ChrisG

If you didn't get to go, there's some clips here - just click on the pic: http://www.uk-boating.tv

Had an excellent couple of hours on the lovely little Brum tug Asti from Saisons at Whilton, and we'll reveal all in our programme airing on Friday, 4th July at 7.30pm on Sky 167 - it's in the 2nd half of the show.

That really is truly awful, poor girl. It isn't hard to get hold of BW keys, or any keys come to that, so messing about with the bridge isn't hard to imagine happening. As to the parents? Young people of this girl's age deserve and have to have a good amount of freedom. Without a very good reason for grounding them, could or would you stop a fifteen year-old going out with their friends? You have to rely on their developing commonsense, combined with your guidance, to keep them out of most dangers . . .

We're filming today on the BCN-style Tug Asti from Whilton (Saison's boat hire), and trying it single handed, a couple of locks perhaps just to see how it goes. Report in the show premiering on (I think) 6th July (first Fri in July, anyway!).

Our last little bit of Crick show coverage premieres on UK Boating at 7.30pm on Sky 167.

And that's what it's all about! Good luck and enjoy it!

The boats and firms people have listed here look excellent - the key is probably to avoid the big agency-style firms. like Blakes and Hoseasons, who don't own baots themselves, and go direct to the smaller firms operated by individuals or families - they're more likely to make decisions based uponhow they feel about it than follow some set of arbitary rules! I've done several weeks single-handed on the UK and French canals, and thoroughly enjoyed it - for myself, all I need is an adequate supply of red wine, some decent grub aboard, and some good books, so as long as you can put up with your own company, go for it. You'll love it.

There's now a sample video from our trip on the French canals on YouTube, here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ptgjO8dh92E There are three other clips, which are/will be only available on the UK Boating website.

Excellent photos, Martin, and a really interesting site. Like it a lot. Will the first section be in water when completed this year, to add to the look?

the magic word springs . . . springs to mind!

as said in the post you quoted, Nick . . .

They had a gazebo over on the far side of the marina on Sat and I think on Sun - but they seemed to vanish for Sunday morning, sensible them!

Harral were there, Dominic, and Stephen Harral appears in the upcoming UK Boating Get Afloat show on Sky . . along with Jeff Whyatt of BW!

On none - Sky only, Nick, but you can see it on broadband at the same time - here's the address: http://www.uk-boating.tv/infotv.html You have to wait for a short info film to play while the stream kicks in. Clips are also eventually put up on our website. It's possible that we'll go onto Freeview this year.

The 12th 2008 edition of UK Boating Get Afloat, which premieres* on Sky 167 (information TV) on Friday 6th June at 7.30pm, features a report from the IWA National Trailboat Festival at Tiverton, plus a couple of serious interviews recorded at the Crick Boat Show with BW's South Eastern General Manager Jeff Whyatt, and narrowboat brokerage boss Stephen Harral. There'll be more from Crick in the next edition, which premieres at 7.30pm on Friday 20th June on Sky 167. *UK Boating Get Afloat produces a new programme every two weeks. Programmes premiere on a Friday, then show 7 more times over the subsequent 2 weeks until replaced by the next programme - showing days are Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Unlike most boat-oriented programmes, UK Boating Get Afloat is quite up-to-date and moderately newsy - most of the content is usually produced in the 14 to 16 days prior to each programme's first showing.

I got the impression that most people thought it was pretty good, considering the weather. The traders I spoke to were generally surprisingingly cheerful, having had had a good Saturday (when there were queues at many boats) and reasonable Sundays. The organisers of course refunded the visitors entrance money on Sunday - it would have been on TV if they hadn't - but I think that as far as the trade goes, it's a risk they take. Most exhibition space is sold subject to weather and all other risks coming out of the exhibitor's pockets - they could doubtless take out insurance if they wished, at whatever rate! I'd be very surprised if many exhibitors didn't attend next year, whatever the weather - it's still the biggest inland waterways show, and someone attempting to try to upstage it would have a serious mountain to climb!

Chris Stanley of BW about the early closure: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VcW1EtREwPc

Interesting topic . . . I think that one of the key points is that narrowboats are really uniquely designed to fit a very specific niche market, in an equally specific, unique, and frankly, odd, corner of the boating market. Because their niche is so limited, they've spread out into other areas - you see many on the Broads, rivers like the Thames, and increasingly the French canals. But they're really not ideally suited to these other environments; I've frequently read about the concern boaters with narrowboats feel when tackling somewhere like the tidal Thames, whereas I've been up and down it, and the Seine (a much more scarey river in its lower reaches), in a 23ft seagoing GRP yacht without trepidation. To be honest, in conditions other than those they're specifically designed for, steel narrowboats are an anomaly tied in time to a canal system designed for a historical age which ended with the coming of the steam locomotive. I think I recall reading once that Charles Hadfield, whose historical knowledge of the canals seemed to encompass the political and economic aspects, too, said that while English canals were designed to suit the immediate need and nothing more, continental widebeam canals were at least designed with an eye on the future. Me - Given enough fendering to ward off narrowboats and others, I'd take a GRP boat most places! PS - added: Of course, with the renewed building of Wilderness Boats, small GRP purpose-designed and built canal boats are back again, although their new price renders them very specific to a limited market. But a 23ft boat with a 7ft beam seems to be more boat-shaped than most nbs.

Read the book, and sailed the Channel a few times in small boats, anyway - I'd be interested in someone who's planning to do it with an nb, rather than a dutch barge, but thanks for the thought, Johanna.

No - long gone. Never really noted if a few gallons on fuel or water made more any difference to air draft, etc - I might have if it was any sort of issue from my pov.

7.30 pm, Mon, Weds, Fri and Sun.

On the current edition of UK Boating, Sky 167.

I took a Viking 26 up the Northampton arm to the GU, up the GU, along the Oxford and later along the Stratford with no problems whatsoever, except for a bulging lock wall on the Stratford, where the bulge co-incided with the boat's max beam (higher than an nb's max beam). The keeper told me the proper width for the Stratford was 6'8" in Nicholson's, which I later discovered to be untrue . . . The lowest bridge I came to was the concrete one just at the pub just before Oundle marina - think I had about 6 inches clearance. Having said all that, there are several bridges on the GU where I felt safer with the screen down, and it only takes a couple of minutes to do.

If anyone plans to take their narrowboat over by sea this summer, I'd be fascinated to film it . . but probably from another, more seagoing, boat . . .

It's all very difficult; and I dislike the tone of what I have to say next - but I think I should say it, nonetheless. I started "messing about with boats" of various sorts when I was about twenty, and now I'm forty years older. A lot of my boating and sailing has been single-handed, on the sea, rivers and inland waterways around the UK and the continent. When you're single-handing, you can't afford to take big chances, in case you injure yourself - there'd be no-one there to help. I know that I can bring a high windage boat that I know reasonably well into a marina-style berth single handed in up to a force five or six wind, unless the wind is dead astern. A mooring alongside? Yes, but I'd need a few minutes to sort my ropes. I wouldn't ever dream of making some sort of leap or jump for the shore. Why should I take the risk? More to the point, why would you? If you can't get alongside a mooring reasonably safely (in your own opinion) don't go into it. If you decide to put your crew at risk by suggesting that they "jump a few feet", ensure that you can afford to pay their loss of earnings. I can't, personally, abide all this legalistic business. If you can handle your boat, have a great time. If you have difficulty handling your boat, then keep working at it . . . but don't risk other people's wellbeing by suggesting that they "take a flier . . " PS - just a thought: I have on ocassion hung a bowline from the boathook and used that to bridge a gap . . .