agg221

Everyone has their preferred cruising pattern (I usually do 10+hr days and 12hrs is still enjoyable). 8hrs/day as per your crew's preference the route up to Ellesmere Port is a good one. If you find yourself with a bit of spare time at the latter stages then you could head a bit further south before returning up the Llangollen, perhaps to the pub at Barbridge (food through an extended lunchtime/afternoon and into the evening). For my own interest I ran the route to the end of the feeder through CanalPlan. It is certainly possible - you would clear Grindley Brook in the evening of the first day which would make it quiet. If you did 6hrs the first day and 2hrs on the final morning then the rest of the trip would be 10hrs/day. The mooring locations could be jiggled to fit somewhere sensible, but you would not stop at Llangollen itself, or Ellesmere for the White Swan. One plus to doing what you are planning is that if you hire again from Wrenbury you can go the other way and complete the Llangollen. If you can find a way to add an extra day then it would be relaxed at your preferred cruising day length, get you more choice over moorings and certainly allow you the minor side trips up the Ellesmere arm (Tesco is right by the canal at the end which is handy) and the Prees arm. If you are tied to the same length of trip then it is still a reasonable option if you are happy with the longer cruising days. Picture is the end of the Ellesmere arm. Alec

If the stories of Springers being built from recycled gasometer plates are true then the steel may well be old enough to contain slag inclusions which would give a false reading with ultrasound but the fact that no particularly thin readings have shown up suggests that this is not the case. Personally I would find a surveyor who is more experienced in using ultrasound, get the hull surveyed by them, do any necessary or advisable work such as filling pits, then get it blast cleaned and two pack epoxy coated all over. It’s not the cheapest approach but would give the best overall result in extending life and giving peace of mind with the lowest ongoing costs. Alec

The run up to Chester is certainly pleasant. We will be doing it again ourselves for the Easter gathering in just over a month. It should fit in fairly well with your preferred daily hours too, and give time for a walk round Chester, which is a particularly nice place to moor (we prefer by the city walls to down in the basin). If you do decide to go up the Llangollen I think you could make it to the end from Wrenbury. It's not far from Wrenbury to Willeymoor and we did there to the end and back in slightly longer days than you plan, but we did have a 3hr delay at Grindley Brook on the way up and nearly a 2hr delay at New Marton. We are also particularly deep-drafted which made it very slow going on the way up (below 2mph) so I think factor in that lot and you could do it, but you would have to plan the journey more around stopping at the right time, rather than choosing places to stop. Something to bear in mind though is that once above New Marton I don't recall there being any physical obstacles which require crew (no locks and I don't think there are any lift bridges) which means that if you are happy to keep steering and the crew are happy to sit in the front as the boat travels along there isn't really any limit to the hours you travel beyond your willingness to steer and, being a hire boat, the hours of darkness. Where this does give you a particular advantage is that most boats tie up from about 4pm. That can give you several hours of clear running without delays - particularly good if you do the narrow sections on the feeder and Grindley Brook at such times. We went through the feeder in the dark on the way up (not a hire boat) and came back down in the morning before people were generally heading up for the day. Alec

Last October we went up the Llangollen and back from Audlem. Day 1 Audlem to Willeymoor; Day 2 to Ellesmere; Day 3 to Llangollen. Same moorings on the way back. We are deep and hence we’re slow at times and you could knock off 5 or 6 hrs for the Audlem to Nantwich stretch in both directions but you would be hard pressed to do it in four days I think. In my opinion if you are going up there it is well worth going all the way to the end. We didn’t in 1997 and finally rectified that last year. Alec

'Proper red oxide' is rust particles. Red lead is a different thing, and a different colour - distinctively orange. It bonds far better and is also a better barrier, therefore gives better corrosion protection. It was always more expensive though. Lead was added to 'red oxide' as recently as the 1970s to improve it but pure red lead paints were also used. We recently had to remove some from a load of gas pipelines installed in the 1960s before we could test the material against hydrogen. The red lead paint was pure red lead, the red oxide contained around 10% lead. Whether a modern paint is 'red oxide' or coloured zinc phosphate often depends on the price - rust is far cheaper! Alec

'Red oxide' is literally powdered rust. It is used as a pigment because it is cheap, however it is not of itself very effective as a barrier. Paint consists of the pigment and the binder - what you really want is for oxygen and water to have to work their way round the pigment particles through the binder, because the longer and narrower the path they have to take, the longer the paint holds up. Red oxide is therefore not great because the water and oxygen do not have to work their way around, they can go straight through. Zinc phosphate is a much better pigment, as is titanium dioxide. You can then add colours of your choice to make it look like red oxide. Epoxy is a particularly good barrier and bonds very well to the iron underneath, meaning that oxygen and water have a much harder job displacing it. Polyurethane is an exceptionally good barrier but doesn't bond so well. All of these make excellent paint systems for difficult or very long lasting applications. More recently, epoxies have been blended with siloxanes - this is a matrix which is an even better barrier than standard epoxy and unlike amine epoxies which chalk and dull, polysiloxane epoxies remain with their final finish under UV and weathering so can be used as topcoats. I have found them to have a satin finish rather than gloss, rather an industrial look, but exceptionally durable and probably a very good choice for a bilge. Alec

Strangely, I have been doing both of these with trees this week. I have been pruning the orchard and re-laying the hedge. When you lay hedges you make the cut from the back so the strip on the front bends, when you want to lower the angle of a branch on an apple you can put a partial cut on the front face and pull it down closed, re-kerfing each time to keep the bend going at one point or using a series of parallel cuts for a more gentle bend. I don't think this helps with Harry's insulation much! Alec

Yes, but most pubs say yes if asked, or if they say no you have other options for parking in the vicinity. Alec

We visited Willeymoor Lock Tavern last autumn - they accommodated a party of nine at short notice and the food was perfectly acceptable - definitely basic pub but the price reflected that. It was certainly good enough to choose to stop at on the way back down. However, that was the mistake as there is an issue/feature which is worth being aware of. The pub is in a very isolated location, with no parking other than the pub car park itself. The lane to the pub has signs indicating that it is a private drive and that joins the A49 which is a busy road with no lay-bys. Suffice to say that the pub staff appear to take a very strict interpretation around people using their car park only when they are at the pub, so if you had friends visiting overnight and you all ate at the pub and then stayed on your boat, or if you needed to do a car shuffle, or if you drove out to the pub, had a couple of pints and decided it would be a good idea to get a taxi back and pick up the car the next morning, or you went to the pub and then fancied going for a stroll along the towpath before heading off, or anything else which is not a strict interpretation of 'customer of the pub' then you may not end up having a positive or enjoyable experience. Since there is nowhere else to park a car nearby, it would probably be advisable to choose somewhere else. Alec

Other than replacement, you have two general lines of attack. One is to use something resin/adhesive based, the other is to use something metal-based which wets out to the stainless. The total exposure is very small, so I wouldn't personally be worried about whether what you use is technically food grade or not - you simply won't have enough of it present and if it is going to work it won't leach, because if it is leaching it is dissolving so would be the wrong approach anyway. There is very little pressure and it doesn't have to deal with getting hot, so the biggest challenges with the resin/adhesive approach are that it has to wet the stainless properly to get a good bond, and it has to then not break down over time. Getting a good bond is about surface preparation. You would need to drain the tank and thoroughly dry the area, then clean it, degrease it (acetone/aka nail polish remover is the best) and then abrade the surface - sandpaper is OK but around welds a scotchbrite will get in deeper. Ideally you would want something low viscosity which creeps into the holes first, something like a creeping crack cure, then seal over the outside. I would use a polyurethane ideally, second choice an epoxy, but if it is not vulnerable to being knocked then a hot melt glue gun would do a very good job. Adding layers to form a true patch shouldn't be necessary if it is just weeping, as you are not really needing to resist the pressure. Using metals to seal it will be stronger and definitely permanent. Welding would be ideal - TIG is neatest and is likely to be how it was first made, but it can be done with 1.6mm rods in MMA if that's all that is available. For this, you would ideally want a rod with a cellulose-based coating rather than rutile, as you can drag these along the surface like a pencil which makes it much easier to control when working at an awkward angle. Brazing (aka silver soldering) does work with stainless, but the fluxes to strip the oxide off the stainless (which is the thing that makes it stainless in the first place) are quite nasty, giving off hydrogen fluoride gas, so if it is in a confined space I would be inclined not to do that. For welding, you would again want the tank drained and really dry, ie dry with hot air, as otherwise you risk hydrogen embrittlement and yes, that can happen with austenitic stainless steels as well as ferritic ones, and you would then want it clean and degreased. For brazing you would prepare it as per for adhesive bonding. Hope that helps. Alec

To reiterate a few points I would agree with. 1. It is all about the weather. You can generally tell in advance based on the forecast and the amount of rain over the preceding 48hrs whether the levels will be OK. If the weather is OK and stable when you set off, I would do the river section first, ie down Tardebigge. Down the Severn is short and quick, up the Avon is longer and slower. When we went the other way round (setting off from Wootton Wawen) we were advised to down the Severn and up the Avon. We went against the advice and were the only boat to make it back to the hire base, all the others being stuck on the Avon. 2. The clocks change after your first night, so the light won't be ideal on the first day, but it can be done. I would talk to Anglo Welsh and also turn up early. That should mean you are the first boat away. As has been mentioned, many boats moor up for the day from 4pm these days, so you are very likely to get a clear run. There is one pound (around lock 6 or 7 from the bottom I think) which is long enough to moor in overnight, so long as you get away early in the morning. It is a sensible walk from there down to the Queen's Head. If you make it to the bottom then great, but otherwise it is a reasonable Plan B. We did the route in a week, including a run up to Gas Street and back. It means reasonably long days, but not painfully so. We stopped at Cadbury World (back in the days when it was still good) and at Avoncroft, and had a couple of hours in Worcester, so we weren't running dawn 'til dusk every day. Alec

I have no idea whether it is available anywhere but a video was shown at last year’s Ellesmere Port gathering which was a boating version of the three classes (John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett). One of the lines from the ‘upper class’ boater with an ex working boat was “my boat does two hours to the gallon, of Brasso”. Alec

Sticking a Seasearcher on them overnight would be a problem; tapping the side with the magnetic catch on an iPhone not so much. Alec

Do you have these scanned at a higher resolution? Usually with scanned photographs you can zoom in quite a bit before losing clarity but the scale they are posted at means I can't zoom in at all. I stand a chance of identifying the boat in the first photograph if you can post the highest quality image possible. Alec

Check it with a magnet. If it is magnetic then it is plated steel so you need a re-plater. If it is just the lacquer breaking down then wiping it off with alcohol, polishing and re-applying new lacquer is what is required. For indoor work such as this, shellac is good. If you do it yourself (which is not too difficult) then shellac flakes dissolved in isopropyl alcohol is the easiest to handle. Bear in mind that whichever way you go, it will need to be separated out from the surroundings if you want to avoid any accidental drips or runs on other parts. Alec

I suggest looking at Norbury Wharf as somewhere to hire from, on the Shropshire Union. If you are thinking of going out of season they may well be amenable - they do winter hires for example. If you want to minimise locks, I would head south, then turn right at Autherley and head down a bit of the Staffs & Worcs. There are some nice places with good pubs not that far down. If you find you want to travel for longer then it continues to be a pleasant route as far as you would reasonably get. There are also some nice places to stop on the southern Shropshire Union itself - Brewood and Gnosall spring to mind. it is a sensible trip back from Gnosall on the final morning if you moor there on the last night and there is a good choice of pubs for food. Another option would be to hire from Chas Hardern and head north to Chester, with the option of going on up to Ellesmere Port. This is not very far and not particularly ambitious, so if you found you were back early you could head down to Barbridge in the opposite direction. I think you would fairly easily do pick up on day 1 and head towards Chester. Head on the next day and go to Ellesmere Port for an afternoon at the museum, then head back late afternoon and moor in Chester. Day 3 would be either a walk around Chester and back up to the general vicinity of the boatyard, or a shorter walk around Chester and up as far as you get (Bunbury or Barbridge) and Day 4 would be head back, depending on whether it is a full day or a short day would determine where you wanted to moor. Both are pleasant, fairly easy routes. Slightly more locks on the latter but they are not difficult with a crew of three or more. Alec

Thank you - I got the correct first letter but not having looked at the letter which goes with the painting in 20yrs I hadn't got the rest of it right. The letter is in the loft and I don't want to go and see what else may be lurking up there until I have to! It also ties in as HNBC lists Nautilus as a burnt out wreck c,1964. Alec

It is an original, and there are no prints of it (in fact, the picture on this thread is the first time anyone has ever seen it beyond the artist and his wife, and visitors to my house). It was painted for me by Garth Allan in about 2003 to record an event from around 1967. After icebreaking was abandoned in 1963, the BCN ice boats were gathered up at Bradley and eventually sold off, most of them passing through the hands of Alan Picken at Stoke Prior. Alan Picken bought the first batch of three, along with the burnt out motor (Neptune?) and and Garth Allan towed them down to Stoke Prior in exchange for a repaint on his own boat. Apparently they towed perfectly in a straight line. One of the ice boats was Samson which I now have. Alec

It is indeed, as they were in 1967. Alec

Indeed not. We seem to have moved on to other artists. This hangs at the back of our living room. Alec

Another picture which could go in the ‘Where I Am’ thread. This one hangs on my hallway wall. Alec

Photos of the current stove would help next time you are at the boat. Not just the stove, but also what's around it. Oil stoves do not create ash and some do not get hot at the base or sides - they work by convection. That means the hearth can often be a lot simpler, ie less heat resistant because it is safe to do so. The BSS only looks for signs of scorching, it doesn't specify exactly how the hearth must be built. That means if you have a purpose-built hearth for the oil stove it may need uprating to take a wood burning stove which can transmit significant heat to the surroundings. If the stove is small and the space is tight, you may need to consider how you would rearrange things to fit this in (on the other hand if it's a large corner of the cabin it may not be a problem. Worth a look. Alec

What I am not quite clear on is whether you are intending to put the boat on the land whilst replating it and then head off onto the water, or aiming to leave the boat there permanently? If the latter, you don't really have any options other than to try and get planning permission for a residence. It wouldn't be classified as a permanent structure because it is not attached to the ground and could be removed within a short time (craned onto a lorry) but it's the residential part that would be the issue. If the former, I think you would stand a good chance of not being noticed if you worked on it where it is placed (quite legitimate) and just didn't go 'home' at the end of the working day. This is somewhat subject to who might be able to see it, and hear it. If it's away from anywhere and not overlooked, the chances of being noticed within a year or so are minimal. Even if it was noticed, you would have a decent period (a few of months) from being noticed, questions being asked, deliberations happening, formal notice being received, responses to queries, notice period given etc. For once, beaurocracy being slow would work in your favour. I reckon if you cracked on with the hull repair and got it done in a couple of months you would probably be fine, but it would be as well to have a plan b. Alec