Mike the Boilerman

Yes. See Post 329. Don't be a pillock.

So another half a million or so turning up in our hospitals dying of ARDS will hardly be noticed, is that what you're saying?

Anything made from ferro-concrete has a massive drawback which nobody has actually explained so far. Nobody wants them because they fear the 'ferro' bit rusting away. Regardless of the rust status of the steel reinforcing they still have the same mooring fees, insurance and maintenance costs so nobody in their right mind would ever buy one. This means if you already own one, you probably won't even be able to give it away. As scrapping one will cost you an arm and leg in waste disposal costs, the value of most of them is actually negative.

I agree, it's one of those non-problems. Most bearings like that on boats never get greased over the whole life of the boat, I'd bet. I've never seen one fail. Their work is very light duty too, compared to a car wheel bearing.

Perfectly good boats, Springers. Given production stopped back in about 1748, those that are still around tend to be well looked after and in good general nick.

I think Jennifer's story is true. There was an article on BBC R4 two or three weeks ago about training dogs to identify C19 carriers by smell, similar to how they use them for finding drugs. I doubt the BEEB relied on a twitter hoax.

I always thought it was for painting your hammers....

Could you clarify please, is the boat floating at the moment, or is it sunken and sitting on the bottom? Many thanks. And if you could give a general area, there may well be people here who are local and willing to give practical help.

Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? As I understood it, red oxide is a rust inhibiting primer designed for application to bare steel. Is this perhaps a gloss top coat the same colour as red oxide primer?

Surface preparation looks quite onerous. Grit blasting, needle gunning or grinding. As with all paints, proper surface prep is the way to make it stay on! Nice to see a photo on the page of a real life water tank painted in the stuff, rather than glossy images photoshopped to death that tell you nothing.

I agree. There is about an ounce of water scale in 50 litres of hard tap water, desperate to precipitate all over the inside of your engine. You can make you own distilled water by distilling some tap water.... Or canal water!

At least I only bought one!!

Anybody buying a historic boat without a survey is an idiot, I'm sure you'll agree.... how were the surveys on Sickle and Flamingo? My 'good' survey was done a year after I bought it., no doubt you remember really