shugie

Or the crew were getting very tired, sometimes it's not an insignificant risk to stand off, especially if a storm is on the way. As they seem to have kept on motoring after being knocked down I'm quite impressed that the engine remained running, big risk of fuel problems when the fuel filter gets tipped on its side.

I drove across Tyle Mill bridge at about 4pm and the river was very high downstream of the lock, but the fields have been flooded for a couple of weeks, and looked to be no deeper than last weekend. If there is a breach it's downstream from there I suspect.

He was unlucky with that wave, but it does show just how stable yachts are (as long as the keel stays put). A big keel does tend to catch the turbulence though, that might have been the reason for the knockdown. If I were skippering in those conditions my crew would be clipped on all the time.

For truly civilised winter boating, a motorbike electrically heated jacket takes some beating, 12V at about 3A, so easy to power. Just rememeber to unplug when getting off to do a lock. Gerbing kit is not cheap, but can be too hot even in biting winter wind, so a controller is more than useful

Once raced against a catamaran called Betty Swallocks. There's lots of boat names in foreign though, bet some of them are rude.

That's most useful, many thanks.

The stoppage is still listed as being from Middlewich Big Lock, are there any plans for open the T&M north of this point before the work is completed?

Would residential moorers be prepared to pay 1/50th of the cost for developing a new marina of 50 berths to get this security of tenure for their berth?

I think marina operators should look very carefully at the mobile home and caravan legislation before contemplating residential moorings. Once there are a significant number of official residential moorers, there will no doubt follow a campaign by some of them to have the same rights as mobile home owners do. Which include very controlled rents, extensive, nigh on permanent, tenancy rights and plenty of obligations on landlords. If I were a marina operator, I'd be thinking along the lines of £n thousand pounds per annum for someone whose mooring fees I can increase as I want, kick off at the end of the agreement, and have no obligations to beyond that in the contract compared with perhaps twice that for all the constraints that come with residential moorings. Only the desperate amongst marina operators are going to want to go down that route. With mobile homes and caravans, the landowners get profit from sales, with boats they can't. Never mind what the councils think of it, I reckon the marina operators won't be interested.

Bit of a history of flooding in that area, I'd not be surprised if the planners stopped any building at all. Being a cynic, I'd suggest the only reason that land is being sold in this way is because no builders wanted it before now.

Been good for our share syndicate, sometimes it's their own engineers, sometimes a local boatyard sub-contracts for them, not always quite so good perhaps. Their accounting seems to struggle with retained membership, but they sort that problem out when brought to their attention.

The amount of energy in the wind over the UK as a whole, taken as an average over time, would limit the maximum amount of power to around 10% of current consumption, irrespective of how many wind turbines you might construct. One of the professional engineering bodies worked that out apparently. As to 18% efficient, that would depend on what measure of efficiency is being used. The most efficient fossil fuel generation is the combined cycle gas turbine and that is approaching 60%.

Some years ago, rules were introduced to control the resale price of electricity. You should not be paying more than the amount each unit costs the marina to supply to you. They can make reasonable charges for the system needed to supply the electricity, and the admin cost of billing, but these must be separate charges, not an addition to the unit cost. You are entitled to ask the marina to show you the bill from their supplier to confirm their cost. If they have overcharged you, in theory you can recover the overcharge plus interest. Info here - http://cfe.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5449/~/my-landlord-bills-me-for-my-gas-and-electricity-consumption.-what-rules-govern

If you paid a £1000 deposit, it would appear that you had formed a contract to buy. If there was a subsequent breach of contract, you can sue for all your losses, possibly including the survey fees, your travelling costs, other related costs and of course the deposit back. Forget the boat, there are loads out there to choose from, find a hungry solicitor and set them on the boatyard.

Maximus, which is owned by a private group, has a fixed double aft, and a midships cabin with either two singles or a double (one of the singles is fixed, the other can be on its own or moved to make the double). Built by JD Boats, and of similar design I believe to some of the other JD Boats craft which are still managed by them I think. There may be a 1/24th share (one fixed week, one winter week) available in the New Year, PM me your contact details if you might be interested. I'm the secretary for the group, and it's not our share, which we've had since 2001.

Tying a rope round the prop shaft could provide a side loading much greater than the propshaft/gearbox and connected gubbins. I'd not want to do that myself. A lot to be said for carrying an inflatable dinghy on the bigger rivers, as well as a VHF, you can use the dinghy to take the anchor out to deep water a lot further then you could hurl it. Whether you can get enough pull without some sort of winch or tackle I'm not sure about. When I've got a yacht stuck I've used a kedge anchor and 6:1 geared spinnaker winch to do the pulling, and even then it was hard work.

So you can pass the BSS.

Can you not claim compo from CART, the hire operators on the canal in Wales that was shut for ages got something from BW?

I hope not, that's a major route to be shut for anywhere near that long. I was hoping to get to the Weaver next Easter (from Stone) but that's looking increasingly unlikely.

I use the Three network as an emergency broadband connection where the primary wired connection has for some reason failed. With a good external aerial, and a decent 3G router, I can sometimes get a service almost as good as a rural broadband connection. It works best in rural areas though, as in towns there tends to be a lot of competition for the bandwidth.

Whenever my kids kick off big time, I get a strong urge to become nomadic, preferably some distance away. If I didn't have kids, I reckon I'd be quite happy living on a boat now. The only problem I could see is that the firearms chappie at Thames Valley Police might not be keen on renewing my licence if he thought I'd gone a wandering. I stay in my van happily enough in the summer, would need some form of heating in the winter, one snowy weekend in Shropshire there was ice on the inside from my breathing out.

Bit of a fan of army surplus stuff myself, bought a goretex jacket about 20 years ago and it's still doing fine duty, some German army waterproof overtrousers and a broad brimmed waterproof hat complete the sartorial inelegance. In winter I use a motorbike heated jacket connected up to the starter battery circuit to keep me warm, always spare power on there once the starter battery is replenished, and 3A is more than enough to keep me toasty even in the snow. For really grim conditions I have some heated gloves too. I'm not into being cold or wet.

They were going to buy the SmartGauge IP or give their money to charity? Perverse way of running a business. We debated buying a Smartgauge for our shared nb, and I put forward the view that we could keep the existing voltmeter and ammeter to give us two pieces of information over time, or get a Smartgauge which measures one piece of information over time but processes that information to produce its output. My view was that the ammeter gives us a much faster indication of problems with the alternator, and provided people check it (a constraint which applies to all instruments) it was better to stay with the voltmeter/ammeter combination. Neither are perfect but then at about £60 for both, they weren't too expensive either.

Wasn't there a spate of "no mooring" notices by the new houses at the foot of the embankment, or am I confused (again)?