT once about that and been told 'tough luck' (albeit in polite terms) ! Best bet is to hope the Severn goes back onto greens for a bit, but it's not looking good on the long range for the next week or so. One of the hire boats from the marina is stuck the wrong side of it so they've been having to run it out of Alvechurch for the last couple of weeks. Not sure what they're going to do if they can't get the boat back before march next year.
  20. Our Mel Davis boat has the same design, watertight bilge on the well deck so it can't run back through the boat unless it overflows the top and through the cabin. We've got an auto bilge pump connected to the bow thruster battery, as the thruster is almost never used then that battery is always well charged, and if it does flatten it then it won't matter. However we never take more than a cupfull of water out of the bilge anyway . We've got a cratch fitted so the only water that ever gets in there is the stuff that blows around the side of the cratch if the wind is in the wrong direction. The auto pump has never to my knowledge turned itself on as it's never been deep enough, so I usually just sponge out any bilge water. So far this year I've had to sponge out the bilge once all year. It's generally really dry. If we didn't have the cratch then yes, it'd need bailing out a lot more regularly.
  21. Severn isn't showing much sign of going beyond yellows either anytime soon either. ☹️
  22. The update came today then... Likely to be shut for as long as 2 months. Just in time to run into the winter closure of Tardebigge for gate replacements, meaning the W&B will have been closed for nearly 5 months, although we might get a couple of weeks freedom before Christmas... And there I was thinking it was just you lot "up North" that got stuck 😀
  23. And they just sent out an update. Still investigating, no further info for now.
  24. You just reminded me that the headlights on my old S2 Landy went pop a couple of weeks ago and I bodged the fuse holder with a panel pin which I found rolling around loose on the dash so I could get home on more than just sidelights. Now fixed today with a new fuse holder, which had mysteriously melted instead of blowing the fuse. Good old Lucas, prince of darkness 🔥
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