dmr

I have this problem too. If your mission is to save the planet/less rubbish in the water then I can't help. For big yellow sponges, they sometimes crop up really cheaply in the "pound shop" type places, so just buy lots. For smaller sponges we use the sponge with abrasive side type things in the boat for washing up, when they are old they go outside for boaty jobs so get a secong (very short) lease of life before getting thrown away. They fail quickly and I also am concerned about all the little bits going into the cut.

Maybe she really is good and will earn her keep, but lets wait and see. The usual justification for higher directors salaries is that you have to pay big to get good people, but in most cases this is just another ill of modern society, its usually just the same few average people going round the same circle of jobs with a big jump in pay on each loop.

I believe you just take them to a petrol station that sells LPG, and does not object to you filling them up, anf then fill them with the correct number of litres. I don't do this myself but I know a man that does, works out at about half what Calor charge.

The beer in J W Lees, you can usually smell the Brewery at the next lock up. A lot of the local pubs are Lees pubs. Its brown dishwater type stuff, a traditional beer that some people like, but as you know I am a fan of the new fangled hoppy "alcoholic grapefruit juice" type beers. And yes, we had a very hard boating day and sat in the corner behind the Christmas eating and drinking with the "ugly sister".There was a quiz and the pub was rammed.

The cheese pie makes up for the not so good beer. 99% sure thats where it is.

Close, You mean the Boat and Horses.

We were in Bristol last night spending a night with the children to break our Yorkshire to Cornwall transit (in the car, not the boat 😀). We just avoided the zone chage by going back out North and round the top of Bristol, so maybe adding a fair bit of CO2 to our journey. My "children" say a couple of the real losers are those who work a night shift and get hit by the charge on the way to work and again on the way home.

It does, but its measured in the charger not at the batteries, and it does not do remote voltage sensing. If it sorted these two minor limitations it might be the perfect small charger ??

Is your shorepower ok? I run mine off the travelpower and deduce that its quite sensitive to supply voltage... washing machine heater kicks in--travelpower voltage drops,--- charge current drops signoficantly. The buzz is a worry. I only run mine when the engine is on so can't comment, last time we were on shorepower was Liverpool about 4 years ago but I don't think I heard anything.

I assume its running off shorepower? Is it possible that you are switched to inverter and running it from a quasi sine wave inverter? or even from a cheapo generator?

I suspect this is actually the main reason that most big refits happen, or maybe I forgot another reason.....wild optimism and totally underestimating the size of the project 😀

A full renovation on an older boat should really involve looking at the insulation, which will most likely need removing and replacing with something more modern. This will lead to full de-rusting and painting of the shell interior....so Much more work than fitting out a new shell. A refitted old boat will always be an old boat no matter how much you spend on the fiy-out, so not a good investment. The only reasons for a full strip and refit are: The boat has historic value The boat has sentimental value You just love huge DIY projects and will enjoy every minute of it. You are very short of money but have a lot of spare time (and skills).

It depends on you, your lifestyle and your age etc etc. Are you single, do you aspire to stay single, do you have any "collecting" hobbies, multiple large dogs?, etc. In our case we observed other people moving up the "boating ladder" and decided that with a bit of thought and planning it should be possible to "get the last boat first" and avoid all the boat selling and buying stress.

Tides are complicatewd things 😀 I suspect it depends on the height of the tide (position within the spring-neap cycle). Maybe on some tides the lock never makes a level, or makes a level when the flow is too strong? Luckily the lock keeper understands all this stuff.

Its a long time ago now but I think you can go down at any time in a longer boat but not up (two sets of gates?). I remember that we went down and out into the mud and then waited for the tide to come in. We were travelling with another full length boat so we waited in the mud just outside the lock, the other boat waited in the lock.