dmr

That's not good at all. Maybe now the enforcement team is rebranded as the boater support team things might get better????? Data loggers enter your details onto a little tablet (of the silicon kind), Harecastle enter your details into a little notebook (of the paper kind), I really can't imagine anybody then re-enters that into a computer. ..................Dave

Indeed it is, after I tried to explain the situation, CaRT responded by granting us a 14 day overstay in Stone!!!! Don't really want that, have already donated far too much money to the Swan, but hopefully at least we won't get another warning when we pass through Stone again next week. ...............Dave

Just got an eMail from CaRT warning us that we have overstayed. I asked for my sighting record so I could work out what had gone wrong. We usual do about 1000 miles each year so are not exactly continuous moorers, but we have spent the last month in the Stone and Stoke on Trent area, Gillie has broken her wrist so we are making a few visits to Stoke hospital, but we are still doing a LOT of moving about. So, a month back we came out of Stone dry dock and stayed in Stone for a couple of days for the epoxy to get nice and hard. We were "sighted" there. We then cruised the Caldon canal (Black Lion and steam trains), went through Harecastle tunnel, cruised the Macclesfield and Peak Forest Canals, spent a couple of days in Stoke then back to Stone for a weekend in the wet dock. We came out of the wet dock and spent another couple of days in Stone, were sighted again (3 weeks after the last one) and this produced the overstay warning. We know that the CaRT sighting system is not perfect and you are in one place till you are sighted somewhere else, we also suspect that Harecastle and similar loggings are not included in the sightings record. What is new and worrying is that sightings and warnings appear to be regional. Our sighting record showed all our sightings over the last few years on the Southern Trent and Mersey and Coventry canals but nowhere else. I suspect that once we moved onto the Macc that as we were in a different region no sightings were shared with the Stone enforcement officer so it looked like we had put down roots in Stone. So, a bit of rather tongue in cheek advice to continuous moorers....don't move too far or you will be in right trouble! ................Dave

Don't worry about a bit of rust, boats are not like cars, they only rust slowly, don't leave exposed rust for years but a couple of months won't hurt. Blacking is designed to be applied to bare metal and may actually stick less well onto the hull if you have put primer on first. ..............Dave

I feel this forum has gone very "flat" over the last year, can we have the amps per hour debate again please, I used to like that one. or, we've jut had an overstay warning from cart, maybe we could have the continuous moorers thing too, that was always good. ..............Dave

Like everybody says, get more cheap "open" batteries. If you are a liveaboard they might last a year, if they last two years then you are doing well. Keep getting cheap replacements till you have learned how to look after them, then maybe get some good ones, probably Trojans. With the money you save now by not getting the AGM's you can buy a Smartgage which is by far the best battery monitor. Open batteries will need topping up once in a while. The only good reason for getting AGM's is if access is so bad that you really can't top them up. Sealed lead acid batteries are just like "open" batteries but you can't top them up, this is like the worst of both worlds. .................Dave

No, it was certainly not us. I think the Caan Hill lock is a narrow entrance rather than the gates not opening though we have got stuck in there twice (we obviously don't learn very quickly), A lock on the Seend flight just below Caan Hill has gates that don't fully open and we have been stuck in that one too. In all cases we have eventually managed to extricate ourselves and done no damage (except perhaps to our pride). Caan Hill does suffer from quite a bit of boat damage, I suspect some boats rush so they can boast about how quickly they do the flight. ..............Dave

But it was really difficult to use (unstable?) and Bill was the only person who could work it and even he struggled? so he sank it and turned it into what is now the more conventional Newbury dry dock. Victoria has just had one made down the western end at Hilperton so the K&A again has a floating dry dock. I think there is also one tucked away in Anderton marina on the T&M. .............Dave

When we had a mooring on the Eastern K&A (the posh end) a fellow moorer remarked "your boat would look ok if you tidied up the paintwork". Going into the Barge at HoneyStreet (approaching the crusty K&A western end) a couple of years ago, with the boat now several years older, a drinker remarked "its the man from the shiny boat. You can't win!!! ............Dave

If doing this on the K&A make sure that both gates are able to open fully before going through them. How do I know this????? ..............Dave

If the capacity really has reduced then sulphation is the most likely cause. What voltage are you charging at? Can you increase this to do a bit of equalisation? .............Dave

Looks like its still the Prince of Wales and the Flapper for us then. ...............Dave

But you could also keep your crayfish in a tube that had the bow thruster fitted, then they could pop out ready sliced. ...................Dave

I am really in no position to criticise (tease) here anyway as we refer to the three round things sticking out of our roof as the front chimney, the big chimney (back cabin stove) and the engine chimney. ................Dave

Trouble with brass is its not very strong at all and those bolts need to be done up quite tight. Stainless is a better way to go. Some people worry about corrosion type things when using stainless bolts in mild steel but unless you plan a big lot of salt water boating it will be fine. ..............Dave

A bow thruster is of limited use, but probably good if you are old and single handed and have already acquired good boat handling skills. A bow thruster tube without a bow thruster is just a useless waste of precious space. ................Dave

All possessions are just potential trauma and heartache for your children to have to deal with you die, they might even feel obliged to take on some of your trinkets as their own millstones. Only own things that your children will really want to inherit, tools and model railways and stuff like that! ..............Dave

You can go for the simple maximum volume approach and hope it works, but real proper silencer design is a very specialist business. Its not totally a black art as there are two computer programs about that put a lot of science into it. (Actually several programs but all have their roots in one of the two underlying codes). There are just a handful of people in the UK who really can design silencers, I used to work with two of them, but even they rarely got it right on the first attempt. There are also a fair few who work just on past experience and gut instinct and they do a pretty good too. ............Dave

Surely the inside chimney is called the flue YOU should know this ..............Dave

Primer, with Zinc, is designed to paint directly onto bare steel, Owatrol is a paint additive to make brushing easier, it does have rust preventing properties but has been rather oversold as a cure for everything. The rarer red Owatrol is a metal primer, but if you have got right back to rust free bare metal a standard zinc primer would be the way to go. ..................Dave

Wire brushes give a smooth shiny surface, (though you could rough it up slightly with course sandpaper), shot blasting gives a rougher textured surface which is just perfect for the two pack to stick to. The two pack itself is likely to cost about £400, its a false economy not to shot blast. If you really must do it yourself then buy a needle gun and hire a big air compressor, but that still wont be as good as shot blasting. ...............Dave

You do manage to supply a lot of interesting stuff, but no numbers on those axes, how frustrating. However the arc voltage, no matter how big, is still between the hull and welding tip and not across the hull so I reckon by theory is still sound.....but still not going to risk finding out. ................Dave

I reckon an experienced and sensible boater with a few pints inside him is still a lot safer than an inexperienced boater in a big hurry, its all a matter of degree and common sense. Couple of weeks ago we came down the Caldon, stopped in Stoke late afternoon and had a good few pints in the Holy Inadequate, then did a late evening cruise up to the Harecastle tunnel entrance. Very quiet canal at that time of day and no locks. Going through the industrial decay of Stokes potteries in the sunset was one of the nicest cruises this year. ........Dave

I always check the wind direction before winding so that I know how much trouble I am going to get into, but the wind does not really influence which way I wind as the chronic lap of depth in most winding holes is the bigger factor. However if the wind is blowing along the cut and the winding hole is long I try to adjust for this as the boat will go sideways when half way round. Wind is indeed a big factor when binding!!!! ................Dave

I believe that Boats (and cars) are very good conductors so there is no way that the typical level of welding current can generate a significance voltage across the hull. However I turn my isolators off anyway just in case my theory is wrong. ..................Dave