gatekrash

Indeed. Someone asked us at Farmer's Bridge a couple of weeks ago 'Is that a boat ?' and when answered followed it up with 'is this like some sort of public transport system?' 🙄

We often see 'Roach' in Brum. Looking at his Facebook page, he's in Gas Street on Sunday, heading for Alvechurch on Monday and then Tardebigge on Tuesday, so would fit right in with your plans. Search faceache for 'coal boat roach' and his timetable is on there.

We use rethreaded figure 8s for setting up anchor points around the bottom of trees or urban anchors etc, in exactly the same way. I think the Coastguard moved away from bowlines when they did away with breeches buoys and rocket lines (mid 80s ish ?), and the cliff rescue side got more technical. It was certainly all on figure 8s when I started in the late 90s. One of the guys in our team is old enough to remember being lowered over a cliff on a piece of manilla with a single bowline around his waist and ten dockyard mateys holding on to the other end. Nowadays H&S and LOLER regs are so tight we can't go anywhere near a cliff without 2 lines attached and anchor points which are 'unquestionably safe'.

Agreed In that instance it's almost certainly being tied on a bight to provide a terminal eye at a rope end to allow attachment onto a line via krab rather than as a stopper knot. It's a standard knot we use every day on rope rescue systems. We tend to use blood knots for stoppers, not figure 8s. We also use alpine butterflies which allow a 3 way pull on a line and which can easily be tied anywhere along the length of the line. Can't say I use any of them on a canal. Round turn and 2 half hitches, yes, but they don't belong anywhere in our rope rescue work.

Nothing if you're ready to move relatively early in the morning before the flight gets busy, sh*t happens and sometimes you don't make it up or down before you need to stop, I get that. But blocking short pounds so that 2 boats can't pass just because you want your breakfast *is* selfish, and in breach of CRT's mooring obligations which state "Don’t moor In locks, lock approaches or in lock flights". Clearly the CRT lengthsman had the same view, hence his visit that morning to BP.

We did our summer cruise a few weeks ago, Droitwich over to Gayton way via the GU and then around the Coventry to come back. In that time we experienced : A boat who we followed through Braunston tunnel who proceeded to start dropping down through the top lock by themselves, even though they knew we were right behind them, and then refused to wait to share the next lock even though we asked them to. They then turned the next lock against a boat coming up, even though he was just coming into the lock landing, and told him that they thought he was going down 'Backwards ?' was his reply. At Rugby there was another boat moored in the winding hole, despite there being space on the Armco 20 yards away. I asked him politely if he would like to move up so that he wasn't blocking it, his reply 'well is been ok so far'. At Tardebigge wharf, a Black Prince boat was moored at the end of the Anglo Welsh yard completely blocking the bridge. It was impossible to get through at all. They had apparently stopped for water even though they had only picked the boat up 2 hours before. Fortunately one of the Anglo Welsh guys was still on site and 'directed' them. The next day going down Tardebigge, we had 4 Black Prince boats moored at various places in the flight who had clearly spent the night there. The worst was a pair moored together in the curved pound above the reservoir. Their comment when they saw us coming was that they hoped we could get past (we did with a bounce off them and we are only 50 foot). I asked if they were going to move soon as the flight would be busy, 'no we are still having showers and haven't had breakfast yet'. Later we spoke to another Black Prince crew who were about to moor on a lock landing to have breakfast. They said that Black Prince had told them to do as many locks in the flight as they felt like and then moor up when they had done enough, so you can't blame the hirers. There is a CRT employed lengthsman at Tardebigge who was not pleased and was on his way to see BP to have words. At the bottom of the flight we had someone so desperate to turn a lock on us that he'd opened both bottom paddles despite the top gate being wide open as the boat in front of him who was coming up had left it open for us. Yesterday we've done a short trip down to Worcester. Every single offside tail gate from Offerton down to Bilford had been left open, so someone clearly couldn't be bothered to walk back over the lock to close then and left it to be someone else's problem. I've also lost track of just how many paddles have been left open. We were only out for 3 weeks, what stuck in my mind was just how many things we'd seen in such a short time. I know it was peak season, so a lot of boats moving, but we've never come across so much 'couldn't give a toss' attitude before. And whilst a good proportion of the incidents were hirers so could be put down to ignorance, not all of it was.

Ours was 6mm, we know that cos that's what it was replaced with when it rotted out a couple of years ago! We don't use our thruster from one month to the next, we usually forget it's there, but very occasionally it comes in handy, for example when turning the boat 180 degrees and then backing into the pontoon on the marina when there's a strong crosswind blowing and we need to keep the bow pushed up into the wind. The alternative of course would be to just go into our berth forwards on those days. We generally treat ours as a 'get out of jail' card in case something's gone wrong and we've cocked up.

We often get called to all sorts of random stuff - fire extinguishers, starter motors, fridge compressors are very common. Once they've been sat in the sea for a while and turned rusty then they can often look "sinister". However one of my favourite jobs was to this one... At the old naval gunnery school at HMS Cambridge (now a National Trust site). When EOD turned up they were suitably confused, as it's a 4.7 inch Armour Piercing shell, and was never used on that site, so shouldn't have been there. they reckoned it was probably a training aid that someone had rolled over the cliff as a means of "easy disposal" when the site was being decommissioned.

We're the same, the blackberries off the towpath last week were huge, we picked a massive amount of wild plums off a tree near Curdworth, and when we got home the beetroots on the allotment were huge. Roasted a pheasant for tea (frozen from earlier in the year) along with allotment potatoes, beetroot, french beans and squash. Blackberry, plum and windfall apple for afters.

I spoke to the Mrs who has 20 plus years experience working in the design and tech department of a very large school - she was the technician responsible for setting up all the students work and cutting acrylic and polycarb were part of her daily job. She agrees fully with this. Said that the kids would use a coping saw to work on the small projects and that even that, if worked too fast, would melt the edges. She had the luxury of all the machine shop tools - CNC, routers etc so when we came to make our internal clip in double glazed acrylic porthole windows we just sent the sheets in to the school and they were done on the laser cutter which gives an absolutely perfect edge. Her advice for something like boat windows would be to get a machine shop to cut it, because doing it by hand will be very slow and you can guarantee that you'll be just about at the end of the cut when it overheats and trashes the entire thing.

Reminds me of the one we got called to where an old WW2 air dropped mine (huge great big thing, like 3 25 gallon oil drums end on end) had been trawled up by a fishing boat and brought in. The EOD guy we called proceeded to dig out some of the explosive using a multi tool and then pulled out a lighter and was about to set fire to it. At which point he looked at us and suddenly said "if I were you it might be worth running behind that warehouse at this point' !

Cheese possessed (lovely stuff it was) has been replaced by cheese spread in a pouch which is vile stuff and tastes of cheesy grease. Lots of curries, spicy burritos and the like (in bags) these days. No chocolate bars either, and the boiled sweets have gone too.

Not any more it doesn't, and hasn't for many years now unfortunately. Everything's boil in the bag nowadays. All day breakfast in a bag, vegetarian all day breakfast in a bag. Chicken sausages and beans...in a bag. And to cater for the more modern youth of today's forces, we also now have several flavours of muesli in them too. Probably half of a box of 10 24 hour packs contain muesli !

Anywhere north of Taunton is 'north' to me. The South West consists of the proper part of the country, Devon and Cornwall, with an allowance for letting a bit of Somerset in. Anywhere else is just foreign.

Today 2022 Tardebigge reservoir. Not a lot in it and yes, there appears to be an island appeared in the middle.

Good to pass a forum member today and actually recognise a boat @Goliath. Let us know what the beer is like in the Crown, I've never stopped there but it's been on the list for a while!

2 working Farmers Bridge today, although one was technically a CRT employee but doing some locking. Couldn't fault either of them, we flew up the flight in an hour and a quarter. Unlike the very odd guy on lapworth a couple of weeks back who was having a very loud and clearly very important conversation on his mobile phone with his mate about broken toilets in his mess hut and was far too busy to bother doing anything productive. I started to worry when he finished his call and asked me what I thought was different about him whilst gesticulating at his chest (he wasn't wearing a life jacket). He then muttered something about leaking (presumably a lock and not his desire to use his broken loo) and we didn't see him again.

Indeed. Came up Curdworth this afternoon, 5 out of the 11 locks had paddles not functioning, complete with yellow bag saying the same, although someone had helpfully added a 'Not' after the 'currently' so at least it was accurate. With that in mind. Today 2022, Curdworth lock 6 to 5. Not sure how much longer the view will look like this, HS2 will be going right over the top where the fencing is. Last time we came through here there were bushes there. And some ongoing work.

That's cos you need to be eating the pork scratchings instead, especially if you're in the black country. The last time we asked for some in the Lock at Wolverley it was 'soft, medium or hard sir?'. A bag of your hardest, preferably with some bristley bits still attached 😁 We went to a 'chef and brewer' chain pub just outside Leamington last week, only for a beer and not to eat. I wasn't expecting anything special, but they had beer on from the micro farm brewery at the bottom of the hill, 5% session IPA, absolutely lush.

We came through this morning and the lockie said we were the 14th boat up the flight. It wasn't even 10am, it was absolutely heaving today. Today 2022. Weedon Bec ordnance depot.

There is a local shop in Wolverley but it takes some finding. Up the hill then across the back of the playing field/park, walk a bit further up the residential road and there's a one-stop or Costco or similar. We ran out of milk and went on an expedition to find it. Glad you like that stretch. I think the bottom of the S&W is my favourite canal so far.

Thank you. We pass that one several times a year and I've always said to the Mrs one of these days I'll make a point of mooring there. Glad I'm not the only one ! We came past one marked up on the north Stratford opposite some garden gates last week as 'please don't moor here as it's very inconvenient'. Not sure why it was inconvenient. Too far from the pub maybe?

Yep, I was just tying up the notification from C&RT with his movements. I'm assuming he's coming back this way tomorrow, but we'll be gone by then.

They did the same last year at Stafford, right on the visitor moorings by bridge 98 where everyone stops for Aldi. The organiser had a right strop on because people kept picking up the moorings regardless of their fishing rods and he kept having to move along. I suggested he moved the other side of the bridge because the towpath there is concrete and you can't moor there but he refused and said nobody would be able to see them. We came back to the boat an hour later and he literally had about 5 yards of towpath left to use right by the bridge hole.

We're moored on the N Oxford near bridge 100 and the mythical 'Miles Away' is on the move. Went past us 10 minutes ago. Not sure how far down he's going but it was heaving from Wigrams up to here so could be fun. We were glad to be stopped !