alan_fincher

Frankly "people on the towpath" are not too reliable. We are regularly told that Sickle has a great sounding engine, and several times I have been asked if it is a Bolinder(!) It is actually a 1963 built Lister HA3....................

Fair enough, but that is how our local moorings manager explained it to me. For example we have CRT Cow Roast offside moorings, which are secured behind a locked gate, and where price per metre is higher than local CRT long term moorings on the towpath side. If an EOG perrmit was created close to Cow Roast, I was told the 50% price would not make reference to it. Yes, I think there is a degree of that about it!

Well yes, obviously to the extent that the 1800 has biigger bores to give bigger capacity, (stroke remains ther same between the two types, from memory. But I thoght physically in size they were more or less identical? Have there not been discussions that in some cases you can fit the head from one type to the other type? That said, I would suggest that what Tony Brooks has said about the differences will be spot on - I doubt anybody knows more about these engines in boat use than he does. Another consideration might be that I think, in general, parts for the 1800 are a bit easier than the older 1500s. b There certainly seem to be a few 1500 parts that some people find hard to source.

Actually being really pedantic, I think it is based on 50% of the standard "list" price for CRT unsecure towpath moorings. If the nearest CRT online moorings were, for example, offside, and more secure, they would likely have a higher published price, and would not be used as a basis for working out the EOG rate. When iI went into this in our area, though CRT had a recorded EOG rate for many of the local sites where it applies, and none were ever exactly 50% of the price for any local CRT towpath based moorings. Close, but never 50%, so however they work it out, it was never pick a site and half it, even though that is how they suggest itr is done, (unless they are just crap at arithmetic!).

Oh, what a terrible shame.

This prompts much disagreement, but I would not want to try getting a truly 60 foot long narrow boat through the shortest locks on the Calder & Hebble. (From memory I think the shortest are at Salterhebble, but guess someone will say otherwise!). Someone has assured me they got a 59 foot though tackling some locks backwards, but we saw cases where two (claimed) 57 foot boats had shared a lock, and neither exit gate could then be opened. (They had had to re-empty the lock, reverse one boat out, then take both through singly). I'm not saying 60 feet is impossible, and things like bow shape or stern shape might subtly change the geometry, but I certainly wouldn't even try!

These are wonderful things - I always lusted after them when new, and I still love to see them now. Why care whether it is vintage/veteran/classic - they just make a great narrow boat engine. Far more sensible in my view than some lumbering great Gardner or Kelvin that is at least twice as powrful as is sensible in the boat involved.

Yes, my thoughts exactly - at least we can agree on that!

None of the following apply to a boat powered by a diesel.... And the following is advisory only, so anything the examiner picks upon here should only result in a warning notice being issued, not in an overall failure. I challenge anybody who can find anything about CE marking, or not replacing an existing fridge to find a current BSS source that supports that.

I don't think Carl is on the forum a great deal at the moment, but you have quoted a post well over 8 years old. Unfortunately one of the boats, (the Uxbridge motor) has not survived, and the Nurser butty "Lucy" has been retrieved and is undergoing a full "rebuild", (I'm not sure of the technically correct term), that should eventually result in a boat that is largely all new wood around the original ironwork. I was going to link to www.phobox.com/lucy, which used to show history of the boat, and rstoration details, but that page seems to have gone AWOL.and I can't find a replacement.

But it is still B***cks isn't it? What he has said is..... If CE marking was a requirement, an existing installed fridge is no more likely to have such marking than a replacement or a new fit, is it? Surely if a "few BSS bods" are going to make such a decision, there must be something in the regs or testing requirements that says so - as far as I'm aware there is not. Do you know if he challenged the decision with the BSS office? Multiple examiners passed our old boat's fairly geriatric one without question, and the "new" boat has a much more modern one, as well as a BSS pass.

[devils_advocate_mode] And if you don't have solar, installing (or retaining) a gas fridge avoids the "faff" and expense of installing solar...... It is not hard to operate a gas fridge at sensible temperatures irrespective of the ambient temperature around it, in my experience. I'm in no way anti 12 volt fridges if you can genuinely power them more or less exclusively from solar capacity, but many people can't and end up with large amounts of generator or engine running just to provide the amp hours to stop the fridge trashing their battery bank. It is often quite likely that this costs far more in fuel than the gas consumed by a gas fridge.

I think they still said similar in the 1960s and 1970s where really gas fridges were the only option back then. AFAIK, the non balanced flue models have never been approved by the manufacturers for use in boats. That is different from whether the BSS regulations allow them to be fitted - if it is a private boat, then they do, (there are different BSS rules if it were a hire boat, though).

No, given it claims to be a 2014 article, the following is total b***cks..... Nick Wall really should know better, but it does establish just how out of touch these magazine people can be, and still publish stuff as "fact", which it most definitely is not.

I can't immediately see anything on the Halfords web-site that shows any across the board discount on engine oils. This oil, Halfords Classic 20W/50, is one that can reasonably be used in many older narrow boat engines, such as BMCs, but is not listing as having any discount, and is hence not particularly great value.

I personally would recommend avoiding the use of grey roof/deck paints by Hempel, (formerly Blakes). We were recommended to use this on our last boat, but despite careful preparation back to the steel, and careful application of many coats it proved to be not at all hard wearing, and far too easily damaged. I know a roof is a problem area, but this paint seemed particularly non durable.

(Sorry for thread derail, but it is a very old one! :lol) But as a result "Sickle" worked for its living from 1936 until 2000, (about 64 years maximum). "Flamingo" was one of the very last working narrow boats working on regular long distance carrying, but, (unless you count her subsequent career carrying people as a trip boat), worked only 1936 until 1970 , (about 34 years maximum). So "Sickle" was actually a "working boat" nearly twice as long as many that now are described as "ex working boat". It depends how you choose to view it, I guess! I actually think it is about as "historic" as you get, having been converted for use as an icebreaker as a very important part of trying to keep canals open throughout the Second World War.

Many ex working boats have now carried cabin conversions for far more years than they worked as carrying boats, (typically a boat nearly 80 years old now only carried for about 30 years), so conversion is in many cases the most major part of their life and evolution. There is a feeling that far too many have interesting conversion that they have carried since the 1960s or 1970s ripped off, just to create yet another boat with an original look. Personally I would not convert a working boat that had not been, but equally I am very happy to finally manage to have bought one with a conversion on. (Not easy - they are becoming very hard to find on the open market). Here's my converted one tied up outside of my (never) converted one - the best of both worlds, but not a cheap way of owning narrow boats!

And conversely, although this footage concentrates on it, by no means all those living rough on or near London canals, (or indeed the canals of other major cities), will be immigrants. It's hardly a new phenomenon, although I'm not for a moment challenging that it is undoubtedly increasingly common. I feel certain though that many of the policies being pursued by our current government will guarantee it is not just the immigrant component of those living rough that will be on the increase. I fear they will be putting spikes under the "best" bridges and arches soon, to make sleeping there impossible.

Fine words, and I love unconverted, (or even de-converted) former working narrow boats. However the type of owner who can afford to pay the costs associated with up to 72 feet of (maybe) 80 year old boat, but only benefit from 8 feet of living space is hardly your typical current day leisure boat owner, and it would be impossible to find enough owners for all surviving working boats if it were decreed they all had to be put back to original appearance. What is you view on unconverted non powered butty boats - rapidly getting a far rarer beast than the powered motor "equivalent"? They are still being cut in half to form two motor boats, so would you be prepared to put your money where your mouth is, and take one on to save it from that outcome? Unless that has already occurred, the butty "Lyra", (a relatively rare "Small Northwich"), briefly owned by my late brother faced this threat - it would be great to see it back in use as an unconverted boat, but I'm afraid I fear the worse.

Yeah but..... It appears that it was a long way from restored for the TV series, as it then went on to have fairly massive amounts of hull work done by Dave Thomas at Braunston after wards. The "surprising" bit is that before all that further hull work was done, it had already been on the market being marketed for a figure something like (from memory!) £145K.