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We travelled it yesterday/today (Derwent Mouth to Great Hayward) and it's OK at the moment. The good folk of Wolverhampton appear to be flushing their toilets sufficiently to keep it well topped up, Alec

The timing is exceptionally bad news for summer hirers. The Four Counties was the one remaining ring. Alec

The only time our J2 has done this it has been down to the fuel rack position. On the J, the injectors have a bypass for starting on petrol which are unlikely to have been removed. If you leave these unscrewed, any diesel leakage from the day tank runs back through the governor and into whatever overflow arrangement you have. If you have the petrol start fitted, even just the valves, then the compression ratio can be immediately dropped which stops the engine. Alec

Which day are you thinking of leaving? We are also at Langley Mill (Oates) and are hoping to head down on Friday if @tom_c has figured out why our magneto isn't working. It took us 7hrs to get up with a 3'1" draft. We did hit the sunken boat and smashed it a bit further! Otherwise we didn't touch the bottom, but we did find an enormous amount of weed which made it slow going in a few pounds. Alec

We are currently at the top of the Erewash. I was seriously contemplating turning left at the bottom, on to Keadby and then across one of the Pennine routes and (originally) a choice of either the Bridgewater or the Macclesfield and down the Middlewich branch to get back to our mooring. Instead, we will be turning right at the bottom and relying on the good folk of Wolverhampton to get us home via the T&M, S&W and Shropshire Union (so long as the infrastructure doesn't break). Not even going to chance the T&M through Stoke on Trent for a side trip up the Caldon. On a practical level, that means we won't have our summer holiday on the boat this year and instead we will probably go to Sicily. Alec

It could be done with a single vehicle. Matt Gregory has a 120MT Hiab with a suitable trailer: Matt Gregory Transport - Home Wrong end of the country but you never know - he might be up in your direction for something. Alec

Hi Phil, and welcome to the forum. Glad to hear that Tycho has a new owner who appreciates its unique character. If you fancy having a play with some more towing then a date for your 2026 diary - May Bank Holiday at the Black Country Museum for the Tug Gathering. A good event, and plenty of Joeys to take out for a spin. Alec

A lot of work, but an interesting hull: Marketplace – 1932 Historic Barge A 37 | Facebook Alec

CAV BS5? This would be the original fitment which may well be what has been added. With a ring gear fitted you can use a steel pinion on the starter motor rather than having to use bronze ones (required when the teeth are machined into the iron). Still worth being able to hand start it though - have you gone through that yet? If not, Mike Askin's video is very useful on how to do this (you can identify an engine which is hand started in this way by the piece of string wound round the starting bar...) Cold Start JP2 - Not that easy The hand starting point is, indirectly, relevant to the original question as although it isn't testing wear in the mains, it is testing wear in the bores and that is an indication of wear overall. If it hand starts fairly easily from cold it is probably not too badly worn. Alec

Took a bit longer than a day to fettle these, but I started installing them today. You would think you could buy 8mm stand-off pipe clamps, but apparently not. Alec

It's a Bridgewater licence, now expired. Relatively common for Venetian, given the location (there is a reciprocal arrangement for Bridgewater licence holders to travel to the end of the Middlewich branch). Alec

You asked about temporarily ballasting the boat to get it under the bridge. What is the length and beam of the boat? That will give a reasonable idea of how much ballast will be needed per inch to get it down. You don't need to lower it too much - a few inches for comfort. That may be possible with water in containers. Firstly, fill the water tank and the diesel tank, then add as many drums as you need and fill with water before going through, empty afterwards. Best if you have some way to get the drums back off, say into the back of a car. Measuring air draft (which I had to do to check we fitted the Dudley tunnel). I put a plank across the roof, with a batten hanging down into the water each side. I marked the battens in 10cm intervals with a marker pen and got them equal each side. I could then see how much of the batten beyond the last mark was also visible - that was accurate to within 2.5cm (1") without too much difficulty. Alec

For small quantities of smaller material I use a Silky Gomtaro. Very effective. For larger quantities or larger cuts (anything 8" plus) I prefer a chainsaw. For cutting up firewood or, in my case, quite a bit of milling, the weight is less important as you aren't carrying it in the cut. I have used a battery electric saw (Stihl) and it was excellent for power but they do have a limited battery life. You can't keep going on a rotation of two batteries so to keep working you would need at least three batteries and two chargers, but if you aren't in that much of a rush it will do the job well. I have no doubt that the more 'tool' oriented companies such as Makita and DeWalt are of perfectly decent quality and I was spending my own money, that's probably what I would buy (in my case DeWalt to match my existing batteries). With regard to legality, if you are not operating a chainsaw (or using a hand saw) for hire or reward then so long as you have contents insurance the odds are that you are insured on any site where you have permission from the landowner. This surprised me when I first started milling, but I found my contents insurance covered me, and my parents' extremely helpful old-school insurance broker confirmed this, and that this was normal. My policy still includes third party insurance for use of the contents at any site. I suppose my attitude to vegetation which is clearly in the wrong place is that I don't want to have an argument with anyone, but if that isn't going to happen because there is nobody who is going to argue then the vegetation might well get removed. That applies equally to saplings growing through brickwork and to overhanging or partly fallen trees which are causing an obstruction. I don't tend to stop for the latter, but I do snap off what I can. It isn't usually going to kill them (particularly not the overhanging ones) but it will slow them down and everybody did it, the regrowth on saplings would give up and they would die, and visibility and navigation width would be much improved. Alec Alec

The Red Bull. We went in in August 2021 and it had decent beer on hand pumps. We were two boats together, younger daughter and I were crewing the first boat and that lock isn’t paired. We managed to get through, tie up and get the pints on the lock side ready for the other boat as it came up! Alec

I think it's the other way around - you wouldn't notice the 70l or so extra 'overspill' going into ours! Considering the sign further, I considered that they will supply into a can and cannot stop you using this to fill up your boat (but are not responsible for any spillage). Being a responsible citizen, I would want to use a 5l can to make it easy to handle, and attach a nozzle to ensure no spillage. The cycle would go like this - fill can, close can, pay for can, open can, attach nozzle, open diesel filler, pour diesel from can into tank, close diesel filler, remove nozzle from can, repeat ~15 times. I can imagine this being rather less effective for the vendor in respect of opportunity cost than just selling me 70l or so of diesel. Alec