StephenA

It is NOT a "Zero-Emissions" engine - its a zero-local-emissions engine. You've got to get the hydrogen from somewhere. The usual method is from water using electricity. So unless the electricity has come from a wind or water turbine its not exactly zero-emissions. Sorry to be so pedantic but it really does piss me off to see hydrogen fuel cell systems described as zero-emission systems.

Well they were moored there this last weekend - both boats, no sign of life on either of them and I didn't see any notices indicating they were selling fuel but just weren't there.

The curve is a bit nasty but at this time of year its not that bad as people have their lights on. We moored between Beeston Stone and Beeston Iron - a bit more of a hike but further from the road and the railway. The Shady Oak seemed to be closed when we went past on Sunday lunchtime

Well the Red Lion in Drayton was good The Beeston Castle at Beeston was good The Old Boot in Chester was good (Sam Smiths at £1.34 a pint) The Bear and Billet in Chester was good (Its an Okells "beers of the world" pub so its got real ales, draught german, belgian and Czech beers and bottled european beers) Black Lion and The Vine in Nantwich were good.

Thanks I'll make notes and if we find any cracking ones I'll post back to the pubs thread

That assumes 1) I have a mobile phone 2) I have the phone with me 3) the phone works Or are you suggesting I don't have licence?

I'd probably report more boats without licences if there was some easy way of doing it. If BW made a downloadable form that you could print off, fill in and then post back to them then I'd take a pile of them with me when I went on the boat, fill in the details on the unlicenced boats I saw and post it back at the end of the holiday.

I'm off on a trip to Chester in a couple of days setting out from Market Drayton. Anyone got any good recommendations for Real Ale pubs along the way, and conversely any pubs that should be avoided like the plague? Thanks

If you look closely at the tilt angles for batteries they are pretty severe . If my boat was leaning at that angle the last thing I'd be worried about is a battery falling over Some of it certainly is - when people are forced to make changes or set things up in a specific way that is no safer than the original but has to be done just because the BSS says so then it is over the top.

But they provide NO stats at all - for example why not provide figures that show drops in the level of fires (caused by bas gas, electric or diesel installations), or drops in the levels of other sorts of accidents. And the inspectors are inconsistent which doesn't help. Our two previous inspections have failed us because they decided that a spill from the tank filler could get onto the back deck and thus was a fail. We built a diverter which clipped onto the gunwhale to ensure that any spill went into the canal. We had a little notice stating that the diverter had to be fitted - purely to satisfy the inspectors, we never used it as it never spills onto the back deck. We no longer have the notice and this time the inspector didn't report the fill point as a fail.

I have asked several times on uk.rec.waterways for the BSS office to show us figures that show that the BSS has been effective. They have failed to do so on every occasion. I'm sure some parts of it are valid but a lot of it is obviously designed to make money for engineers, chandlers and equipment suppliers. I don't think the poor bastards who do the actual certificates make much money from it at all.

We've got two - a newish long throw and one of the early prototypes that we bought outside the Dog and Doublet, Curdworth many many moons ago

Thats not exactly true though - we still have on Mintball, more for posterity's sake than anything, a inch thick mooring pin that has a 20 degree bend in it cause by a boat passing at speed on the Oxford canal (I think). Yes a badly moored boat will move but even a well moored boat will move when excessive speed is used. People have said that you should always moor up using springs but this often isn't really practical on towpath side moorings. I have to admit that I'm starting to take the view that I will slow down for boats but less for boats on long term moorings than for boats on the towpath side as the boats on the long term moorings should be able to make their moorings more secure than those on the towpath

Good God - there wont be many left then!

Do you get the suck and push from the cruisers or just the slapping wash? A slapping wash suggests that your boat isn't being affected that much and the wash is just hitting the boat rather than pulling you back and then pushing you forward

Indeed - and once you start throwing the displacement into the mix as well - a 20+ ton narrow boat has to displace a lot more water than a small fibreglass cruiser or a kayak I've seen kayaks moving at speed on the canal pulling quite a wash but it doesn't cause much of a problem as there is little energy in it - compared to say the wash put out by the "Oliver Cromwell". With heavier boats there is also a noticeable swell pushed in front of them as the move.

Are you really saying that its not possible for you to do less that 2.5mph without loosing steerage, and that to get lower you have to keep dropping into neutral?

And doesn't need a degree in engineering to keep it running

"tools" ... Saw the thing about email and stopped reading.. Tools - such an odd description! Thanks The Shebdon embankment thing is that is says Restriction to Navigation only and doesn't indicate any winding holes (unlike the notice for Wheaton Aston) so I presume that means open but narrowed/delays possible - but if that is the case then why not say that. I saw the notices at the Wharf moorings and assumed that they would be using it for equipment loading/storage (as they have a nice large ramp/parking area there)

Am I being dense ? I can't find a link to the winter stoppages on Waterscape at all. If I go to the stoppages list then it seems to list winter stoppages for some canals/rivers but shows nothing major on the shroppie

You could do the Northern Stratford, GUC to Napton, then over via Hawkesbury to Fazely and back up. Would involve a LOT of locks though. Canalplan AC pegs it at 10 hours a day assuming a couple of hours on the first and last days: Total distance is 118 miles, 1¾ flg and 122 locks. There are at least 4 moveable bridges of which 1 is usually left open; 14 small aqueducts or underbridges and 6 tunnels. http://canalplan.org.uk?run=canal;loadroute=okwa

I remember the locky at Keadby many years ago cursing people with what he called "stupid" boat names - by that he meant ones that were hard to pronounce or words created by combining the owners names - as it made their job much harder when they were trying to pass information via radio.

It does seem to be the rule now that anyone who has a house that vaguely overlooks, or is over looked by, the canal can get moorings suspended, despite the fact that the person moved into the house with the canal there. The Nantwich issue has come up in uk.rec.waterways several times and on June 7th 2004 Eugene wrote: I dont think it was ever fully resolved As to the Macc - you are right BW obviously never made any proper stand and frankly the fence looks really ugly. I wonder if you could just tie up to it as the signs would seem to be on the towpath side. Also as BW are strapped for cash why is it such a posh fence - surely is should be the really nasty wire and wood picket stuff?

I suspect for items that are not specifically part of the engine (fuel filter etc) then the mariniser will have selected the cheapest supplier, at the time the engine was being marinised, so different engines will have different components. It certainly is something to be aware of, on any engine, and I guess ensuring that even consumables on the engine (oil filter, air filter etc) are "common" brands rather than a complete unknown is worth doing... nothing worse than finding that you can't do an oil change without spending a small fortune just to get a filter imported.

we have two seats at the back, one on each side. Each seat has a 13Kg Calor cylinder in it