dmr

I have done the backwards thing on a wider section of the Kennet below Newbury, (and still got the scrape down the side of the boat!) but it would be insanity at Reading. The water really jets out of the County weir,, and eddies,, so it would be an out of control turn, but the real issue would be that bridge. You could get the back through but the flow would push the front into the arch and unless you had a huge bow thruster I doubt you could control it by swinging the back. Would love to know how Reading is done with a pair! .............Dave I have done the backwards thing on a wider section of the Kennet below Newbury, (and still got the scrape down the side of the boat!) but it would be insa

Have to disagree here. Newbury bridge looks bad but is fairly easy, its an almost straight run from the lock and the side stream pushes the boat less than one would expect. And if it does go wrong there are some nice big rubber buffers. Reading is set at an angle and on a bend and is totally unprotected, serious damage if it goes wrong!. In a long boat its easy to get the front through but the flow can push the back towards the arch quite hard. I find county more frightening than Woolhampton, but I fully agree that Woolhampton is not good! ..............Dave

The Kennet between Reading and Newbury can be difficult if the Kennet is flowing, and impossible if its flowing hard. Heading upstream to County...... Watch out for an eddy just below the lock/weir that pushes the front out just when you you start to relax after the shopping centre. Once lock is full, and if the Kennet is flowing then I would leave the top gates open and leave the lock with a bit of power on. Heading downstream..... You MUST stop under the concrete bridge and don't turn in too steeply or the flow might take the back. Get the lock ready then creep round the corner carefully hugging the bank. If the back start to go then use a bit of power. County is a very shallow lock which can give a false sense of security. With no flow its all OK and has some very pretty bits. ..............Dave the Kennet usually takes a day or two to get going so one rainy day will probly be ok

I wasn't saying that but you do have a point. I suspect at some time in the future CC'ing will be totally regulated and we will all have to spend exactly 14 days at each location then on the nominated day move exactly to the next 1km neighbourhood. It would make CaRT monitoring task much easier. Think of the money saved, Locks open and backpumps running for only one day every two weeks, and the fishermen would love it. ................Dave

I suspect all this boat logging, and all the new draconian rules, were really aimed at the small (but growing) numbers of boats that don't want to move at all.It all started on the K&A. Trouble is CaRT have now started to apply this system to all boats. If a boater desires to move a short distance just once every 14 days then the current system will fairly accurately track their position, but if a boat moves quite a lot within a limited (but acceptable) range the system just can't cope. ............Dave

This time it was Royal Mail. In the past there has also been a man in an unmarked white van, and on one occasion a manager delivered it in his car as we were not too far from a meeting he was driving to. We get through two 25 drums each year! ...........Dave.

Morris OnLine have once again successfully delivered a 25 litre drum of oil directly to the boat. I phoned them and discussed my location, they looked on Google Earth and concocted an address: Narrowboat Vox Stellarum Car Park between West View and Canal Parbold Lancashire A 25l drum of CDX 15-40 costs a total of £92.45 which is equivalent to £18.49 for 5 litres which is not that much more than the £15 for the Wilko stuff without the hassle of carrying it. Decanting into 5l pots is a bit tedious though! ..............Dave

Liverpool gets cleaner every year. Just been in and out twice in the last month with no visits to weedhatch, would expect no more than one. However there are a lot of swing bridges between Parbold and Liverpool and one or two are not that reliable so factor in a possible delay of a few hours while CaRT turn up to help. ..............Dave

I believe I spent the first 6 months of my life in Icknield Port Road, but sadly I just can't remember that far back! ................Dave

The Icknield Port loop is a wonderful bit of canal history, it will be "redeveloped" soon so I really recommend that you use that as your method of turning the boat around. It looks like a scary backwater from the entrance but is perfectly navigable and many surprises await. .............Dave

Oh dear, it looks like everybody actually has the same job but with the buzz words arranged in a different order. ...........Dave

To celebrate the millenium they planted a whole forest of trees behind the Caan Hill flight but they chose a boggy field so they all died, CaRT are not good with Trees! ................Dave

Or possibly low cylinder wall temperature causing oil additives to deposit on the cylinder walls, or maybe a bit of this and a bit of ring tension, not sure if anybody fully understands it but it certainly happens. .................Dave

I would really like to see a "family tree" diagram of the CaRT management structure, with job titles and names etc. Does anybody have one??? I could do a FoI request but I won't as its just spending "our" money and will sooner or later prompt CaRT to appoint an FoI manager, and an FoI executive etc etc. ..........Dave

Boating is a huge part of what CaRT does, so surely the head of boating/business boating and enforcement is an important man who should be answering directly to Richard. How many layers of top management do CaRT need??? ...........Davei

Power audit (as above) is required. You also need an "ampmeter" to measure how much current your alternator is actually producing and so estimate how many amp-hours you are putting back into the batteries. It takes ages to fully charge the batteries so the common wisdom is to run the engine for maybe 2 hours to part charge the batteries, and then do a long run (8 hours) once per week. You could go for a nice cruise to do this! If you can't get enough charge into the batteries in 2 hours to meet your needs then you need to think about using less electricity/bigger alternator/more batteries etc. Most boaters find that lots of solar panels helps enormously. ............Dave

Trouble is, CaRT don't really maintain them as they should. There are a couple that will drop very quickly if you let them go, and one or two that are so stiff the won't drop all the way down. I usually let them go but if they appear to be going too quick grab the spindle with my hand and hope there are no sharp edges! ...........Dave

You are entitled to your political allegiances but please don't try to rewrite history. It was various speculative bankers, both in America, and here, who caused the economic crisis. Gordon Brown was just trying to rescue our economy and almost certainly succeeded as despite our banks been involved we did not suffer nearly as badly as many other countries. .............Dave

Shot blasting is a messy and unpleasant business and can involve a lot of preparation (masking up and covering up everything in the vicinity) and a big clean up afterwards. If a yard is organised and and well prepared than they can likely do it much cheaper so its worth shopping around. It may be that your boatyard makes hard work of it, or are just charging a premium because they are not too keen on doing it. About £1500 would be a good price. The epoxy itself may well cost almost £500. .............Dave

short answer you will be ok but only just. longer answer....how small is small? The size of the big pulley and pulley centres distance also influence wrap. Assuming the big pulley is not a huge "mtb" jobbie. and assuming you are using an "A" size belt (not a little "Z") then you will just about be ok. Do get a notched belt as suggested, carry a spare, and check tension (and look for signs of black dust) quite often. Approaching 100amps a double belt system would be needed, but finding a double pulley for the crankshaft might not be cheap or easy. ............Dave

Yes, but stuff like this is "non urgent routine maintenance" and competes with urgent routine maintenance, breakdowns, drinking beer in canalside pubs and generally cruising about and having a good time, so just never gets done. ...........Dave (cruising up north, drinking in fine northern pubs and catching up on essential maintenance)

Having re-read your post a bit more carefully I retract my disagreement,, you were spot on. "not ideal" and "past their sell by date" say it all. I would maybe have said "not ideal but acceptable if done correctly" ...............Dave

A "little distance" is relative, as it depends on what size of cable you use, distance can be as big as you want as long as you use suitably thick cables!. I suggest look at the current length of cable from battery to inverter and if your new distance is the same as that use cable a bit thicker, if its twice as far use cable more than twice as thick, but this is my instinct rather than the result of any calculation. Checking specific gravity once in a while is a very good thing to do, and just looking into the cells more often is also good as a failing cell will sometimes use more water. Record keeping is a very good idea. Try to keep tabs on how many cycles each battery has done and when it gets close to the specification (if there is one, but its probably about 300) then start thinking about replacing the battery. In general noticing a significant fall in capacity is the sign that things are not well and although this might be slightly masked by mixing old and new batteries, with four batteries you should still notice if things are going wrong. Spotting a single failing battery is not trivial which is probably why many people say don't mix old and new. I think its better just to replace batteries when their capacity drops off, I think those forum members who talk about batteries down to a small fraction of their original capacity are living dangerously. If you want to do it really proper then a Smartguage AND an amp hour counter will do it! ..................Dave ................Dave