Helga

Interesting. We started up the Curly Wyrley today from Horseley Fields Junction. Haven't seen another moving boat! The start of the canal was good but plenty of rubbish on the bottom through the residential areas before clearing about a kilometre prior to the M6 bridge. Hopefully we'll make Sainsbury's at Birchill Junction tomorrow and then head up towards Pelsall Junction and then Angelsey Basin. I've had to clear the prop a couple of times and we are also going slowly in an effort to keep the stern high.

From the TLC voltage drop calculator website assuming the distance from the controller to the batteries is 2 metres and the panel output is 400W max. Required Cable Size 6 mm Voltage Drop 0.487 Volts. Percentage Drop 4.1% Current Load 33.3 Amps Max Cable Load* 34.0 Amps

We put cheap supermarket cola down the toilet to remove the uric acid and other 'crud' (leave it overnight and then flush). It has more phosphoric acid than the Leesan cleaner or citric juice. Also use it on the hand basin to remove stains around the plug hole. To keep the tank smelling sweet we use Tesco super value bio liquid laundry.

I assume hire boats are a commercial operation and therefore the hire base will be aable to legally fill their boats with red diesel? If so; then will the hire companies bother to have a separate wite diesel tank installed and at what price will they have to charge for the diesel to recover the capital cost? Or will there just be fewer outlets on the waterways selling white diesel. But at the end of the day isn't this decision about tax revenue. The UK government currently doesn't seem to want to collect it so why is the EU pursuing the issue? I assume it's about "harmonising" the European tax system?

For those people who believe the is no restriction on the amount of data you can download with Three's AYCE data plans please read about Three's 'Trafficsense' program (http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=signal,varset_subcat=3804,Case=obj%284046%29. Three monitors data traffic and don't 'block' your data flow. They 'manage' it if demand is too great. IMHO it means means they throttle it! Once your data useage has triggers 'managing' then; in my experience; you're usually 'throttled' for about 28 days before you get normal data speed back. The more people that take up the AYCE data offers then the more congested the network will become. This will result in more 'managing' of the access by Three's Trafficsense software.

"The One Plan" (SIM Only) appears to be a good deal at £15 per month on a 12 month contract and £18 on a monthly contract (2000 minutes, 5000 text & AYCED). One note of caution. Whilst you can tether a smartphone on the plan and have AYCED, if you use too much data you find instead of the "tap running at pressure it drips". You still have AYCED....... but it's painfully slow because the connection is throttled!

We have a Samsung Galaxy S and I drilled a hole in the back of the phone case to access the external aerial socket. A pigtail lead plugs into it and connects to an Australia outback mobile phone aerial mounted on the roof of the boat. Without the external aerial there is one bar on the phone signal strength icon. There are all five bars when connected to the external aerial. The only issue I had fitting the system was obtaining the pigtail lead. The supplier was in Australia!

I have a 2000MV and I believe you will find the 4.2kw is the total heat output from the Refleks. When I spoke to Lockgate I was informed the water heating part of the unit could produce a maximum of 1.7kw

My understanding is the person/company who is the principal builder is responsible for the CIN. If you purchased a sailway then the hull manufacturer probably provided a Declaration of Conformity for the hull. The person/company who fitted out the hull (ie, completed the boat) is responsible for the CIN.

It's interesting that the people who have installed the system on their boats (Nick & myself) think it's really great. Yet many of those who don't have serious reservations! I find fault finding very easy. A small LED illuminates on the circuit that has a fault. Press two buttons and the digital fuse is reset. The system can control almost any 12v device (using a relay if necessary). Yes.... there is an element of it being a "boys toy". It's the flexibility to reconfigure the system by modifying the software configuration file I really enjoy. No wiring to physically change.... just press a few buttons on the laptop! The boatyard manager is going to have to prise the usb dongle from my cold, dead hand :-) Oh, and if I need to add any new devices into the boat all I need do is run the wire to the nearest Empirbus node rather than the DC switchboard (There isn't one on our boat) Don't get me started on the remote key fob or text communication via the GSM module.

Oh... and yours appears to be an argumentum ad hominem

Paul, Jan took a few photo's of today's arrival which will be included on tomorrows blog post!

I have a Samsung Galaxy S1 (SGS) and my plan is with 3 Mobile. PAYG £15p/mth (300mins, 3000 text, unlimited data). I leave the SGS in "tethered" mode on the boat and it acts as a wireless router throughout the boat. My wireless network is password protected. Linked in the network are laptop, netbook, iPad iTouch, NMT, and printer. Even though I have the SGS tethered I can also simultaneously use it for voice and text. My d/l speed reaches a max of 460K/b/s. I usually leave the phone connected to the 240v charger as tethering does tend to flatten the phone battery after a couple of hours when used continuously. If I leave the boat I turn off tethering to save battery power.

Can a business knowingly trade whilst insolvent and does this make the directors personally liable for the debits?

I have deliberately created a time "lag" between what I write publicly here (and on our blog) and our current actions. As far as we are concerned we're nowhere near the end of this - not even near the middle. All options are on the table! I will say we're not looking for a pyrrhic victory. The directors must have assets to make it worth the cost. The insolvency expert we contacted on arrival in the UK looked at the financial records in Companies House and advised Ben Harp Narrowboat Builders Ltd was trading whilst insolvent in 2009, 2010 and probably 2011. Oh, I made a copy of all the information on their website two months ago!

That's exactly what the High Court judge said. There was nothing in the contract that enabled them to claim damages! However the builders were very selective about the contents of the contract and ignored anything they didn't like! You can only sue the company rather than individuals. The company is limited liability and basically has no assets so you could sue and win but failed to get any money or have your legal expenses reimbursed. Don't be put off a new build. The vast majority of boat builders are very honest and love what they are doing. Don't make payments in advance and employ a surveyor to check the quality of the work. Part of our problem was unique to us because we were attempting to have the boat built from the far side of the world. If we had been in the UK we would have been visiting far more frequently and been able to minimise our loss.

Condensed version We were in australia and had paid £81,000. Delivery date was Feburary. Our surveyor wasn't able to visit the boat when it was in the Harp's possession. In April the Harp's claimed £91,000 had been spent on the boat (75% complete). We offered to pay the additional £10,000, plus interest, if our surveyor could visit and confirm the boat was 75% complete. They refused and demanded a further £18,000 in damages, etc. We went to our solicitors. Harp's told our solicitor they wanted £20,000 plus a confidentiality clause to release the boat. Harps then ignored all the High Court orders and told our solicitors they had already sold our boat. At the same time they were stripping and modifying it to sell as a sailway. We then got a High Court order to seize the boat before they could sell it. Then the boat was maliciously damaged in few days between the final court order and when we collected it. In two days I'll post on our blog about the six other "victims" I have identified to date!

Red Indians were actualy honest. It's the europeans who cheated them out of everything they owned. This rogue builder strikes me as being particularly dishonest! I think the best Dank can do is publicise their name to allow others not to be cheated. It is Ben Harp Narrowboats??

I think the OP means this link <click here> I'm not a lawyer but I think you need to consider the amount of money involved and the likelihood of success. I suggest there are three options. 1. Lick your wounds and accept it as an experience you'd rather forget 2. Scream "foul" from the rooftop so the publicity hurts the builder to the point where they are prepared to negotiate a mutually acceptable solution. 3. Employ a legal firm to sue for recovery of damages. After reading your comments in your original post it appears the builder just ignored you, so opinion 2 may not work. Although it might depend upon how hard you have hurt their reputation to date. If you have an independent status report of the completed boat then that is likely to be evidence which could be produced in court to support any claim for recovery of remedial costs. However you would need to be owed a substancial sum and be confident of winning before I would employ solicitors. The initial cost is likely to be around £3000 and climb very rapidly. Will there be enough money in the company to pay you should you win?

I think one of the problems is you have very few practical rights when involved with unscrupulous builders who simply ignore your complaints about sub-standard work; or work not completed to the specification. The OP probably doesn’t have any legal recourse to the shell builder as he (the OP) would have had a contract with Ben Harp. If there was a problem with the shell then Ben Harp would have had the contract with Bluewater and should have rectified it. However from what has been written here it appears the vast majority of the substandard work has been completed by Ben Harp. Reading the OP's earlier posts it appears he waited....(and waited) for the defects to be rectified before being ordered off the premises. As for a “No win – No Fee” legal challenge; that only works with a major company who doesn’t want to pay the legal expenses of defending themselves as it’s cheaper to payout. No law firm is going to offer this option to take on a small limited liability company that can close today and open tomorrow with a new name! Most small limited liability companies aren’t worth pursuing for money (they don’t have much in the way of assets). The best that can be done is to ensure potential customers are aware of their unsavoury practices.

I'm also on 3 and have both a Samsung Galaxy S which can be used as a wireless router access point and a Zoom wireless router with a Huawei e169 dongle and an external aerial. After connecting using the laptop to the Samsung via wireless I get the following results from SpeedNet ping 238 DL 0.35 UL 0.28 Using the Zoom and e169 and aerial I get ping 219 DL 0.62 UL 0.37 Plug the e169 and external aerial directly into the laptop (ie, no wireless) I get ping 197 DL 4.29 UL 0.33 If I remove the external aerial from the dongle I get ping 183 DL 4.38 UL 0.33 I ran the test multiple times for each setup What I found interesting was the best signal came from the e169 dongle being plugged directly into the laptop without the external aerial. The Zoom and Samsung wiressless connections were poor.