Francis Herne

I was unimpressed by the gas engineer working on their behalf. He did about half of what was agreed to be done on mine; on the neighbouring boat the owners came back to find a strong smell of gas and a new, leaking, pipe joint in the electrical cabinet. It's the only non-trivial work I had done there for obvious reasons. Lee and Dale at Candle Bridge Fabrication who lease a shed on the yard are excellent and go the extra mile. So are Tim and Jonathan Hewitt at UCC by the bottom lock.

To be clear I'm sure the same would be true for any other broker -- as Alan rightly explains they've got no obligation to tell you more than you directly ask about. I would buy from them again. Just important to keep in mind that their job is to get the best price for the seller, so being friendly doesn't necessarily extend to being helpful in all respects.

Unless I've missed something, there is no stoppage notice nor any current signage forbidding navigation. Of course CRT can make it a condition of permitting the event (which I believe was the case?) but that still frustrates me as it directly undermines the original purpose to prevent further closures-by-disuse. The 'maig' looks useful; we've tried various other reed-cutting implements at Bradley none of which have been very effective. I wonder where we could obtain one?

If we're being pedantic, surely he was exploring the Wednesbury Old Canal? The Walsall Canal didn't exist until the 1790s, and ends at Ryders Green junction even if you lump in the Broadwaters extension. It's at the top of the locks. The sediment is definitely polluted; when I tried navigating down there it came up a lovely fluorescent yellow colour and gave me blisters all down the arm I used to clear the prop. There was a dye works by the junction.

According to the thread Alan linked, there's at least one current boatbuilder doing this as standard! Seems mad to me, but boatbuilders past and present often seem to have overlooked maintainability... or perhaps it's in their interest to create future work for themselves? 🙃 I'd also be curious to know which other boats (supposedly) have such ballast but it does seem a bit interrogatory. ----- FWIW, I bought my current boat from brokerage at Braunston in the last few years. While everything they actually told me was the truth, there were some issues they neglected to tell me about, found either at survey or soon after I'd bought the boat. At least one of those I know they were aware of because I met the guy who bodged it for them. The moral would be to inspect everything carefully, get your own survey from your own choice of surveyor, and not take the seller's or broker's word for anything. I would also check the bill of sale and any other paperwork for any howling errors, and ask for anything important in person rather than posted lest it disappear into the vortex for months.

The CRT archive appears to have the original drawings and correspondence. They're generally very helpful and will scan/email copies on request. Principal Engineer's correspondence and reports concerning the new inspection boat Vigilante, ship number 933 1960-1982 https://collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk/bw167.26.5.3.16.4 Construction drawings for canal inspection vessel "Ship No 933 [Vigilante]" 12 October 1960-1 January 1961 https://collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk/bw177.5.5.19 "Proposed General Arrgt of Inspection Launch for use on narrow canals" Plan, elevation and section with annotations. By R Taylor, WJ Yarwood & Sons Lts, The Dock Northwich. 12 October 1960 https://collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk/bw177.5.5.17 possibly relevant: "Inspection Launch for use on Narrow Canals General Arrangement" Plan showing proposed layout. Stamped "British Transport Commission: British Waterways: South Western Division Gloucester" 1960 https://collections.canalrivertrust.org.uk/bw177.5.5.18 The titles, particularly on the 1960 documents, imply that Vigilante was designed from the outset as an inspection launch. Doesn't rule out her being designed to break ice as a secondary role but I'd be surprised. Of course you can break ice to a degree with any boat!

The basin bridge is about 4 inches lower in the centre than the lowest point of the tunnel. Clearance at cabin corners is similar to the tunnel if you're centred in the bridge, but there's more room to drift sideways and scrape them.

Hm, I'm sure I looked on there before, it's the obvious place! Certainly had a look when I was last in the shop in July. Should've asked. Anyway, thanks, will order a copy when I get somewhere with an address...

Any suggestions on where to find a copy? It's been on my must-read list for a while but no longer seems to be available.

A large portion of the Wolverhampton Level's water supply was (and is) from the pumps at Bradley which draw from disused mine workings. The canal would have had to remain as a feeder, and keeping it navigable is convenient for maintenance.

That's Francis Stapleton, quite an authority on BCN tugs and dayboats. While we're doing icebreaking boat photos, here are sisters Oates and Ross, Coventry and Tardebigge: and Stewarts & Lloyds' Pacific:

Stafford Boat Club has an excellent covered wet dock for painting topsides. £42/day plus electricity and heating. https://www.staffordboatclub.co.uk/facilities/wetdock There's also a slipway there for DIY blacking, £290 for a week or £510 for a fortnight. Hawne Basin have a cheap-ish covered slipway and allow DIY work, but access for painting topsides is very poor and the sides are open so you can't heat it when the weather's bad. The guys who run Dutton Dry Dock near Preston Brook are very reasonable, worth asking how much they'll let you do yourself. Ditto Union Canal Carriers at Braunston.

CRT.

I was advised to err on the early side rather than risk being late, apparently it's not fun if you're still in the parting when the tide comes in from both ends at the same time...

Some noticeable tide above Upton-upon-Severn on really high springs. About a week every month the tide comes over Gloucester weir and up to at least Upper Lode, and it's pretty fierce going back out. I spent a few minutes at Ashleworth making zero speed over ground at 1800rpm waiting for it to turn.

Pram hoods are all very well until you encounter bridges and/or low-hanging trees, and then they become a faff. I've noticed going down towards large rivers (or the Bridgewater) where such things aren't a concern the proportion of hoods increases noticeably. Aside from that they're not much good for actually cruising in poor weather, the windows fog up or get covered in droplets. One non-obvious thing to consider is access to the engine - on a trad (engine rooms aside) it's usually under the step and accessible from inside the boat in the dry, with the belts and filters mounted on the front where you can get to them. On most cruiser sterns you'll be spending a lot of time lying flat on the deck beams, or crouched in an oily corner of the bilge, trying to dislocate your wrist to change belts wedged against the bulkhead. A semi-trad or 'trad cruiser'/'semi-cruiser' with fixed bench lockers that prevent you from getting at the sides is even worse.

This is, I think, good advice. When I bought my boat I knew the interior needed a significant refit to really suit my needs, had a definite idea of what I wanted, but decided to leave it a year to see how things worked in practice. Two years later I've seen all kinds of other layouts and features and recognize that my original ideas were very flawed. I still haven't got started on refitting, but that's partly because I've come to think my choice of boat was - while sensible at the time - the precise opposite of what I'd be looking for now... Experience counts. I still don't have much, but at least over the really steep start of the learning curve. Designing a narrowboat with no experience of them at all is unlikely to be successful. The hostility above seems excessive. My impression is that 'Gybe Ho', while a bit naive, has done no more than 'give as good as he got' in response to constant jabs from a couple of others. Not everyone can have 50 years of experience, and the attitude that those of us who don't should just shut up and say or do nothing at all is offputting. Better to speak up and be an fool now than not and be one for a lifetime...

It's more useful to facilitate removing large and awkward items from your propeller at Dunkirk Stop in the dark. The quicker you can do this, the lower your odds of arriving at 11pm to be greeted by an irate mooring owner in pink fluffy slippers asking what the hell you're doing there at that time of night. This is to be avoided.

Yes, 300W, very simple resistive element on a relay. I don't yet have it automatically switched as a dump load but pretty much use it as one, flip the switch in the morning based on battery charge and the weather. Automation is on the to-do list, which has only been growing this year as I've spent a lot of time playing with other people's toys (variously big, old, sailing or steam-powered) rather than my own... In hindsight I'd have bought a 600W one, which usually have three elements in parallel with easily-removed links, and split it to 200W+400W for more control and faster heating. LiFePO4 covers for a lot of imprecision in switching it manually, high cycle life and no requirement to be fully charged means the input/output only has to balance over multiple days rather than hour-to-hour. A lead-acid bank would hate being used that way, proper dump load control essential for those.

I agree with you, getting used to all sorts of regional accents and dialects is something I enjoy travelling around the canals. Even something as simple as the exchange of greetings when passing people on the towpath - "Good morning", "arright?" "'ow do?" "eyup!" - varies and people can be momentarily surprised/confused by the 'wrong' one for the area. Reason I suspect is more the second than the first. I don't think boaters or towpath users are very different from the general population - boaters perhaps mixed around a little more - but the media pays little attention to life outside major cities and often plays to stereotypes when it does. Boating naturally leads to conversations with locals across the country; living on land I travelled less and rarely had much time or reason to chat with the natives when I did. @beerbeerbeerbeerbeer also appreciates this sort of thing iirc.

I've lived on my boat for a couple of years without any routine use of 240V, so I suppose 'none of the above'. Most of my energy consumption is fridge + laptop, and immersion heater when there's an excess from solar. Whenever I get around to fitting a proper inverter and mains wiring, an electric kettle and microwave are top of the list. I do have an ancient and questionable inverter in the bottom of a cupboard; it gets wired in temporarily a few times per year to run power tools off.

Good point, I'd forgotten about the badgers. Perhaps it could be opened by arrangement for access - I think the closure is precautionary rather than an actual leak? Can't hurt to ask.

There's a slipway at Snarestone, top of the Ashby: https://ashbycanal.org.uk/slipways-moorings/

The folks at Nantwich always seem knowledgeable and helpful. Bought recently-ish by ABC but they haven't ruined the place yet. EDIT: Are you certain it's the stern gland? Some loose item/bolt/panel might rattle at a particular engine frequency, or something like a fishing hook snagged on the prop and hitting the uxter plate. Couldn't help noticing - perhaps there's something in it after all?!

Setting aside the overhead of running a 12V-mains inverter, note the "variable frequency". The controller can drive the motor as required for the load, which is quite a bit more efficient than simply wiring a single-phase motor directly across a constant AC supply as in old-school mains fridges and reduces the startup power demand spike. Modern high-efficiency mains fridges often have compressor motors driven at a variable frequency by an inverter on the control board in the same way. Adding an 12V->240V inverter in front of one of them gives you a slightly silly chain of DC->AC->DC->AC conversions, and I suspect finding a way to power the inverter on demand as you've done would be less straightforward.