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But it's all alright, because we can just borrow more money to import food. And I suppose whenever that dries up, we will just have to take to eating boat moorings...

It all depends what you use your boat for. I suspect my fuel consumption varies little if the engine is turning the prop or not, especially on long pounds like my "home level" (Macclesfield summit). However, if my batteries are almost charged, then there will be little power going to the alternator. Most of the energy used in reality will be in keeping the engine bay warm, a function that I do not desire, but cannot avoid. Hence it is probably fair and realistic to assume that the diesel being used when the prop is engauged is 100% propulsion diesel, and that when it is out of gear as 100% home diesel... Fit a travel power, and a calorifiyer, have a thirsty modern high reving engine, and maybe things will change somewhat.

Providing rebated white for domestic use is never going to happen... its safe to bet HMRC would be investigating a lot of boaters to see if they were capable of burning the quanties of white claimed if they left their engines running 24/7/365. The whole point of red is that its marked so you can't sneak rebated oil into your car. The complication that has just been introduced is more or less unique to canals, - as far as I know we are the only users who are allowed to use red as full duty fuel (which the current arrangements basically allow for).

It all depends where you are. I use internet banking, I wouldn't want it to be able to stay logged in, if someone got the password they might pay off the boat loan while I wasn't looking. :-) I regard the risk of my being hijacked on here as much less. I regard having to log in as a bit of a pain. Most forums let you stay logged in forever. Worst case - someone will discover my low security "forums" password which I olny use for stuff that doesn't matter. They could then post drivel under my name that wasn't by me. I might get a red face, or even a telling off from a moderator if I had been really careless and/or the drivel was offensive, but none of these seem to be massive issues... Back to the techincal side of things. Here, all three devices I regularly use (work PC, phone, friends PC) refuse to stay logged in. Its not a cookies issue, all three machines handle cookies from other sites fine, and I've tried clearling them on one device to no avail. Does anyone on here manage to stay logged in, and accesses the site from more than one device?

Maybe you have a point. That said, why invent a system so open to "abuse" when they could just insist it was all taxed, and that would be the end of it... I would imagine that the 43p decision was just for simplicity, as it brings all propulsion fuel into line with road fuel.

Very true. The last bit of discusion was regarding the use of white as propulsion fuel as it is normally cheeper than red + duty. The point I was making is that the current percentage in a tank will not be likely to represent the declaration made when it was last filled, even if it was filled by the book.

I don't like to question your motives, but new poster, first post on this topic... do you have a vested interest perchance?

Ice on the Macc has been up to about an inch at the thicker parts. Some of it had cleared today, but I expect it will be solid again tomorrow morning. Given the effort it took to smash the stuff to move the boat, I think it would have been possible to walk on on Sunday, but I'm not in a hurry to be the first person to fall through, so I didn't try the experiment.

Its is almost certain that they could detect the percentage red/white in a tank with reasonable accuracy. Rather harder work for them is to prove that the current contents of the tank are representative. --- Say my boat has a 100L tank. When the rules changed it had 50L in, all red. I then burn 40L, leaving 10L, of red. I put in 20L of white, 20L of red. I tell HMRC that I'm on 50%/50% duty split,. Total tank contents now 50L, at 40%white, 60% red. (I.e. not the declared percentage) --- Same boat, same tank, same intial 50L red. I put in 20L of white, 20L of red. I tell HMRC that I'm on 50%/50% duty split. I burn 40L. I will have a tank containing 22% white, 78% red. (Not the declared percentage either) --- This all assumes that the white mixes evenly with the red (which can't be taken as read). Its possible that on a boat that doesn't move much, the fuel will layer off, and one will be burnt before the other. I can't see HMRC getting far in court on a percentage reading of the current tank, based on the above, especially if the other main plank of the arugment is that I may have burnt the diesel I have recipted in my car. I think they would need rather more proof than that. HOWEVER, knowing HRMC they might well have confiscated the boat, car etc some time before it got to court, and the arguments would be more about compensation. All the above not withstanding, I personally belive that HRMC don't give a toss, and have devised the current set of rules in order that boating can continue pretty much as before, but in principle they are complying with the EU directive.

I stuck 40L of red in yesterday, and declared 0% prop, as a) most of my fuel goes on static battery charging, and I have been putting white in at intervals and keeping the recipts. My real use is probably greater than 20%/80% in favour of domestic, and so far I've put closer to 50/50 white / red in the thing...

I live on and single hand a 31'er IMHO This is about as small as can be lived on without going mental. I've never single handed bigger boats, so I can't comment on that aspect of things. One distinct virtue of a short boat is that it is easy to wind one your own, without needing an assistant in the bows to fend off... (I accept that some experts can probably wind very long boats unaided without making mistakes, but I'm not at that level myself)

Yours truely had to move his boat a short distance in the ice yesterday. Being on my own, I stuck her in gear at tickover then headed to the bow with my "fending off" pole. By tactically smashing the ice in the direction I wanted to go, I found that some sort of rather slow but controled movement could be managed, but its hard on the arms. Coal boat came past yesterday out on the main cut (I was in a boatyard basin, and in the way to boot, hence the movement), he seemed to be doing fine on a open her up well, and smash your way through aproach. I don't know how many sunken GRP boats he left behind him mind you...

One does have to bear in mind that NRW is the "daily mail" take on waterways news. Leaving that asside, there does seem to be a valid point being made in this feature.

If I was in your shoes, I would want to know why your employer didn't provide propper washing facilities at work. I think most people would accept that: a)Engines shouldn't be run after 8pm, b)There can be exceptional cuircumstances, which can justify running an engine outside these hours. About a week into boat ownership I returned from work at about 10.30pm to find the boat full of water, and the batteries almost flat. A pressure side joint on the water system had failed, and I had foolishly left the water pump on. Result - the totally full water tank draining into the cabin bilge(and it was so full it it was above floor level at the back). In order to sort it out, I needed engine power, as the battery's were pretty flat from running the water pump all day, and they wouldn't have run my pump and cabin lights for very long without wrecking them. I explained to my neigbours afterwards and appolgised for having to run an engine at that sort of time, and I don't think they felt that I was being unreasonable...

I've an sr2 with a similar setup. You don't need a funnel - normally the exit is just a skin fitting in the counter a bit above the water line. For fitting a new system I would try a small lorry silencer and some flexi pipe to connect it all up.

New bottom and a small patch to one side of my boat came to £2200. Thats for a 31' boat.

Bw are putting up a replacement for the retaining wall that fell down in March. Word on the cut is that they are intending on starting work on monday, but I think most people expect then to finish ahead of the deadline.

Sounds like she was a cloud then - the only question is which one. Does anyone have a list of rugbys fleet with the lenghts and names, as then I could make an inspired guess if nothing else. If I can identify the original name, that will be reunited with her, as I don't really like 'BLUEBELL'.

Wow thanks for that - it explains a fair bit of her history. I've a picture of her in that Blue and red paint - looking rather tidy. Maybe the picture is older than I thought. Did Inland Marine buy their boats new, or is it possible that she was second hand to them, having been in Rugby's hire fleet.

I suspect that it is safe to to use Kerosene in some diesel engines. It all depends on the design of the fuel pump. Like with SVO, I would stay clear of using iffy stuff in Lucas-CAV DP* series pumps, as they are very fuss about lubrication. Incidentally, Rover developed the one of the first multifuel engines in the late 1950s - one of the few prototypes also ended up as one of the very first turbodiesels used in a vehicle, when it was fitted with a turbo as a power plant for an experimental miliary lorry in the early 1970s (IIRC). The mulitfuel project was scrapped, but the engine formed the basis of the 2.25 series of petrol and diesel engines fitted to landrovers since 1957. The final incarnation of this long lived engine was the 300tdi, which ceased production in 1998, when it was replaced due to emission concerns. A 2.25D will run on petrol for a short period, but the diffferent combustion properties rapidly destroy the injector nozzles. They runs fine on a petrol/disesel mix that is mostly diesel, as some owners have used to their advantage - its often avalable for free when idots have put the wrong fuel in their car's and have had to drain the fuel tanks...

One question about a smart gauge - can you clear its memory to "start again". Given that a boat's batteries only last so long, and when they die, the new set will be totally different, does it take a smartgauge a while to get used to new batteries, or does it reset in some way, automatic or manual. I ask as one whose current battery monitoring consists of a voltmeter wired to a plug, and whose cabin batteries are currently cheepo starter batteries. Should I have any spare cash sloshing about at some point, I'm tempted to fit a Smart gauge, as it will probably either save me diesel or batteries (or maybe both). I'm keeping the starter batteries till they die, on the grounds that I've no other use for them, but when they go, I'll replace them with somthing actually intended for leisure use (I know thats another whole can of worms, but I'll leave that till the current set pack up).

I agree that morally the owner should pay for the cost of doing somthing with it. In exactly the same way as people who flytip should clear up what they dump. However, in reality, you can't always find the owners of unlicenced boats, and you can't find the people who fly tip. Hence local councils have a duty to clear up rubbish dumped in laybys, and BW have a duty to deal with abandoned boats. What would you rather - BW dealt with them, or the towpath be lined with every valueless boat that no-one wants...

Have you tried just phoning the local BW office, and asking them? If its on a Section 8, I belive that it would normally be auctioned if worth over £1000, or otherwise scrapped, but if your lucky a sensible offer to BW to take it away and make it legal might succeed.

If I was in BW's position on that particular boat I would value it at under £1000 (its basically scrap, and the owner has done a runner owing everyone money). Having done so, I would section 8 and probably then pay the boatyard oposite to float into their dock and cut it up. The owner has disapeared off into sunset, (he owes the boatyard money as well as BW), no-one else wants the boat as its so rotten the hull isn't repairable, its scrap value is less than the cost of scrapping, so as far as I can see it will sit there until BW remove it. Doubless they will arrange for its scrapping eventually, but if their current disinterest is anything to go by, I can't see the unlicenced livaboards suffering much.