Steve Buxton

Jim Parkinson from Derby was very good when we needed him to come out to us to sort out a gas problem. 07950 472406. However, the expert for gas water heaters is Paloma Bob - the only problem is you have to send the heater to him and he will service and check it. Ours was turned around in about a week.

Small visitor mooring outside the Ferry Boat pub on the River Trent at Stoke Bardolph. Pub is clearly marked adjacent to the River. Room for one long narrowboat.

Jim Parkinson, Derby. Marine gas registered. 07950 472406

Firearms officer are police officers like all others at the end of the day. They attend RTC's, burglaries, and any other call they are asked to - they don't sit around waiting for a firearms incident. Perhaps it is also in the back of their minds about the fairly recent incident where a CRT chap was killed by a boater with mental health issues.

Worth remembering that Nottingham is on a short stretch of canal, but bounded either side by fairly long stretches of river. Definitely a different experience to a canal :-). Most of the locks downstream of Nottingham have lockies on duty most of the day at this time of year and are large locks, often mechanically operated. Can be a bit daunting when the paddles are fully opened on some. Upstream from Nottingham you have the River Soar, T&M, Erewash all meeting pretty much in the same place. Lots of free mooring on the canal in Nottingham centre, and lots of marinas up and down that stretch of river.

I suppose I should have expected the usual sarcastic replies to a factual statement. If they included those people who had had a licence in the last twelve months, they would pick up those people who had decided not to renew, as well as those like me who only buy the bare minimum licence because of the cost. At this point I imagine I am supposed to post a photo of me with my compo face looking all glum as is normally seen in the free local newspaper sites online.

There is also a problem with the timing of this consultation. I keep my boat in a marina over winter and then licence from 1st April for six months at the moment. I therefore have not had an invite to the consultation as I am not currently a licence holder.

http://www.granthamcanal.org/ Isolated section of the Grantham Canal, just outside Grantham.

The Elsan at Beeston Lock is regularly blocked and out of order. Could it be that the design needs looking at to reduce this? I am not sure how you "educate" people to be more considerate in what they put down the Elsan. Alternatively it could be deliberate vandalism.

Surprisingly quiet on the River Trent at Stoke Bardolph today 28-08-2022

If I had had the radio at the time I would have tried. Obviously there is no guarantee that any one would pick up the call, but in the area of the River Trent where I am there does seem to be quite a number of boaters who use VHF to contact the locks. We have a number of large busy locks nearby and I believe that a number of the larger boats do tend to go downstream onto the tidal sections (I am not brave enough for that yet). It certainly would be worth a try. I imagine that on 90% of inland waterways there would be no real benefit in having a VHF radio.

How can you know what the two "adventures" were? The first was the steering bracket snapping leaving us without steering and control of the engine, and the second was the failure of the propeller on the outboard, leaving us with no power. Not a life threatening emergency but certainly a situation where assistance from another boat would have been extremely useful (and was in the second case). I agree - which is why I went to the trouble of doing the RYA Short Range VHF course and buying a handset (and of course getting a licence).

We have the hasp & staple on the hatch and I try to make sure I fasten the padlock on to the hasp every time we use the boat so it can't accidentally lock us in. At night, the rear doors are fastened by one bolt low down which is impossible? to reach from the outside so I would have said fairly secure. I also have an aerosol horn handy as we use that on the boat anyway.

How do you know what type I am? From one comment which I thought (in my personal opinion) was pompous towards newbies? I have been grateful for some of the advice from experienced boaters on the forum and have said so to them. The course I went on was in a 50 foot + boat, and covered locks, a tunnel, swingbridges and turning in winding holes. Over two days it gave us some badly needed confidence to put into practice on our boat. We still had to learn the basics of how our boat handled differently to the larger boat but the course was a weekend which we enjoyed thoroughly. I don't expect everyone to feel the need to take a course but I am sure there are plenty of boaters out there who should have done.

I would like to think I have a good sense of humour but some of the comments on the forum go beyond that. I am a newbie who has just bought a boat when I reached retirement age.. My wife would have liked to have had one years ago, but both time and finances did not allow. We scraped together enough savings to buy a 23 foot narrowboat built in 1991. As we are based in a marina on the River Trent and have never used a boat of any kind before, we thought it sensible to get some training first. When we are on the river or in locks we always wear lifejackets because I have always been brought up safety first. As I am interested in radio, and have been all my life I decided to buy a handheld radio and get licensed and I can now talk to the lockies on the Trent. We have had two "adventures" in the boat so far where it would have been useful to call for assistance, and I am also wary of the very large pleasure craft that uses the same stretch of river. I don't think any of the above puts me into the category that PD1964 alluded to? And anyway, are those people any less boaters than he is or any of the other newbies on the waterways. Most forums have characters who think they are funny but in the cold light of day their comments turn out to be far from it.