Golden Duck

50p a Litre at Broxbourne Boatyard on the River Lee

The Crown at Broxbourne is nice with a deck area so you can eat outside and a mooring just outside the pub. The Fish and Eels at Dobbs Weir is good. The Old English Gentlemen at Waltham Abbey is now closed and derelict. The Harlow Mill at the Harlow Mill Lock is a Beefeater and okay for a nights mooring. Its worth tying up at the Sawbridgeworth Visitors Moorings (use pins) for the night as the village has quite a few good pubs (traditional style). The Three Horseshoes do a good meal a few hundred metres from Spellbrook Lock. IMHO the Moorhen at Harlow isn't worth a look and mooring is difficult as there are a lot of boats tied up outside usually. I wouldn't recommend mooring in Bishops Stortford overnight due to the night clubs and late night revellers. The Old Barge in Hertford is an old pub with good beers. We normally moor by the allotments just outside the town. Hope this helps.

A friend of mine has just acquired a second hand boat and she is fitted with a solid fuel stove. The glass in the door is very dirty. What kind of cleaner would you recommend to get it clean without scratching the glass ?

We were here last Summer and think the first is Cumberland Basin as shown in our photo below: The canal runs from left to right of this photo - the camera is facing up the basin and towards a dead-end.

Here we go:

Sounds like her - the low headroom and horizontal wheel is spot-on. I'll get a photo this evening. Unfortunately, he is rarely there when I go past as he could probably tell us a lot more about her history.

Friends of mine have just purchased their first, own narrowboat (they had a 1/4 share before). When they got involved with the first one, we bought them a readymade log book from a chandler as a "welcome to your new boat" gift and they kept a very detailed record of their cruises in it for several seasons. Now they have the new boat, I looked around again but was not very impressed with what was on the market in terms of ready-made logs. So I decided to produce my own. We already have a PC-produced one for Golden Duck as it enables us to custom-make the record to our own requirements. I spent most of the afternoon making it and it has the following: - Hard Cover Binder with loose leaf format so it never gets full - Space for times and descriptive text - columns for miles run, engine hours and locks worked, plus cumulative totals and carry overs to the next page. - Customised pages with the boats name on every page. - A presentation front cover with the boats name, a good luck inscription and a photograph - A CD attached to the inside cover, containing a PDF file of the expansion pages so that they can print off pages to add as the log fills up. I hope they like it. I'm tempted to update the GD's log now to take advantage of the improvements !

If I post a photo of the barge, would you recognise it after so long ? I don't know what a Katwijker barge looks like. She must be quite old and it has taken him some time to get her as far as he has. The steering is not unlike that of a steam traction engine.

Our HIN plate is a combined HIN and CE plate and is located on the inside of the boat on the hatchway coaming. I was told today that RCD boats should have this number marked twice on a boat; firstly on the plate and secondly somewhere else hidden on the boat. The person telling me this indicated that the "hidden" one is stamped into the steel somewhere so that it cannot be easily removed. I don't recall seeing this, but haven't really known about it until now. Any idea where the number is usually located ?

With it being the summer and everybody out and about on the canal, we just wonder if it is feasible to have some form of notice board facility on the forum so that people (boats) can post their expected trip and timeframe, so that other boats can look out for them. We've noticed one or two members publishing their much anticipated trip as an individual post, but it would be so much more useful if these traffic movements could be kept in the same place and in some kind of order, so that other members can look out for them or warn them if they know of any stoppages or problems en-route. We know that this is probably some members' idea of hell, but judging by the posts we've seen, there must be some demand.

I saw Annies Launch going back on to her new berth the other night and I noticed the KG on the side - I think she's one of theirs !

I was chatting to our local blacksmith who is refurbishing an old barge downriver a way. I remarked on the lovely sound of his engine which sounded a bit like a Bolinder. He said the engine was a single cylinder model called a D-Industrial. He couldn't find a manual for it but managed to get it working anyway - it certainly sounded wonderful. Anybody know anymore about the D-Industrial ?? We still have the NB Fulbourne moored opposite (see Gallery) and she has a National engine.

Does anybody have an Eberspacher that is working faultlessly on red diesel ? I have seen many of you posting with problems and understandably so, but are we only hearing from those with problems - in other words, are there people out there in boat land with Eberspachers that run okay on red ?? We have a Webasto which works fine, but it is not being used every day, so I guess that doesn't mean much. Has any liveaboard had problems with a Webasto in the same way as those with Ebers ??

Hi Emer, We have one. In essence its an AC generator attached by belt to the engine. It was once described to me as a "strap-on generator" !!! The unit on the engine looks like a large alternator. The electronics box is a silver bulkhead mounted unit with a switch and a LED light. It effectively produces 230V mains when the engine is running. It won't charge the battery as such but it can produce a mains supply to drive your charger, which will of course charge the batteries. However, if your engine is running, then your alternator will also be doing that at DC ?? I suggest you quiz your builder about how they are wiring it up so that you understand how the two things are inter-related. Our drawings are pretty pants so we still cannot fully understand if there is some form of interlock to stop the batteries being charged by both simultaneously which doesn't sound very healthy. We use our Electrolux Travel Power (the proper name I think) to drive the washing machine and tumble dryer when needed. When we switch it on, the green light comes on and if we have an electric kettle on, you can hear the engine pitch change with the load. If you push the rocker switch the other way, the light goes out and the engine breathes a sigh of relief Hope this helps.

11'2" beam. Its amazing how the memory plays tricks. I hauled the seats up to reveal the thruster hydraulic motor and as you can see, its situated nearly midships. Our thruster is a long way forward and the tunnel is probably only about 6-7ft across - see below Heres a close up:

Thought you or anybody else looking at getting an anchor might be interested in these shots of our anchor: We have a securing point for our anchor although we use the dollies or tee stud as a friction brake: We also have a shackle and Thimble arrangement where the warp meets the chain: On a totally different subject, we had an interesting neighbour this evening:

I would have thought weld a plate over the hole and then apply some protective coatings of paint on the outside and blacking on the inside to stop corrosion. You should be able to reach the inside with a brush on a long stick. Do Vetus do pre-made blanking plates that fit the mounting holes - I believe our maker which is Nobels does ? Alternatively, it might be useful having an access panel there ??? We have the Nobels Hydraulic unit on our widebeam and we have the prop mounted just slightly to the left of the centreline, but there is no shearpin and the prop is metal.

In essence if you have RCD documentation from the builder of the sailaway and will fit the boat out in compliance with RCD, then you wouldnt need to do the BSC for four years. If you do not intend to do this, you would need to put the boat through the BSC and then have her retested every four years thereafter. If you don't comply with RCD, you cannot legally sell the boat for 5 years. Didn't BW ask for any certification when they issued with a licence ?

Are you coming up the Lee into the Stort ? If you need any assistance, we are moored in Harlow near Burnt Mill Lock.

Widebeams are more expensive, generally slower, harder to manoeuvre and sometimes more difficult to find moorings for. However, if you don't want to tour the whole network, they are much more comfortable to live in and less claustrophobic in the winter.

Yes, any time.. We have just the job for you... Its not what you think. We think a cleaner tried to flush a J-cloth down the toilet then emptied her mop bucket in it.

Les, We operate a 56ft widebeam over on the River Stort. She has a Beta 50HP engine and the engine is driving a travelpower 230V alternator, a normal DC alternator and a PTO for a hydraulic bow thruster. We wouldn't feel confident taking the boat on tidal water with this set-up - the boat has enough power for canal use, but we don't think enough to punch a tide if the tide started to turn on us at the end of a tidal trip like the Thames. The point we are making is that we feel it depends on what power sapping devices you hang on the engine in addition to the prop shaft.

We have a wet room, mainly for accessibility reasons, but its very easy to keep clean.

I am struggling to get my head around the specification for cables for building a new narrowboat these days and conforming to all the latest regs like the RCD. What is the difference between strand cable and braided cables ?? For DC supplies, I read on the forum that tri-power is frowned upon. Why ? it is not a solid conductor and appears to be formed of many strands. Cables offered by chandlers is also stranded although it appears to have more strands than tri-power ? How many strands do you need to be compliant ? With AC cable, I understand that household mains cable like the type used on ring mains is frowned upon, but so is flex as is used between 13A plugs and appliances in a house. So, what cable should you use for AC circuits on a boat. It would be much useful if the authorities, instead of saying we don't approve of this and this might be a problem, could actually accept cable to a specific specification or BS standard. At least it would then be clear for everybody. It must make it very difficult for people trying to fit out sailaways and comply with the RCD.