Francis Herne

Old maps show a canalside wharf with crane for the salt works just beyond the first bridge above the lock, on the offside. Barges could usefully have served this. No idea if they ever did.

I've updated to, and tested with, Firefox 121.0 and Chromium 120.0.6099.129, with fresh profiles (default settings, no extensions). On Arch Linux with all distro updates applied and having rebooted after. The certificate error still appears every time in both browsers. FWIW this has been a problem for me for several weeks at least, I just hadn't got around to reporting the issue. EDIT: I've attached a screenshot of the certificate error as seen in Chromium. Firefox displays the same information.

It fails for me with Firefox 120.0 or Chromium 120.0.6099.109 on a Linux desktop, and Firefox Mobile 119.0 on my Android phone. I've just found that it does work with the phone's default browser (very originally named 'Browser') which I don't ordinarily use. EDIT: I tried creating new profiles in Chromium/Firefox with default settings and no extensions; it still doesn't work.

Over lock could be reached via either Llanthony or Maisemore. Over is about 8ft beam, Maisemore about 7ft (narrower than Over), Llanthony 16-17ft (not authoritative, based on a bit of Google and measuring satellite views). Technically Llanthony can be on the wide through route up the Severn if you're mad enough to boat on the upper estuary like the Wye Invader 2 guy. Discounting that, I think you've found the first (and only?) downhill example.

I receive email notifications of posts in topics I'm following. A recent example is copied below. The links are all to "http://url6836.canalworld.net/...", and fail due to a certificate problem: "Firefox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for url6836.canalworld.net. The certificate is only valid for the following names: *.sendgrid.net, sendgrid.net" Hi Francis Herne, Stroudwater1 has posted a comment on a topic, Change of canal gauge locations Posted in Change of canal gauge locations Was Over lock in The Hereford and Gloucester canal narrowish beam, aroubd 8ft ? I believe it was. However I'm not clear if Llanthony Lock was alwa... Go to this Post — Canal World

Is this likely to be improved? I think the above ought to work. Otherwise I'll PM a moderator with the changes needed.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/389587549882474/permalink/742586727915886/ Wooden FMC 'Aster', taken by CRT to Bradley workshops under S8. Currently a bit damp with an interesting paint scheme.

Technically Stourport again - there are both wide and narrow locks in parallel between the basins and river. Various river navigations have locks that get narrower going upstream. The Great Ouse system does so on a canal-boat scale - lower reaches are mostly 14ft beam, but gradually narrows to 10ft 1in at Cardington or 9ft 8in at Jesus Lock. Other examples I can think of like the Trent and Severn only go from "huge" to "still pretty big".

I have a conventionally-steered Sea Otter. None of that is a particular concern in my experience - being very shallow-drafted with a tiny prop, almost all water on the towpath side is "deep" (excepting the Shroppie shelf in places) and picking up debris from the bottom (as opposed to floating weed/debris, all too often) is rare. The boat overall is so light there's not much momentum at low speeds to cause damage. For whatever reason getting off the bank has never been a memorable issue for me. Push the bow off, walk back, go. I suppose the centre cockpit adds a few seconds' more shuffling to get to the helm. Once I think I cheated and used the bow thruster. Yes, they built a 4-ton 30ft boat with a bow thruster - I don't know why and pretty much never use it... Beware of sudden crosswinds in built-up areas. I've got a bit of a dent in the hull side from being blown at quite an alarming speed sideways onto the Sherborne Wharf footbridge. Slow past moored boats toward the bridge hole, suddenly boat going laterally (with no change in heading) faster than ahead. I put more power on but it was too late to miss the corner. I hope the grapnel idea is a joke...

At the moment I have Excel and Newburn. I haven't found anything better than Excel for staying in. Stove loaded fully on a low burn (after getting it hot first) and it'll tick over for up to 24 hours, quite handy if I'm out for the day. Very little ash and I don't often have to riddle it - enough falls through the grate on its own. Newburn burns much hotter for a given volume but quicker, and tends to go out if left to smoulder. I keep a couple of bags for below-freezing weather because Lark has hopeless insulation and too many windows. Getting my desired heat output in those conditions from Excel requires very inefficient air settings with a lot of heat being blasted out of the flue, or stacking the stove so full it tends to spill hot coals onto the hearth. Supertherm and Briteflame were both hopeless - far too much ash, choked the grate without frequent riddling. I found the latter completely impossible to keep in for 7 hours overnight in my stove after a week of frustrated experimentation.

Should work in theory, but I end up with a burnt base. I'll try foil to keep base off the bottom of my Dutch oven. Foil might work if you scrunch it up. My inner bowl was sitting on two metal teaspoons if I recall correctly. Foil over the top of the lid to keep more heat in the Dutch oven rather than the room.

I made a couple of bread rolls on top of the stove last winter as pictured. Metal bowl spaced off the bottom of a big preheated casserole dish, under a couple of layers of tinfoil (not pictured) for insulation. It worked alright but was quite a hassle - in particular, enough heat to bake bread on top was far too hot to keep my cabin at a reasonable temperature without doors and windows open. The dish doesn't fit easily inside my stove. I did try but it was wedged at an awkward angle and the smoke got in. FWIW I also have a Caprice 2000, and while the oven isn't great it's not *that* bad. I can heat pizzas in it and expect it would manage bread if I tried.

That's a bit of a coincidence, my one false sighting is also on the Macc at Lyme View Marina. I have six digits so slightly harder to make an error. It's fun to imagine cloning, but perhaps more likely the local checker is prone to typos...

The sightings list is still available at https://licensing.canalrivertrust.org.uk/Boat/Sightings if you're logged in. All they removed was the link to it from the main dashboard. I'm not entirely certain it's still being updated, as my last sighting was two months ago. That seems typical when I'm on the BCN though - sighted once in four months last year, even having spent a fortnight in the centre of Birmingham.

It was their only significant works base on the river -- presumably craft will now be moored at Anderton but there's very limited space there to store parts, tools and machinery. Expect even less maintenance as staff have to go through management and get stuff ordered in rather than off the rack.

The 2kg of CO₂ released by a normal-sized extinguisher is about 1m³ at atmospheric pressure. That's about half the volume of the phonebox, but only about ⅓rd of the original air (and the oxygen) would be displaced by overpressure as some of the CO₂ would be displaced too. This would be enough to cause impaired judgement and perhaps nausea, but probably not unconsciousness and definitely not death if you're otherwise reasonably healthy. The body's sense of "needing to breathe" is actually based on CO₂ concentration rather than oxygen, so it would feel like you were being choked to death even if you aren't. Probably not a good idea.

[yes, my walls are that yellow. I must address this sometime] I looked up late one evening to see this young cat peering in at me through the window. Not unusual (even for cats), except it was the offside window! Then he tried to turn around and disappeared with a *splosh*. Good thing I saw him first or I'd have put it down to waterfowl as normal. Fished him out swimming along the piling, he dried out for a bit and then decided to leave. Learned the next day that he's called Marmaduke and lives in one of the houses facing the cut. Probably hadn't seen a boat before as not a popular mooring spot. The horses near Wordsley are always in the cut in the summer. If it's hot they go right into the channel.

If the contract doesn't say anything about motorhomes I think you've got a strong position. I expect most people would consider caravans and motorhomes to be different things, especially when caravans and trailers are listed together. Ambiguity in contracts is usually interpreted against the party responsible for drafting it, so in your favour here. They may be more concerned about the possibility of motorhomes being occupied by non-moorers, which is a real problem in some places. Saul Junction comes to mind.

Presumably the motorhome is taxed etc.? I know CRT don't allow SORNed vehicles on their parking spaces. A friend took his car off the road for a while during COVID (no need to use it) and was warned about it.

A new vampire (by Hawne moorer Bing Shi) is in place. Apologies for the picture quality, it's dark in there!

That seems to be right. It's clearer in this photo. The building going completely over the canal had me fooled. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/817755244824683324/ It seems to have survived the A38 construction if not for long.

No chance! Would be a great place to moor the boat if I won the lottery though... (which would be a surprise as I've never bought a ticket)

Purely out of curiosity, does anyone have an informed guess at the asking price? I assume it's well into seven figures as a large and fairly central location, even if the listed buildings are a liability.

At least everyone will be going in the same direction this time!

😬 Harsh, but mostly fair... the original lock-heavy plan (along with motivation generally) was a casualty of other self-inflicted mishaps and wasted time rather than aversion to locks as such. Leaves room for improvement at least.