RichardN

I have a memory that there used to be an Isuzu 38 which was actually 41hp. Indigodream ( Isuzu 42 ) is over 10 years old and again from memory the engine range was about 2 or 3 years old at that time so the 38 in a 12 year old boat could be the older engine model? I did have a manual for the older range somewhere but I have looked through 2 old hard disks and it is not there. I will look elsewhere and see if I can locate it. Squelchy: Where are you based? If you are within reach of the Nantwich area then talk to Neil Coventry, fabulous Engineer. We only get to see him every 3 or so years but he is the only person who can service the engine and subsequently my better half gets on the helm and not only notices that the engine has been serviced but comments how much better it feels. I service the engine, " you done anything?", I get someone who knows what they are doing, Sue does not notice, Neil plays with the engine, it is instantly noticed and commented on (and I agree). I have uploaded the original engine brochure (for the "newer" range) - it is here. I am curious about the 2000 max rpm. * The brochure suggests that we get peak torque at 1800 rpm. * The engine will carry on revving under load over 1800rpm, we do squeeze a bit more speed out, bit noisier but also smoother plus the cruiser deck covers stop rattling so a nice speed on tidal river with an 18" x 12" prop. * I always feel that at my top speed I am hitting hull speed, even with more power I feel that I would not get any more speed out of the boat. No proof of that except that we seriously moving and hard to imagine being able to push a narrowboat faster. The maximum rev counter reading we get under load is 2000 rpm.

Not sure which forum this should go to. Also apologies as I am useless at writing about these sorts of things. We just had the sad news that a narrowboater called Cyril Walkington passed away last Thursday, some of you may know him from his time on Tamesis II, hence this post. It was cancer and he spent his last days in the Duchess of Kent Hospice in Tilehurst. I am trying to remember where he used to moor, somewhere just outside Reading by the Cunning Man I think. He and his wife Kate managed to cruise most of the network in their boat until age and health forced them to sell up. He drove our boat most of the way from Henley on Thames to Reading only a few months ago, clearly had not forgotten how to drive. Recent photo of him here.

I have a tc3 fitted, it us a really useful bit of kit so the concept is great though it sounds like you need a bit more than we did. The one bit of advice that I would give is go to an expert to get it fitted. An ordinary boat yard with experience of fitting webasto heaters fitted ours, we then went to the excellent Steve at Kings Lock in Middlewich to get it fixed.

Have a look at the Bluesea.com product range, they are designed for the marine environment and I have been happy with the quality of their stuff but they are roughly double the price of some of the alternatives. Worth looking at their 12V USB sockets, really useful.

Don't be scared of going out if you have not done the course, just take your time to work things out. If you can get onto a course then absolutely you should both do it. I went on the course with the attitude of I can drive anything, done some hire boating, what's this course going to teach me? The answer of course was loads. Obviously then get out there and get experienced! Don't waste the course by not using it but that applies to any course (I have that T shirt big time for one bit of Eurocode training as I think that particular code is rubbish and I best not mention Revit & Robot where I am currently re-reading my course notes and thinking did I really learn how to do that X years ago?) I think it is 14 years since I did the Helmsman's course and I am still learning, with our new front rope I am managing some spectacular throws onto bollards but still can't reverse and boy do I have to concentrate on a lock entry but I doubt if I have driven into more than 100 locks in that time, my wife on the other hand has driven into 5000? 7000? no idea how many but loads and all thanks to having got confidence on a course.

We have been impressed with two polishes: 3M paste and wax is slightly hard work does a great job of restoring paint colour Craftmaster Carnuba Wax - really easy to put on, gives a really nice deep colour on our blue boat but not quite as aggressive at restoring paint as the 3M product. Our previous paint was only a molecule thick so was always impressed by what the two products could achieve. The link is to the Craftmaster "Wash and Wax" set which includes a shampoo. I have to say that after using the wax for two years and the very occasional wash with the shampoo the colour did last a lot better but I did also find a bottle of International Sealer which I put on top so that may have served to extend the life. Trying to put some figures on it: When we first used the 3M polish I think it looked good for about 2-3 months, similar with the Craftmaster. Last year we polished the boat twice and I think the boat looked good for longer after the second polish, this year once in the spring and she was still looking reasonable but not brilliant when Andy Russell took her into a paint shop in September. Absolutely nothing beats the appearance of a boat after an Andy Russell paint job so thinking about it don't bother polishing the boat, just go and see Andy Russell (well book now for a slot in two years time). EDIT: Last photo I saw had Andy Russell in a cell in Colditz, I have not checked but would hope that he managed to escape and his glider did not crash after faking a heart condition in the Dentist's chair whilst dressed as a girl scout

I used to have an excellent parts place near my office but they have closed so I have been using the site Bizzard mentioned (https://www.inlinefilters.co.uk/) for my last 3 or 4 orders and been impressed.

Should add that the Hempel does go a bit grey with time

We have just had our hull re-blacked in Aqueduct but not by Aqueduct. Here are my thoughts Consider how and where you will use your boat. We tend to move our boat on at least 70 days in any one year and move significantly. The boat does spend time in brackish and even salty water, I swear you can see the anodes getting smaller in salty water. Occasionally we have a cracking time doing things like the BCN Marathon Challenge which involves somewhere between 80 and 95 locks in 24 hours. We want something heavy duty and want it to last at least 5 years. As already pointed out surface preparation is key. Spend serious money on that. Loads of information out there eg http://www.steelconstruction.info/Surface_preparationThere are some tools not mentioned there eg the bristle blaster but some sort of shot blasting is the gold standard. Aqueduct has great facilities and enabled us to get Andy Russell in to do painting and MWT Civil Engineering in to do the Zinga and blacking all under cover. Aqueduct is horribly expensive, they are busy and we suffered a bit as we could not get everything we wanted from Aqueduct. I would make the same decision again as the location works for both MWT and Andy Russell but there are other places, someone mentioned that the guys in Mercia Marina are way cheaper then Aqueduct. Andy Russell's reputation is fantastic, even undercoat feels like glass when he puts it on, amazing and very hard working talent. The guys from Aqueduct spent time watching what MWT did, nice, you know someone is doing a good job when an experienced outfit comes to look and learn. So far I have only seen MWT's prep work and zinga remedial work and I am very impressed. 10 years ago our boat was shot blasted and painted with a super zinc rich paint called Zinga with 2 part Hempel Blacking on top. The shot blasting and original painting was not perfect but the boat was in great condition when first lifted out after 5 years so loads of mechanical damage to the coatings but apart from one area no real rust, just a sort of tarnish and no pin holing.Our mistake was to take the boat up and down the Chesterfield shortly after blacking, we should have waited a month so a fair amount of damage in the first month. It was actually painful 5 years on we have a load of "tarnish", lots of damage but no flakey rust or pin holes. So very impressed with the coatings, We wanted the same people back to re-black our boat as before and get it done whilst the boat was being re-painted. Ideally we would have wanted them to shot blast but Aqueduct could not free up the shot blasting bay. Real shame as we had some issues with minor rusting under rails and overhangs in the superstructure, basically the areas that you know are hard to get to prepare and paint. Shot blasting with an angled nozzle would have sorted that but it was not to be. Cost wise it would have been better as a 2 man team costs around £500 per day with consumables but shot blasting is two or three times as quick and costs around £900 per day and would have taken less then a day including the first coat of Zinga (note: only required where we had beaten up the original coating. The Zinga coating is fabulous but it is horribly expensive, around £20 per kilo. As we are at the 10 year mark anything that looked vaguely suspect both above and below the water line was taken down to bare metal and re-coated so we spent £200 on Zinga. This had to be done by hand :-( but MWT have some serious tools and know how to use them. I get to see the finished product tomorrow. I will post a link to some current photos shortly but here are photos from 5 years ago: https://indigodream.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/boat-blog-a-look-at-indigo-dreams-bottom/ Edit to add that we have the Hempel 45880 two part blacking which is I believe what Aqueduct now use. I suspect we could get 10-15 years out of it if we kept fenders down . .

Both Furneaux Riddall and Siemens VDO have guys that seem really helpful so it is worth talking to them. May also be worth looking at panels from http://www.quayworks.com/

I think the Council need to work with CRT to trim back vegetation on a few corners but otherwise I think it is a fantastic idea. We were on the Medway earlier this year, yes the kayaks and canoes at times are pretty scary especially when they are racing but it was so great to see so many people enjoying the river. Even the some narrowboaters tried it!

Pointless nit picking. I will amend my comment so that licence reads contributing to the upkeep of the waterway

If you go up the Lee from Limehouse there are moored boats for 3½ hours, I will let you work out how many boats that it is. Taking your argument to a logical conclusion means that you believe that those boats don't need a licence. to contribute to the upkeep of a waterway In turn that means no BSS, no 3rd party insurance. Edit to stop pointless nit picking

I have no idea where you want to take this but I note you guys have also mentioned main navigable channel on canals in the past. That said "rivers" alone is bad enough, eg think of the Lee I think my one line summary covered it well enough.

He learns to fart like a greyhound?

Crowd funding something that suggests mooring to a side of a waterway allows you to escape contributing to the upkeep of a waterway seems so wrong, a way of destroying the waterways.

I think we have had 58 different greyhounds on our boat, as far as I can remember 55 loved it. The ones that did not get on with boating included one of ours, Jelly Boy Ty who had a bad time before we got him and was basically scared of anywhere new. Zillions of dog photos on the blog, http://indigodream.wordpress.com, easiest probably just to type dog blog into the search box. The one page I can direct you with a wide range of photos is a sad one but the photos tell a great story of Greyhounds on various canals: https://indigodream.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/dog-blog-moors-gem-lou-1112002-8122012/ Most of what I could say about greyhounds would apply to any dog. A new greyhound is unlikely to have recall, may well be keen and will be basically a 4 year old puppy as the world outside the race track is very different. You will see a wide range of views on how to train dogs and most work, not everybody would agree but personally I think dog training classes are excellent, some believe in Greyhound only classes, we have tried them (excellent school in Essex) but prefer a training school which has mixed breeds so better for socialisation. The majority of our hounds reached the stage that we could leave them off lead on lock flights etc but you need to keep a keen look out. Not that much different to any other dog but think 300 yards ahead rather than 50 yards. Coming down Audlem at the start of this week the dogs were so tired that they worked on a three lock cycle, first lock out with me and ran to lock 2 where the promptly got back on the boat and fell asleep. By lock 3 they were awake and agitating to get out so they came out and ran to the next lock by which time they were ready for their next snooze. Obviously helps that we have a cruiser stern and a few other adaptations which were put in for our old Lurcher, Indie, though sadly she never saw the completed boat. Obviously the best option is to get rid of your trad stern boat, otherwise how is your boat laid out? If they can, Greyhounds will happily sleep for 23½ hours a day so possibly less of an issue then with some dogs. There will be an initial flurry where they want to see everything but them most will happily settle down. If they can see you then they will be happy so is there space for a bed just off the back deck? Greyhounds at pace are a thing of beauty, at slow speeds with steps etc they can be a bit ungainly but you just need to work with that. Please get in touch if you have any questions. Nowadays I don't frequent CWF that much so a PM is good or may be better still to message Sue via facebook or leave a message on the Blog, Swimming. Hmm. There are Greyhounds which will walk round puddles, very few are enthusiastic about water. We give our hounds swimming lessons, basically moor up somewhere like higher up on the Thames, pick up the dog and walk into the river with them till the water is chest height on me. First time you let them go they try to run on the surface, once they get back to land you find any recall they may have had has vanished (just imagine local dog walkers creaisng up with laughter at this point). By the third time they do a very effective doggie paddle. We have only had three falls into the water, all by the same dog, yes out of 58 only one has fallen in and managed it three times. I know what you mean about space. When our old Lurcher died we went back to Battersea and asked for another one, our spec included the words SMALL and FEMALE. Battersea looked us up and said we have the perfect dog for you called Blue, HE is a LARGE greyhound, trust us he will be perfect. When we got him home (we have a very small house) initially it was a shock, this boy is big! A week later we got Indigo Dream and then we had initially just one Greyhound on a narrowboat and the space worked well. I must admit it gets crowded with 7 or 8 on board but 2 greyhounds fit perfectly on a boat. Photos are from the Middlewich branch, River Thames and finally Worksop lock on the Chesterfield

We moored in Mercia last winter. We thought that the security was good, more importantly I felt that the Management cared.

Next time on the Trent I will be looking round anxiously what might be following me up the path. There is an image there, no I don't even want to think about it. Hmm is that a chattering sound I hear behind me?

Archie is practising posing already

We are going! Are you being mad and also doing the tideway bit? If yes then see you there!

Greyhounds ... for zillions of photos look at http://indigodream.wordpress.com and select dog blog or any page with Archie in the name

It had never occurred to me before but I can only think of one disabled mooring in London and that is at Limehouse. That made me think of how you could provide more and oooh that will be a minefield If you do go down to Limehouse then have a word with the office as that may help you having some space.

I suspect it is often empty as they run with fixed booking periods which may not suit you, eg we asked for a booking from Sunday night through to Thursday morning which meant that I suspect the mooring stood empty from Friday afternoon through to Sunday afternoon. If you find it is already fully booked then I am sure it is worth putting in a gentle complaint so the problem is known to CRT London, lets face it you will struggle to find anywhere else to moor on the Regents Canal.

The BCN Society publish a list of safe moorings: https://bcnsociety.com/bcn-safe-moorings-guide/index-to-safe-moorings-on-the-bcn/ Sue keeps a list of where we have moored and what she thought of them: https://indigodream.wordpress.com/indigo-dreams-rough-guide-to-moorings/ Not quite up to date as we struggled with an update to wordpress and live writer which we need to be brave and overcome.