magpie patrick

Don't know your tastes, and alcohol is ever present, but if you are REALLY stuck, look at the local shop/library listings for music, dancing, folk, heaven forbid even local history Is it too bad to walk or catch a bus somewhere. I've sometimes found it's so bad anything will do! Bus or taxi to a local village with a different pub.

Fair comment. I walked away (and found someone had bid the asking price when I handed the keys back). Erm, my budget was 40k, the boat was 35 and only five years old BUT the cabin bilges were awash, slopping, not just damp, and ruuuuusteeeeyy with a capital R. Someone will end up with a very expensive bill for a new floor and possibly internal replating. I reckon price should have been £20k perhapos, but because I didn't need to go that low, I walked away. edited to add, it looked "very nice" albeit a bit twee for me

We''ll be there... Met Wrigglefingers yesterday at Chippenham. I'll bring the mandola, if I bring a guitar you'll expect me to know how to play it and I don't, whereas no one will be surprised when I make a hash of the mandola

errr no. On the Severn we have "cables" (as that's what they are). I'm not sure any other UK navigation has them Bath Deep Lock has cables as well I think Perhaps either "holding rods" or "mooring rods" or just "rods" (given that the Severn ones are "cables" edited to add: or the more prosaic "poles set in the walls ("poles")"

report it anyway, but only because TS should know... they may be watching this particular operation, and if a few calls have come in, TS may ring themselves acting all innocent BTW not displaying a price is also illegal, what did the pump price say per litre?

Unfortunately the world has changed, but when I used to buy second hand hi-fi and camera equipment it was from the local classifieds, and if I was handed an immculate looking lens, I'd look round the room and then at the stereo and say "oooh, that's a rather nice nakatingi deck you've got there". If it was covered in dust, I'd wonder about how the lens had been kept. I saws Ripple "warts and all" and there were very few warts, In the house we now own, one room had not been refurbished, it game me confidence about the rest of the house, because I could see from that one room that the the rest wasn't hiding anything. I'd expect a boat clean, but I'd be cautious of an obvious spit and polish job BTW, the reason I say "on my own" was that my pocket screwdriver was employed to remove panels and the like, I found one well polished five year old shiney that was WAY overpriced when you looked under the cabin bilges.

If they have it on a sign, then trading standards. Technically their are only two legal prices to advertise, 100% propulsion, because they are allowed to discount from this, or a fixed split that you MUST buy at. That said, most trading standards will accept domestic rate so long as it is advertised as such. They are advertising it at a price they are not allowed to sell it at.

Assuming no3 is Whilton, I bought Ripple from them, and would offer the following (although this was four years ago) Their market penetration is huge, for many people it's the first place they look, because they've heard of it. Sorry to offend any brokers here, but that's a fact. A boat at Whilton gets extra exposure just because it's with Whilton The level of help depends on who you get. When I first emailed interest explaining what I wanted and listing a few boats from their website, I had an email back suggesting that one boat out of my list might not be as suitable as the description sounded and there were also another two boats that on the face of it, fitted my criteria. I wanted to know the boat was "basically working". A member of staff came out with me, started the engine, put her in gear (she was trapped so couldn't move) and walked me through the boat turning all lights on,, tried the gas (it lit) and ran some water from all the taps, about all I could ask. I then discussed with him whether they would accept an offer below the asking price (stated as being 44k reduced from 48k) he stopped me, went back in to the office, and told me they'd had an instruction that morning to drop it to 38k. So I offered that subject to survey I couldn't afford more than 40k, and Whilton seemed to stock far more boats below that figure than anyone else edited to add: unless, like me you wondered around unaccompanied one problem with "prepared for sale" is that it can hide things. I'd be a bit suspicious of a boat that had obviously had a lick of paint just before sale to be honest. I wouldn't buy a boat with a mouldy sandwich in the fridge though, gawd knows what else they've neglected

Steve, I'll email more as promised but I thinkyou need to start with a few questions... for starters Are you restoring the Plas Kynaston Canal or opening a new marina? Which do you want? A marina looks nothing like a canal, but that doesn't mean a restored canal can not host marina type facilities. Brassknocker Basin on the Somerset Coal Canal, leading off the Kennet and Avon at Dundas, provides about 50 moorings, a slip way, canoe and cycle hire, a popular cafe and a visitor centre which tells the history of the canal. It is a totally private venture with no public revenue support. I guess the Monsanto site needs "regenerating". Not sure how big it is but "real" marinas are huge. You get about 30 boats to the hectare so a 300 berth marina needs 10 hectares, of which 2/3 is needed for land based facilities. If the sites 100 hectares this might be great to fill a corner of a large, difficult to develop site, but if it's 12 hectares you've taken most of it and generated around 14 jobs. Marinas of this type don't make good development focuses because they are too big and to be honest, too utilitarian. Where is the activity going to come from? Water without activity doesn't add much. Can you make this canal part of a development that serves the boater at least in part. Take those moorings, say 20 residential and 30 visitor moorings, and either a cafe/pub "The Plas Kynaston Arms" or (not knowing the area) make it obvious where to find local facilities within 200 metres. Make it a place that peole would want to spend the night or a lunchtime

Thank you, I had thought to ask you and without Nicki's offer of Odana we'd have taken you up, as you say though, a hangover for Saturday morning would NOT be a good idea! So we'll see you Saturday!

Sadly true, which doesn't make it any easier for the family. Some of you may know/remember that in 2006 a volunteer on the Cotswold Canals was found floating face down in a lock, a woman in her sixties. She was declared dead at the scene and needless to say there was a health and safety hoo-hah. However, the investigation found that she was dead before she hit the water, having had a heart attack while strimming. There was I believe mild censure that she was only discovered because someone realised her strimmer had stopped, but the HSE concluded that even if someone had seen her fall in, nothing could have saved her.

Arrrrggghhh! Can't PM you! email me at pmoss(at)peterbrett(dot)com

Steve, I am the chairman of a canal restoration society and advise professionally and sometimes unpaid on canal restoration, I also handle some of the Heritage Lottery Fund's canal restoration projects. I'll PM you my contact details Patrick

By canal standards it isn't near, but Bolton and Wigan are perhaps ten miles apart as the crow flies, not very very far in a copter. And I'd agree, towpaths are a damn site safer than roads...

I've realised this is going to be a slightly mad weekend. I've got an Inland Waterway Freight Group meeting on the Saturday, in Goole of all places, so the current plan is to drop Val in Sheffield (or probably at Meadowhall) so she can go shopping (for some reason the delights of Goole don't appeal to her!) go to the meeting, leave about 3, pick Val up, and be in Lapworth in time for early evening drinkies... We need to stay SOMEWHERE on the Friday night though, otherwise it's about a six thirty start from Bath Saturday AM

And the loan was much appreciated! not least as I was more or less homeless on one occassion...

I'll take your word for it as you know more than I do, although Sterling's advice is that the thing ain't actually a diode and thus doesn't suffer the drop (but I suppose they would say that) I don't know anything like as much as you do about electrics, but I know Odana (the boat) almost as well as my own. Nicki used to lend it to me rather a lot (usually when it needed repairing!) edited to add, and Nicki has resolved the row anyway!

Waterways World did an article in the arly 80's and stated they went through one gate. Rolt also go Le Coq at 8 feet beam through one gate on more than one occassion, I don't think the locks are that consistent in size

Not sure we're talking about the same thing, the device I have on Ripple charges the batteries in a specific order, it was fitted by Clifton Cruisers when it was a hire boat, and I presume they know what they were doing. I say fitted, looking at it, and looking at the neat box Nicki has, I might say "fabricated by clifton cruisers" as well. Unlike Odana, I am dependent on the boats charging system, as I have no hook up to the mains

Well, they don't exist any more, but in the 80s I used to hire from Chas Hardern, picking the boat up Saturday AM, we would have to go past the Drat Line base at Bunbury just as they were turning their boats round, and they were a bit of a nuisance. They often wanted us to wait while they did things, and on one occassion were storing boats in the two rise and seemed to regard us as being a bit of a nuisance for wanting to use it because it meant having to remove one boat from each lock (the other one just went up and down with us while being cleaned) Other crew members used to replace the D with an F...