Francis Herne

I last saw her on the hardstanding at Withybed marina, Alvechurch, early last year.

Fairly common on stop locks so the lock prevents water from flowing in either direction. I can't think of any stop locks that still have both sets of gates working. At Hall Green and probably others it's obvious where the extra gates used to be. At Digbeth all four gates are in place but permanently open. Torksey and Meadow Lane locks (at least) have reverse-direction flood doors that are pretty much equivalent. There are paired single stop gates that face in opposite directions in several places. The last ones I remember spotting were in the narrows under Tividale Aqueduct.

Is it a 'widebeam' in the fat-narrowboat sense - which would typically be longer than 40ft - or just a boat over 7ft beam? Might be a Thames cruiser, small Dutch barge, or various other things not designed with British canals in mind.

Bugsworth is unique, with the various basins and remnants of the very early horse-drawn tramway. I didn't see much to choose between moorings but liked the far basin below the pub. Always space somewhere. There isn't much besides the basin site itself within a short walk now the pub's closed. The former tramway up to Chinley (where there's an excellent laundrette) is a nice walk but takes a little while. At Whaley Bridge, I particularly like the second-hand bookshop upstairs in the transfer warehouse. Also a few pubs, fish and chip shop, walk up to see how Toddbrook Reservoir repairs are coming along, remains of the railway incline. There aren't many moorings which are often full. A very nice little town. You can also split the difference and moor on the offside of the Bugsworth arm just past the junction above the aqueducts. That's very pleasant, about an equal walk from either Bugsworth Basin or Whaley Bridge, and very handy for Tesco.

...and motor insurance is extortionately priced, especially for young people, so that only shows I have good reason to worry!

I'm with Craftinsure who were bought out by RIPE last year and renewed with them last month. The price at renewal went up by about £20, but still a bit cheaper than other insurers I got quotes from including GJW. Craftinsure had been a lot cheaper than those previously. Probably similar value-for-money now if you want higher contents insurance and other stuff that some insurers include as standard but I wasn't particularly looking for. The policies were altered a bit without any significant changes in cover I could spot, and in particular without adding any of the restrictive exclusions that appear with other providers. Stuff like "no single-handed boating at night", "no towing except in an emergency", "no charging lithium batteries on board" was an instant NO for me with several companies. I do worry how small the insurance market is getting - it would be very easy for the handful of owning companies and their underwriters to jack prices up considerably without any real competition.

@Steilsteven still seems to be around - "last visited: Saturday" @Onewheeler and @Tam & Di are other users who know a lot about European barges and waterways. I know nothing, but your boat in the last post is quite stunning! Must be a huge project to tackle.

I'm sure @carlt has it right. This type of souvenir plaque is very common on UK canals and sold in a lot of canalside shops. I was looking at a selection in Autherley Junction on Monday. https://www.canalshop.co.uk/acatalog/plaques.html Besides suggesting that it might have visited the Grand Union it wouldn't tell you anything about the history of the boat. It doesn't look like any native UK canal craft I can think of. The height of the wheelhouse looks as if it would be a limitation on most UK canals even if the hull fits. Nice boat, though!

I can assure you it's the same, wooden, Conway. Sadly I don't have a better photo of the fore end but the counter is very distinctive! I can't see what you think is different about the fore end that's visible at all in my not-so-good photo, besides some newly-painted cants and a lamp and horn. The unusually-shaped block under the deckboard is still there, the painting and general shape is the same, and the hull is mostly just black fuzzy pixels because my phone camera at the time didn't do shadows! Note that the stem post is cropped off in mine (oops).

The ad says it's a butty, and those qualify for a 50% discount if licensed with a motor. Of course, the ad also describes "it’s lister diesel engine that just chugs away". A station boat would not be 120 years old, few surviving butties would be, some Bantock dayboats are. That 'fact' might also be nonsense anyway. I don't think it's ChatGPT text (too many grammar errors!) but it certainly isn't informative.

The modern equivalent is the plastic-sheet-over-scaffolding dam, which is pretty much the same idea and almost certainly a cheaper option given the current price of timber. Pictured is the new Whitehouse Wharf wall at Selly Oak under construction in 2022. The canal remained open for navigation during most of the work.

This comment and the following discussion seem relevant if not entirely helpful for tracing it. From a recent FB post https://www.facebook.com/groups/lovethebcn/permalink/9795927843762509/

It's a thread for pictures of obscure or historical waterway locations. I think @oboat's is a good example and would like to see more like it. I've been a bit distracted from the thread by real life but will hopefully get back into guessing sometime.

All LPG heating is like that. I have a Truma E2400 air heater that came with the boat; set to 12°C at about 3° outside, in a 22ft-long cabin, it eats a 3.9kg gas bottle in three days! Needless to say I don't use it much.

Today's recall notice is different and reads (my emphasis): "If you have one of these gas water heaters installed (including those that have had the safety upgrade), please contact us immediately so we can discuss the next steps." EDIT: Morco have redirected the now-obsolete upgrade link to point to today's page.

Diglis like the Weaver locks has a (relatively!) small and large lock side-by-side. All the Weaver pairs have one permanently out of use. Both at Diglis were working until last winter, but the small lock has been out of use for a year with no apparent plan to repair it leaving no redundancy for when the large lock has problems. I fear the small lock may have been permanently abandoned; the large lock will presumably be repaired fairly soon.

There'd be no problem of course if the small lock hadn't been closed for almost a year. I'm wondering if they've quietly decided to abandon it like the Weaver ones. Customer forum on Thursday ironically at Diglis, I will ask the obvious questions if someone else doesn't get them in first...

It looks like a pretty nice shell to me. Definitely lose the death seats but that's trivial. For the price it seems well specced. Tony's concern about the batteries is valid but adding a DC-DC charger or even an alternator regulator wouldn't be a huge expense relative to the rest of the boat. BCNS' workboat Phoenix has an LPA3 which is the air-cooled version of the same engine. From a sample size of one it's been consistently temperamental without ever actually letting us down. Sometimes it runs on two-and-a-bit cylinders or leaks oil or diesel or overheats, but it always does run which is the main thing! [EDIT: Having read @ditchcrawler's post below I get what you mean now. Not convinced it's a significant risk in practice though. previously:] Only if they can be paralleled. There might be, say, a large inverter wired to a couple of dedicated appliance sockets in the kitchen on an entirely separate circuit. Or the outputs on a dual-pole break-before-make selector switch, although the possibility of blowing up an inverter by suddenly removing its load wouldn't be ideal either.

A bit surprising and disappointing - I've had quite a good impression of Rothens as a maintenance contractor; knowing a few of their employees they clearly make an effort to hire people who care about the canals and doing the job properly, unlike some other firms... I guess that doesn't necessarily extend to being good at dealing with individual consumers. Kat (not the same one?) the new Jules Fuels lady, her partner and her dog are all long-time Rothen crew and the Rothens themselves are clearly keen on seeing historic boats carrying, so I'm not sure supporting them implies anything beyond that.

Poured concrete ballast will make it impossible to inspect the hull from inside and make welded repairs very awkward if needed in future, which on a 1986 project boat seems likely. There's also the risk of trapping moisture between the concrete and steel - even a small patch of fresh rust will expand and push the concrete away allowing more water to get in.

Is the tunnel itself a hull width constraint? I thought that was more about Uppermill lock which must stand some chance of needing a rebuild eventually.

My standard answer for these threads: lithium is a no-brainer if you live on board, or you're regularly using the batteries for more than a night or two. Fast tail charging, sulphation when left part-discharged and ~no self-discharge allow far more efficient use of the capacity, and the lifetime cost is now lower. That said the 'drop-in' batteries really aren't a direct replacement, there are various options but just wiring it straight across the alternator isn't a wise one. I would be a bit careful about this -- internal resistance of lithium cells is quite low, which overall is a good thing, but means very small differences in cable and connection resistance will cause an unequal current split. 400A could end up being, say, 110/105/95/90 on each pack, so you need to leave some extra margin (or very carefully match all your cable lengths and connections and then hope it stays that way).

The mooring rights on that wall were bought a couple of years ago by 'The Merchants of Venice' who now say they want £12.50 per night. Perhaps enforcement is lax but I heard of some people being asked to pay last summer. https://www.themov.co.uk/mooring-terms ANT had an agreement with the previous owner to collect mooring fees which lapsed before it was sold. They did bid on it but didn't get the rights. Unless it's all changed again since the last time I asked.

Assuming you mean Saturday 5th it shouldn't matter, the Sharpness tide forecast predicts the last tide high enough to go over the weir to be Thursday night. Best to phone the Gloucester lock keeper to check, they're the experts. In any case you should call before heading downstream from Lower Lode; the parting can be obstructed by trees washed down the river and now Ashleworth has gone it's a long way without a reliable mooring. Then again at the parting to have the lock gates ready. (the following is very much amateur/secondhand advice and you should check with someone else): When I went down on a tide it was fairly early on the ebb at Haw Bridge, still flowing out fast through the parting on arrival. Advice was to stay well out of the parting at change of tide as the flow over weirs at both ends causes very confused currents. You wouldn't want to stem the tide in either direction for any distance in a narrowboat.