MoominPapa
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Posts posted by MoominPapa
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24 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:
It’s the rope that gets thrown up. Almost always the windlass can simply be placed next to the lock ladder just before you start to ascend. Yes it could accidentally find its way back down again but that’s still of less consequence than me accidentally finding way back down again.And to add I prefer to not use lock ladders. Ideal for me is to step off at the foot and walk up steps with windlass and line in hand but not all locks are configured to make this sensibly possible.
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.
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3 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:
When I use lock ladders I take nothing with me. Both centre line and windlass are thrown up to the lockside first when ascending, and left there for collection after I’m on the cabin top when descending.
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.
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10 minutes ago, nicknorman said:
A lot of the low level night air traffic will be military and a good % of them will have night vision goggles, ditto SAR traffic will have NVG, so there will also be always-on IR lighting.
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.
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1 minute ago, nicknorman said:
To be honest I don’t know, but I can see that if one was looking at a portion of sky close to the sight line of a turbine, the presence of the red lights would blot out the sky behind. Maybe it is one of those bureaucratic things whereby “the rules are the rules” regardless of the actual impact.
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.
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31 minutes ago, nicknorman said:
Well, dark skies at the gliding club in the Cairngorms national park. You can almost touch the Milky Way. Interestingly there is a specific dark sky park in SW Scotland and there is a problem that the area also has a lot of wind farms (in Scotland, unlike England, wind farms are an ever expanding plague). Wind farms are aerial obstructions that have to be lit at night. So now there is a project to have the lighting suppressed unless an approaching aircraft is detected by radar.
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.
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A great challenge was enjoyed by all on Melaleuca and, at least for the Moomins, it continued on the way home. I left Melaleuca in the bridge-ole at the tail of lock 8 on the 21 to go back and close the gates and, as is my habit, I took the stern rope ashore and left it on the towpath., just in case the boat should drift a bit. I was delayed avoiding a chap on an electric bike coming through the bridge and by the time I'd closed the gates and got back to the bridge-ole, the boat had drifted off into the pound and I was just in time to see the end of the stern rope disappear into the water. Bad words may have been uttered at this point.
The boat drifted to the middle of the pound and then the wind blew it gently onto the mud on the offside, in full view of the bin-lorry drivers queuing to drop loads at the waste incinerator. We tried running water through, but anything we did made a wave that just lifted the boat further onto the mud. The pound was on weir already so no way to increase the level.
In the end there was nothing to do but get in. I have to say that the good folks of Wolverhampton were total unfazed by me wandering around on their towpath wearing boots and undercrackers only. No noticeable reactions at all. I grabbed the bow rope and tried pulling, but I couldn't get any purchase at all standing in 3ft of mud, so I had to go to the stern and climb up the skeg/swansneck/button to get back on board. Then it was easy to reverse off and take her into the next lock.
Apart from that, it was a straightforward run: I'd say that the Wolverhampton 21 was by far the best lock flight on the trip. It's in a much better state than Famers Bridge or Aston. All the paddles work easily and none of the back gates leak.
Diesel at Turners in Wheaton Aston is 83.9 pence per litre.
MP.
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Hello Aston, my old friend
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40 minutes ago, SproutsMum said:
Sprout is enjoying her first BCN Challenge lounging. She has single-dogged up the 21 because the humans were useless. Now enjoying a rest in her Liberace-themed domain.
Our Titford fruit-of-the-prop heavily featured leopard print fabric and zips, so I think single-dogging may have been involved there too.
MP.
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Melaleuca took two hours from Oldbury top lock to the pools and back, including 45 minutes clearing an engine-stopping bladeful. The Pools are deep: the arm isn't.
25 minutes to get out of Spon Lane Bottom lock and around the junction.
Passed David on to Vulpes at Pudding Green.
Just passed Rivets on our way to Rider's Green.
MP.
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44 minutes ago, matty40s said:
It was 04.30 we set off, in the middle of a humongous thunderstorm.
By judicious use of the Peril Sensitive Spotlight.
MP.
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Inflation is 10% and that includes inflation on boat repairs and new boats. I'd say they've given you a £2 discount.
MP.
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Info from my mate whose hireboat was moored just down from the bridge. The passenger did actually fall out, and presumably landed in the canal, as they were uninjured. The occupants of the hireboat slept through whole thing.
MP.
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Has anyone successfully booked a passage through the Anderton Boat lift recently? It doesn't seem to be an option in the drop-down menu on the "book a passage" page for me.
MP.
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7 hours ago, magpie patrick said:
I suspect a system failure rather than a mechanical one - the gates were automatically raised when they shouldn't have been? Not unknown in other places such as the (rather older) automated sluices at Weston Lock in Bath
A couple of years ago we were in the drydock at Northwich when the control system for the Vale Royal sluices had a bit of brainstorm and emptied the top end of the river in fairly short order. The resulting artificial flood coming backwards through the emptying sluice started to fill the drydock, which caused some consternation. I believe at least one boat was sunk above Vale Royal by the sudden drop in level.
MP.
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1 hour ago, Lady C said:
In my experience, a light on the front of the boat in tunnels is essential so that the boat coming the other way knows where the front of your boat is. The old boatmen used to put the cabin lights on and have the back doors open.
I once met a CRT tug in the middle of Braunston tunnel with a standard tunnel light on the front of it. I'd already met the unlit pan it was pushing 70ft earlier, which was quite a surprise!
MP.
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49 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:
I don’t understand why a hire boat would ever need to run the engine once they’ve stopped cruising, surely most will have had their engines charging the batteries for a good many hours during the day?
All the hire boat operators I've spoken to have problems with hirers running out of power. Many hirers these days are not on a 12-hour day mission; they're using the boat as vaguely movable air-bnb. They expect all the electrical things to work and don't have the knowledge or motivation to manage a set of batteries and do the off-grid thing. The easiest way for operators to avoid call outs for no lights and beeping fridge in the middle of the night is to specify that the engine must be run 8 or 10 hours every day.
MP.
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- Popular Post
- Popular Post
3 hours ago, Ken X said:I was prodding the solar systems at our local Guide Campsite back into life recently
I always find that Mars and Jupiter are really difficult to start after a long shutdown.
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8 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:
Agreed, below neon strike voltage = no current flow but Loddon is talking about 5v so he is on LEDs or even worse, filament lamps and there certainly will be a current 24/7
It's difficult to conceive of a lamp or LED that will pass enough current to light at 5v, but won't be destroyed by 240v when L and N are actually reversed. I think we need more information.
MP.
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45 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:
If no transformer or galvanic isolator the neutral to earth lamp/neon will certainly put a current through the earth wire which is connected to the hull. So there is a corrosion risk because the neutral will always have a voltage even though it is usually very small.
If the indicator is an actual neon bulb, then it is, to all intents and purposes, an insulator as long as the voltage across it is below the strike voltage, which is about 90v. Using an LED or incandescent lamp instead of a neon would be bad, for the reason you describe. If the neutral earth voltage is above 90v then you really want to know about it.
MP.
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2 hours ago, tree monkey said:
Same in North Wales, we even had a dusting of snow, good job the spuds haven't poked their heads above ground yet.
Today, it's sunny and still. I shall go and inspect the vegetable plot later with crossed fingers.
MP.
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2 hours ago, matty40s said:
Wind is the main problem today, although the rain doesnt help with already full rivers down sarf. The Metoffice might as well bin its named storm system list as we still havnt used the first name this Winter..all have been named by Ireland, Denmark, Holland, France and the Scandanavian met offices.
Ireland hasn't named any either, AFAIK. It's been pretty windy and wet here in County Wicklow today, but my main beef is that it's gone very cold again. We even had sleet briefly. Bring back spring!
MP.
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Flat battery?
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From experience, I'd take a guess at diode failure because it's been working hard. Alternators in boats, especially with LiFePO4 batteries work really hard and hot and the diodes are the first thing to go. It's normally only one though, which makes the alt noisy and reduces power, rather than stopping it completely.
It's worth carrying a spare alternator, they are not very expensive. When you have a failure change to the spare and get the faulty fixed or fix it yourself at leisure.
You can run the engine with the faulty alternator on place and belt fitted, but not if you've remove it and the belt.
MP
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The G&S is dotted with keeper-operated swing bridges. You can move as much as you want at night, but once you get to a swing bridge your boat won't go under, the navigation is effectively closed until there's a worker there to open it. I doubt they've ever been open 24/7, and certainly not in living memory.
MP.
Trent & Mersey locks
in General Boating
Posted
Fradley locks have a strong forward push.
MP.