MoominPapa

Still shuddering at the story of one of our fellow moorers at Henhull, who left his boat for several years due to reasons, came back and found a rat city inside. The whole thing is totally trashed. On the cow front, we had a cow fall in between the boat and the bank at the Devil's Graden on the Weaver in the small hours. Being awoken by a very big splash and the boat rocking violently is quite alarming. There's a whole story around getting the cow out again which involves firemen running around with torches also in the small hours which I'll tell you if you really want to know. MP.

Hope the damage is not too bad. At least your living accommodation floats. MP.

We're on the floating pontoon VMs in Macclesfield. I know the Macc is unlikely to rise very much, but you can't be too careful......... MP.

Today, between Aqueduct Marina and Wheelock, we've been past an empty hire boat or two at pretty much every road bridge with access to the canal. It looks like the hirers were told to get within luggage-carrying distance of a road and collected with their stuff. I imagine that there are not that many hire boats out at this time of the year, so the boats themselves can be collected as the companies have available staff. MP.

Came down Stanthorne this morning. The queue was what I'd describe as normal. Three boats in front of us when we arrived, and three more had arrived behind by the time we were going into the lock. The repair looks pretty tidy and durable. MP.

We're in the house. The heating had been on sporadically but not really doing much. Yesterday was a miserable wet day in Ireland so we used that as an excuse to try out the new batch of firewood that was delivered last week. The stove was lit with four logs at tea time and that was all we burned all evening. MP.

Me too, mainly between the canal and Aldi. It's further on the way back with loaded shopping bags. MP.

We re-joined our boat at Norbury a couple of years back by public transport. Train to Stafford, then bus to Gnosall and walk the last couple of miles up the towpath, as I remember. Nantwich has a railway station. MP.

Floating Pennywort? Last time we were that way, is was worst at the top of the flight and got better pretty quick as you went East. That's a couple of years back though. MP.

I'd guess the ban, if it came to pass, would be on petrol two stoke outboards with total loss oiling systems which, by design, dump their lubricating oil into the water. The owners of historic semi-diesels would continue to be free to deposit their used oil on the boat roof and the face of the steerer. MP.

You'd think so, but actually: no. I discovered this when a boat in a marina where we moored sank due to gas locker floor corrosion and added a layer of diesel to the surface of the water which dissolved our new blacking. The boat's insurance didn't pay out because the owner had broken the contract by not maintaining the boat in canal-worthy condition, and that included not covering third-party liabilities. I even went as far as reading the law: The Road Traffic Act contains a clause enforcing the condition that a motor insurance policy's third party provisions cannot be nullified by the insured's negligence; the British Waterways Act, which otherwise borrows identical language, is missing that clause. In our case the options were to sue a fellow moorer whose boat had just sunk, claim on our own insurance, or stand the costs ourselves. MP.

I'll take a small bet that Calor is saving a fortune in tax because all those deposits are a big negative contributor to the balance sheet. The fact that most will never be redeemed because the bottles get passed on or abandoned or lost is irrelevant. MP.

There are an increasing number of angry people everywhere in the UK. I've been noticing it for a while but it's more obvious when you go elsewhere and then come back. If they were all angry about the same things that could be a positive, but unfortunately they're mostly angry with each other. MP.

To clarify for those who've not been there. These gates rise from the bed of the channel, so the up position is closed. They're down when stowed on the river bottom to allow navigation. MP.

Try the River Nene. Dozens of turns to get the gate paddles up and down. If you want to close a guillotine that's emptying a lock, best of luck. Hint: the emergency stop button on the control panel is not the one you want. DAMHIK. MP

Which is why the tabs CRT fit to lock gear to stop the pawl being flipped over into a stable disengaged position annoy me so much. They're safety sops to users who can't be bothered to ensure the pawl is down before winding the paddle up, but cause a much bigger but less obvious safety problem when someone needs two hands to wind a paddle down NOW against water pressure to save a boat. MP.

Could a mitigation for tiller injuries be as simple is reducing the arc through which the tiller can swing? In almost all NB designs the rudder can swing until the lifting eye on the top rear of the rudder hits the side of the counter, and that's close to 90 degrees. It's actually a far wider swing than is useful for steering: the maximum sideways force is generated when the the rudder is about 45 degrees (or maybe a bit more) from straight ahead. Moving the rudder further than that is pointless or even self defeating. If stops could added to the rudder mechanism, maybe in the top bearing, to control the rudder movement over a controlled arc rather that the arc that just happens to be allowed by the geometry of the rudder/lifting-eye/counter then it could be engineered to be less likely to toss a steerer over the side whilst still allowing enough movement for efficient steering. MP.

Fradley locks have a strong forward push. MP.

On narrow canals my main use of ladders is to re-board the boat after opening the bottom gates. Going down at least gives the opportunity to look at the security of the bolts holding the handrail in place before use. MP.

I've never got into the habit of throwing the windlass up before climbing the ladder because I worry that one day a miss-throw or bounce off something on the side will result in the windlass descending again and ending up in the lock, or, much worse, landing on my face/head. MP.

Low level military aviation isn't much of an issue in Ireland, what with the country not having much of any air force. It just needs to keep the Ryanair 737s safe. MP.

Unless you're very close to the turbine the lights are going to be pretty close to the horizon anyway. (or at least to skyline, if the observer is in a valley and the turbines are up high. Is that still the horizon, or does the horizon have to be horizontal?) Interesting how you'd do the radar detection thing in a failsafe manner. MP.

Are marker lights enough to cause significant problems? Our place in Ireland is halfway up a hill that has six turbines along the ridge at its summit and at least a couple of them have red aircraft anti-collision markers. It's still very, very, dark on a moonless night. MP.