Jen-in-Wellies

When one of the oil tanker barges is heading from Goole to Rotherham, loaded up, if you are moored on the route, you can feel your boat lurch against its mooring lines many minutes before the tanker arrives. 600 plus tons and drawing 7 feet.

Narrowbarge?! Looks nice anyway. We have wide beam narrowboats, so why not a narrow barge. Much prettier than most canal fatties.

Nope. It is what the packet and fast passenger boats used to use to travel at ten to twelve mph down a canal, drawn by a team of horses. Once the wave was established, the boat could ride it with little effort. Any boats that got in the way had their tow ropes cut by a sword mounted on the bow.

Soliton waves were first noticed on a canal. The maths is gnarly and well beyond me these days. Jen

How many locks in total do CaRT have? I can't seem to find that number and I can't be bothered to tot them all up. Most broad locks have 4 leaves, most narrow have three, with some having four. Some wide are guillotine at one end and there are flood gates and other oddities too, so shall we say an average of 3.5 leaves per lock? If gates last 25 years, then BW's steady state replacement rate of 300 leaves per annum says there are around 2,142 locks in the CaRT controlled system. CaRT are replacing them at just over a third that rate, so are expecting 63 years out of oak lock gates! The oak timbers on the Mary Rose lasted nearly 500 years by being buried in mud. Is this why CaRT are cutting back on dredging too? ? Jen

^^^^ This. I don't trust current figures for mains input printed on a gadget, or in the destruction manual. They are extreme, or transient conditions. For steady state, I'd stick a plug in power meter on and get some real time measurements.

I used to think vinyl would be replaced by CD's. Just goes to show. Jen?

Or when CaRT fill the canals in and turn them in to cycle tracks. We haven't been of much help to @rodlloyd in coming up with a solution to the problem of mooring a centre cockpit boat. I think it is going to be very tricky to do on shallow canals, without a crewmember with a rope at either the bow, or the stern, ready to step on to the bank and pull the boat in. One of the reasons why centre cockpit craft never became that popular on the cut. Jen

Vikings didn't bother building canals. They just carried, or pushed their ship over the land to reach the next bit of natural water.

IT is why I said chances are you won't need them. Not 100%. I didn't recommend not using them. I just said your chances of a leak without are low. In the OP's case, where he was mixing a pipe from one manufacturer with a fitting from another in a cold water feed, where of the two joints, one side is unpressurised, this is not a risky thing to do. I had never tried using speedfit ferrules on Hep2o pipe, so couldn't say if it would work or not. You have, so could. Jen

If you are absolutely set on having inserts, then that should work I reckon. Bit of FrankenPlumbing. Hep2o insert with Speedfit fitting! Jen

Hep2o as @Boater Sam says. The outside diameter of the pipe is 15mm, same as Speedfit. You can put Speedfit push fit fittings on Hep2o pipe just fine without inserts, provided the pipe has no scores, or damage to the outside. The inserts to go inside the pipe are a bit of a belt and braces thing. Chances are you won't need them and everything will be fine. The inserts are to suit a particular inside diameter of pipe and there may be a difference between Speedfit and Hep2o. I don't know. Hep2o changed its design completely at some point. I can't tell if these are old style, or new style Hep20. If it was me, I'd just push the Speedfit flexi connectors on the Hep2o pipe without an insert. jen

Was it a good idea of Victron's to name a line of electrical equipment after a mythical bird that bursts in to flames? ?

The Environment Agency always drain the Thames down if cold weather is forecast. It is much cheaper than leaving the immersion heater on all Winter. The threat of ice expansion cracking the river bank isn't worth the risk of leaving the river full during a frost.

Another possibility could be a boat in the north east of the inland network. The river Trent from Nottingham down is all powered locks. The Fossdyke will take you in to Lincoln. From there, it is two locks to Boston, only one of which is entirely manual. A boat able to handle tidal estuaries can cross the Wash to enter the Nene, Middle Levels, Cam etc. At the other end of the Trent, you can reach the Yorkshire waterways. Again, sea going capability gives access to various waterways off the Humber. The Stainforth and Keadby is a problem, with one manual lock and several manual swing bridges, but if you can get past them, or go in via the Ouse to Goole, or Selby, there is miles of push button boating with powered locks and bridges to Rotherham, Leeds and Wakefield. The Ouse will take you to York and the Ure to Ripon. Miles and miles of canals, rivers and estuaries, with mostly push button boating and few other boats for long stretches. Before anyone says, I know that narrowboats cross the Wash and go round Trent Falls, but you are not so restricted in the conditions with a more suitable boat. Jen

Midland SwinChandlers do ash ones for not too many pennies in a variety of sizes. Can't tell from the description if what they call a 1" handle is to fit a 1" outside, or 1" inside diameter tube. You'd need to ask them to be sure of getting the right size.

Water voles wouldn't be able to read the warning signs telling them not to p1ss urinate in the cut. ? Rats could be smarter than water voles though.

The chances of getting it is actually quite high if you are involved in inland water at all. It is just that most people never realise they had it. The 92 cases that @tree monkey quotes are those that have had a test that came back positive after the disease took a turn for the worse. That is the chance of getting seriously ill, or dead. This is what the NHS (still free at the point of use, for now) has to say. Have a greenie! Jen

The risk is significant. Canoeists know about Weil's disease, as do cavers. At a caving conference some years ago someone did tests for antibodies to the bacteria and a significant proportion of the attendees had them, so had been exposed to the bug at some point. As has been said, most times you just get a mild under the weather bug for a few days, but occasionally it can turn bad, leading to organ failure and death. A caving friend was feeling a bit unwell. Next thing he knew it was three days later and he was in intensive care. If medics suspect that is what you have, then ordinary penicillin will kill off the bug in double quick time. A lot of people have had it, but never known, just putting it down to a general bug. Reported instances are a small proportion of the overall infection levels. In a very few instances it can kill you. Worth mentioning Weil's as a possibility if you have to call an ambulance for a suddenly very poorly boater. I try to always wash my hands when coming back on board after handling ropes and such like. Not just rat urine, they can get dragged through dog and goose carp without you knowing. Cycling along the tow path in a city, I'll see a rat most trips. You are moving fast enough that they haven't had a chance to hide. Walking, or boating, you won't see them, but they are there. Jen

The tanker is free again. The leisure boat floating lock landing at Aldwarke was damaged by the floods too. CaRT are helping boaters through the lock, if they have 24hrs notice beforehand. It is just below a weir and the turbulence must have been extreme. Probably dumped the mud where the tanker ran aground. I've done this lock single handed without using the floating landing because I didn't notice it tucked round the corner, but it involves tying the boat to the wall, then climbing twenty feet plus up an iron ladder, so not for everyone, or in high water! Jen

This is with conventional yeast. I've not tried sourdough yet. My boat has the calorifier in the cabin in its own cupboard. A shelf above the cauliflower is where I put it to rise. As has been said, the rise time depends on temperature. The temperature of the water in the dough mix helps. Warm, not hot, which kills the yeast, gives a faster rise. Without a cauliflower cupboard I'd look at arranging something above the stove in winter. Perhaps hang a small shelf from the ceiling from a cup hook. Jen

This seems to be backed up by @peterboat's figures from his electric wide beam. 2 to 3kW, or 3 to 4 HP to push it along in deep water at 3mph. Electric motors being much closer to fully efficient than a diesel will ever be and able to provide a direct measure of the power used. It still needs a cooling fan though, so some of that power is ending up as heat, so maybe 2 to 3 HP to turn the prop. Very little of my Beta 43's supposedly 43HP output from the crank shaft ever gets used to push the boat. The 43HP is for maximum rev's, which it has never reached. Most of the time pootling along at 1500rpm or so. @Mike the Boilerman's figures seem reasonable for a typical narrowboat in terms of power available from the cooling system. Engines don't like being overcooled. People taking out the thermostat to "cure" an overheating problem is a bad idea. The cauliflower cooling circuit is often independent of the engine thermostat, and only the relative sizes of the hoses to restrict the amount of coolant that goes to the calorifier, compared to the skin tank. Jen

Particularly with the Derwent coming in from the left too at the same point. Done it on Amber and the currents there are swirling all over the place. Plenty of power to push through quickly.

If you have an isolation transformer, rather than a galvanic isolator, then this can be used to set a neutral-earth bond even if it can't be done on the inverter itself. connnect the inverter output in to the transformer input, instead of the shore line and the isolation transformer output should be neutral-boat earth bonded. I've done this on my boat when the Victron was poorly and I had to connect up an emergency backup cheapy modified sine wave inverter for a while. Jen

If coming from the Boston side, the OP will be against the current, so can do a nice slow controlled approach to the arch to see if the boat is going to fit and escape easily if it is looking unlikely. Approach from the Saxilby side is with the current, so more care needed if he wants to try it. Jen