Francis Herne

Some of the GRP cruisers on the Great Ouse and Middle Levels do use a burst of power to get under the lowest bridges if levels are high. Squat not so much from speed of the boat (like the cruise ship), more from water being sucked rapidly under the stern by the prop. Works well for them because the tall bit is near the stern. Highest point on most narrowboats is the front of the cabin, so the stern digging in under power would have little or even negative effect?

Speedwell (1971 hire boat - but it's on the National Historic Ships Register; 50 year criterion is starting to cover that). https://braunstonmarina.co.uk/boat-details/nb-speedwell/ Quite a pretty little boat, but not convinced about the historic-ness.

So we did! Corrections noted...

Currently down the pub with the BCNS workboat mob after a productive fishing expedition. Fairly typical for a Saturday afternoon. (7.5 trolleys, 3 chairs, 2 traffic cones, a small table, a hoover, a toilet, a big bit of pipe, a brand-new mattress, a mirror, a unicorn hobbyhorse, a wooden toy fish and 28 bags of other stuff) In forum members I've met Stroudwater1, Goliath, ditchcrawler, roland elsdon, and agg221 in that order, although for most of those I didn't know at the time... No pints though.

I'm not The Expert but, yes, it's the "wrong sort of battery" if we're talking about the main battery bank. Those are almost universally LFP if 'lithium', and no-one is mad enough to sell LiPo packs usable for the purpose without significant DIY.(*) It could happen - and has happened - on a boat if charging some of the general consumer stuff that uses LiPo packs on board - phone power banks, scooters, drones, e-bikes, power tools and the like. Jump starting packs might be the closest thing to boat equipment. (*) I did see a shiny motor yacht fire blamed on a LiPo battery bank, but that was a £0000 custom job. There's nothing on the narrowboat-range market.

The hull looks like it was at least designed for plywood construction - big panels with single-axis curvature and one chine per side.

A friend without an account on here asked to post these pictures of Stour at the Black Country Living Museum. She's recently been removed from the water and dumped on the bank with no plans to put her back any time soon. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Janet Edwards from Wordsley has done some very nice paintings of the local canals. https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/janetedwardsartuk She has prints in various formats. Most of the Christmas cards I sent this year were hers.

Except on some Saturdays when the fishing contest is on. It occupies every mooring in the basin and some way down the embankment, and they're not keen on moving for boats!

I wouldn't say so unless improved since April; the paint was peeling quite badly. Usually pretty clean though. The really spotless services are (or were last year) on the Engine Arm! @Dan_Tara welcome to the forum. 😀 I'm around the corner at Hawne Basin just now.

With a suitably large hatch, you could store a bicycle under a tug deck where it would be much more secure. Ideally with some kind of spring-loaded Thunderbirds-esque contraption to get it out easily. Mine lives on a rack across the back of a square cruiser stern, which is convenient for access but exposed and quite good at snagging things.

Same problem persists for me. The URL has changed to `url7653.canalworld.net`, otherwise as I quoted above.

R W Davis at Saul Junction? Well respected yard and they've built a wide variety of Dutch-style barges. EDIT: removed bit about getting to the Thames, I somehow forgot about the K&A... They work on everything from narrowboats to small coastal freighters, compared to say Peter Nicholls who builds to a couple of standard designs and probably wouldn't do a custom one.

But if they do find out you've done anything besides litter-picking without a lot of paperwork, they tell you to stop and threaten to sue you otherwise. At Hawne Basin CRT provide a skip specifically for that type of stuff retrieved from the canal. Something that could be provided more widely, although I fear it would be abused.

This is a long-established canal society with decades of history working with CRT and BW. At least one person involved used to work at BW managing similar projects. It's not some do-gooders with paintbrushes and CRT are (or really ought to be) aware of that.

On CRT overspending: There's a project to repaint a 1990s steel footbridge over the canal. Basically a case of pressure-washing it, wire-brush a couple of areas of rust, new coat of paint. Access to the underside from the local canal group's workboat. The local council has offered to pay for the paint and local groups to provide the boat and volunteers. CRT insist that the entire structure must be hermetically encapsulated with plastic sheeting over scaffolding. Every area of paint must be tested for lead. Water must be tested during and after the work for contamination. And so on, despite the entire structure post-dating any use of lead paint and the exact product used being known. Obviously the projected cost goes from three figures to five and becomes totally unviable. Consequence: instead of the bridge being repainted at zero cost to CRT, they now get to watch it rust away for the next couple of decades until it falls down. The same blind and disproportionate checklist application applies to their own internal works, and accounts for the ridiculous timescales and costs of doing the simplest things. The other thing is a total lack of urgency resulting in trivial problems becoming huge and expensive ones. Most glaringly the missing bywash deflector at Tyrley -- four bolts took two years to replace, and now the entire opposite wall has been scoured away and will need rebuilding at a cost of £££. Plus all the damage to boats bouncing off it.

Black Country Living Museum Red House Glass Cone, Stourbridge The Commandery, Worcester Museum of Royal Worcester National Waterways Museum, Gloucester National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas World of Wedgwood Lion Salt Works, Middlewich Anderton Lift + museum & tour Etruria Industrial Museum Aldridge Transport Museum Tettenhall Transport Heritage Museum Lots of stuff in central Birmingham. Directly adjacent to the canal are the Sea Life Centre and Legoland. Many preserved railways near canals - there was a whole thread recently. Lots of cathedrals, big stately homes etc. The free music festivals at Upton-on-Severn are excellent and very popular with boaters.

The overwhelming majority of batteries being produced for grid usage are now LFP chemistry with no cobalt content at all. It's a lot cheaper, and the lower energy density and C rate are unimportant for storage applications. Even many electric car models are moving to LFP in standard trim, with NMC batteries an expensive option for extra range and/or performance. I expect sodium-ion batteries will be popular for grid storage - viable prototypes exist so likely in the next few years. Flow batteries would be ideal and a lot of money's being spent on R&D, but probably further off.

It sprang a leak and was taken to Redhill Marina where the hull (ex- knackered BW workboat) was examined and condemned. I believe Peter Fisher salvaged the hydrogen bits and has them squirrelled away somewhere...

Right. I did reply along those lines. The dimension of canals with swing bridges isn't set at 2ft air draft!

A much clearer, and sensible, message from CRT this morning, having quoted the one above and asked the obvious questions: "Further to your email regarding the maximum beam on Rochdale Canal, the narrower width relates to the M62 tunnel with the floating towpath in situ. With sufficient notice this can be removed and then the pinch points become the narrow locks such as Punchbowl (13ft 6 inches). The 9ft 5inches is the maximum beam for boats to pass without a booking for the M62 tunnel. Larger craft can navigate under the M62 tunnel, but this requires the floating towpath to be moved. Hence the unrestricted dimension is 9ft 5inches. This is detailed on the Notices and Stoppages page of our website which can be found via the following link: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices/2499-floating-towpath-rochdale-canal-under-the-m62 I hope this helps to clarify the matter. Regards, [name]" It looks like there's no change in policy, just the usual fuzzy knowledge of their own infrastructure.

Best 'quirky' pub in central Birmingham in my opinion is the Craven Arms, behind the Mailbox. Being mostly teetotal I can't speak for the beer though. Points on the BCN I particularly like, or worth visiting: Anglesey Basin: very peaceful, short walk up to admire Chasewater, railway with tiny industrial steam and diesel locos. Pelsall Common: one of few rural-feeling points on the Wolverhampton level. Quite pretty. Holly Bank colliery basin on the Wyrley & Essington: tiny arm that's navigable but never visited. People came out to look at the boat! Shallow though. Walsall Basin: strange juxtaposition of the canal with all sorts of modern buildings and art. Good for shopping with the giant Tesco across the street. Only remotely decent place to moor on the Walsall, besides Ocker Hill arm but that's hard to get out of by land. Loud on Friday/Saturday evenings in the summer. Black Country Living Museum: obvious. Dudley Tunnel trips next door, assuming your boat doesn't fit. Tividale Basin: built in the 1990s, intended as a long-term mooring site but never got planning permission. Often passed but few boats go in. Titford Pools: fun to muck about with a boat. Practice your concrete-pillar-slalom skills! You can get round the narrow channel around the island in the upper pool, many visitors don't realize that. Phil at the pumphouse always welcomes visitors if he's about. The BCNS issues a plaque to boats that have visited the pools. Engine Arm aqueduct is pretty. The arm has the cleanest service block anywhere on the canals. Galton Bridge must rank among prettiest canal bridges. Icknield Port/Rotton Park loop: some proper old-school BCN dereliction, although it's mostly being demolished for new flats. Bumble Hole/Windmill End is very pretty. The visitor centre has some interesting photos and models displayed but only opens a few days each week - I think weekends and Wednesdays. Gosty Hill Tunnel and Hawne Basin. Vampire painting, friendly people, cheapest coal and diesel anywhere. Free visitor mooring for the first week in any year. Parkhead Basin: three locks to nowhere if you don't fit through the tunnel, but it's quite a neat location. The scaffolding on the viaduct spoils the view a bit just now. Bits I don't like: Horseley Fields to Tipton is slow and mostly boring. Chillington Wharf is the only intact (ish) railway interchange facility but you only glimpse it from the canal. Bradley arm similar, although the lock gate workshop is well worth visiting if there's a tour on. Spon Lane locks might be the oldest working lock flight in the country, but they're awful. Ryders Green locks preserve the '60s-'90s BCN desolation, and are thus very grim. Beware the constantly-renewed mountain of trolleys under the footbridge. If you're mad enough to go up the dead arm toward the Ridgacre beware of the chemical goo peeling your skin off. Netherton Tunnel is far too long, wide and straight. Boring.

I'd definitely go via Stourport. The Staffs & Worcester is one of my favourite canals. It's very pretty, especially through Kinver and Cookley, and the narrow twisty bends and non-flighted locks entirely prevent boredom while cruising. (My friend with a 70ft boat doesn't agree though!) The Severn down to Hawford is very pleasant. It doesn't feel oppressively big like the Trent does, and you move a lot faster than the canal especially downstream. Unlike the lower end you can even see stuff over the bank sometimes! Wast Hill tunnel to Droitwich is pretty, but the BCN and northern W&B not so much. The BCN is interesting in its own way. Old line a lot nicer than the new from Tipton to Smethwick -- and not much slower; the deeper water makes up for the meandering. I do really like Tardebigge. It seems to go a lot faster than the number of locks suggests, and the view off the hillside is wonderful. The side-pound locks at the top of the Droitwich are neat.