dmr

That was a program about living on a boat in London, not really about continuous cruising at all. I guess everything else in the media is London-centric so I 'spose boating has to go the same way. I really had no idea that "Bargee" was the accepted term for anybody who continuously cruises. I find it a little sad that someone who has such limited experience of boating and continuous cruising chooses to be at the centre of a radio program. Its also sad that Radio 4 did not to a little more research. ..............Bargee Dave

Many mainline rail station signs have a sort of byline saying what that town is "famous" for. I think, for example, Basingstoke says "home to some insurance company or other" whilst Winchester says "home to Winchester School of Art". I wonder why the Wolverhampton sign doesn't say "Home to the Great Western" ? Then in a few times when they demolish the pub the sign could say "Home to Nothing at all, stay on the train and go somewhere else" .............Dave

It would be quite fun to sit down with the canal map and work out the most efficient route that takes in the whole system with minimum back-tracking. You could then use Canal Plan to get the hours required. I feel that doing it all as a single hit in a year off (or whatever) would be more satisfying than doing it in weekends and holidays. A few years back we walked the SouthWest coast path over three years, doing a 3 week chunk each year, and we still dream of going back and doing it again in a single hit (and it is only a dream now, carrying all that dog food in a ruck sack would be just too much.) But do you really want to do this? Taking a year off and just going where the fancy takes you might be more fun? Year before last we were in Banbury heading for the upper Thames (I think) when we met some boaters we knew who were heading for Cambridge so we just turned round and went to Cambridge. Its a lovely sense of freedom. We have almost given up on doing the whole (70 foot) system and have just got stuck in a rut of an annual trip from Bristol to Liverpool and back, with extensive detours, Its a very nice rut! ................Dave

Yup, things have got so bad here I would rather talk about anything but batteries and thats rare! So where did you get this E&EE degree? I believe they were quite rare by 1977 when most had dropped the "E&" to be just "EE" if you know what I am saying! I think Birmingham was one of the last to do the E&EE and it even had a canal running past it! .................Dave

You might need the boat setup to provide totally separate sleeping, bathroom, and possibly cooking areas. As said above, you are really proposing a hotel boat. There are a lot of expenses so just doing it for an odd week or two will probably not make economic sense. Full time hotel boating is hard work. .............Dave

And that was if you were lucky, those boot mounted battery boxes were very prone to rust so quite often the battery ended up on the road. But, the van and estate versions did have the battery under the back seat. ...............Dave

I think you're making this stuff up because Triang trains really did not push along very well at all because the wheels did not go round due to the huge ratio of the worm gear drive. or did you take the motors out so that they did push along? Then when you got your transformer back you could use one loco to pull another....but they had to face the same way or the couplings shorted out the electric..... .........sorry trainset nostalgia moment. ............Dave

I have lost the will to read this thread in detail, so forgive me if I have got this wrong, but, it sounds like something might be wrong, or at least that your assumption of full charge might be incorrect. YOU NEED A HYDROMETER. nasty tedious things but they are sometimes needed. For day to day monitoring of batteries the best instrument is the Smartgage. This is closely followed by an ammeter to monitor current consumption and charge current, especially tail current When things go wrong, or are not as expected, then the best diagnostic tool is the hydrometer. and for the battery geeks an amp hour counter is useful as used with the Smartgage it allows a good estimate of battery capacity to be made. .................Dave

There is a boat in the B'ham area that I have been passed a few times (and boaters always have a peep through other boat windows as they pass) that has a very large record (vinyl) collection. I guess you just have to avoid playing then on windy days and busy bits of the canal. You could always digitise the whole lot onto a iPad, you would still have the crackles, pops and end of side distortion to give you a warm feeling. ................Dave

A novel way of drawing a circuit diagram! The concept looks ok but that DC power supply looks very cheap and cheerful. I would be a bit cautious about very cheap power electronics for both reliability and fire risk. The 13.9v maximum is a bit low for charging the starter battery. Also the battery-battery charger really needs to utilise the full output of the alternator to avoid excess engine running hours, raw amps early on is important! There is a very very small chance that the PSU and B2B will not like each other. ..........Dave

You'll be a happy man at Bedwyn then, its quite difficult to drive to Hungerford without getting two or three of them. Been veggie for many years but I do remember that the roadkill was better than the shot ones as they have hard bits of lead in them. ...........Dave

If you have a lot of money, or are able to raise a big mortgage, then buying a big house with existing moorings and then renting the house out might be a better approach, but we are probably in the £million region here, though London road in Devizes would be a fair bit less if you don't mind mooring in a cutting. Even there you might struggle with CaRT unless there is a boat actually moored there already .................Dave

There is a policy of "no more offside moorings" on the K&A so even if you found a plot of land you would have a battle on your hands. Very few potential places and those that exist rarely change hands and are expensive when they do. A far from optimum spot just above Newbury was up for sale a couple of years ago, room for just one boat, and I think it was £30,000. ...............Dave

Trad stern, pump out bog, multifuel stove, a bit of seating at the front, sounds like your heading in the right direction to me. If you could get a 70 footer with a proper engine room you could stop thinking about 'ouses and just live on the boat for the rest of your lives. .................Dave

Not surprised the Op has gone the way his (unknown) welding and metalworking skills have been rubbished here. I know a man who had never welded in his life, went on a short night skool welding course, practised for a little while, then build himself a very decent looking narrowboat. His welds looked neater than some of those from "professional" shell builders. I have worked with a few people who can turn their hand to almost anything and learn very quickly. I was a half decent amateur car fixer, learned to gas weld, then had a go at Mig. I once made a flue pipe (for my house) out of thick walled tube. I had never used a stick welder before but was making decent welds within 10 minutes. Would not want to tackle a ship though! A good (important word that!) car welder will have a very good understanding of how metal expands, deforms and stresses so will probably approach a boat project with a fair bit of caution. ...............Dave

Haven't watched the telly for many years but would be totally lost without the internet. We were quite surprised by the number of people we met this year on there way to somewhere or other and totally unaware that there is a major stoppage. We met a few who did not even know that the Thames stops in winter. I fully accept that people choose not to use it but they are choosing to miss out on a huge amount of information. ...............Dave

They used to put stoppage notices up on noticeboards but I don't know if they still do. Its 2016, everybody has the internet, and if you choose to spend a lot of time on a boat the internet is the best way to keep informed. I think that if you lead a nomadic life its reasonable to expect you to find out stuff rather than expecting CaRT to deliver the info to you. The internet has many boating uses, locating shops and pubs etc, I believe there is even some sort of canal discussion forum! ................Dave

I know of a couple of boaters who intentionally turn up at the best visitor moorings next to a lock with a planned stoppage with the intention of staying there till the work is complete. A couple of years back the start of work was delayed by several weeks due to bad weather but one of the boaters just waited on the visitor mooring for the work to start. Managed to stay put almost all winter! When the Bristol Avon goes into flood several boats, who would not normally venture onto the river, turn up in Bath to "wait" till the level drops before turning round and leaving. .................Dave

Did anybody go and was it good????? We went to the posh pub in Bedwyn (the three tuns). The other pub in Bedwyn, which is owned by the same person as the Barge, amazingly had no beer on new years eve. ..........................Dave

If you put the 3G dongle on top of a big stick about 4 foot above the roof of the boat you can get a little bit of "Three" at Lower Heyford (at least just North of the station where we usually stop). What is interesting is that looking at the Network coverage maps there is often a "black spot" following the route of the canal. So, does canal water absorb 3G signals? are the mobile companies discriminating against boaters? or has a "higher authority" decided that boaters are better off without the internet? ...........Dave

Which Network and could I get this? PM me if you don't want to make it public! I thought "unlimited" was now only available on a few old contracts and that the companies were trying to back out of these? .............Dave

Well that is what I meant! Pub wifi is also very variable, anything from too slow to be of any use, up to superbly fast. This means that you have to try several pubs till you find a good one. One or two are so good that you can download a full movie before you've even finished the first pint, then you have to quickly find more stuff to download. An iPad is handy to use in the pubs where it might not be the done thing to get a laptop out. Apple stuff is good at wifi, when you return to pub, maybe after many months, it remembers the password and automatically reconnects ..............Dave

In a few years things will (might) have changed (hopefully). Large quantities of data, and high speed data, are never going to be easy. Mobile broadband is well established so get some now and investigate it! It can vary a lot from time to time and place to place. Unlimited mobile broadband does NOT exist, its just a marketing phrase! Unlimited might mean as little as 4GByte/month, and even if it is unlimited they will take it away if you use too much. £1 per Gigabyte is the going rate. Big downloads (movies etc) is a good excuse for going to the pub. .............Dave

Thought about it but decided to stay in Bedwyn for the new year, then move to Honeystreet via Pewsey wharf in January. It will be good and lively at the Barge, they are very good at events, though can sometimes be a bit loud for the dog. We were last there for Mayday and that was really good. Brown beer, green beer, orange cider, loud music, always good. ................Dave

My post was intended to be light hearted, but if you look at Grahams post it clearly states, in big letters "Resolution and Accuracy". I am very aware that it is not possible to get that sort of accuracy. In fact a (true) resolution of 0.01 amp on a 500 amp range would still be quite impressive. My rule of thumb when producing any electronic instrument: 1% is achievable with a bit of care, but still quite hard at extremes of temperature. 0.1 % is very difficult but can be done Better than 0.1% is for the real specialists. .................Dave