sigsegv

A small array of RTGs in your back garden (or in the engine room in lieu of an engine) would probably do pretty well as a carbon neutral power source. 3 of them on Voyager 1 provided a constant 470W, decreasing only 13% in 23 years. Not bad. Of course this could be scaled up depending on your requirements

Excellent, having this done later (also at Debdale) this year so it's good to hear a success story!

Based on the speed log I have, I count roughly 20 cruising days over that period. In the winter months we tend to do shorter days (maybe 2-3h if that), so that tracks. But I most certainly took advantage of 14 days at Ellesmere, and possibly Great Haywood (though that might've been more like a week and a half).

As one of those young whippersnapper new liveaboards people love to moan about, I'd say we've done pretty OK over the last 90 days...

I was at Great Haywood over the Easter break, and on the Monday I stopped at Anglo Welsh’s hire base/marina for fuel and a pump out. I noticed that their base was fuller than I would have expected for the Easter break and asked about it. They said they’d definitely had fewer boats hired out than they typically would, though I think the last few of years have been particularly good for hire companies (someone correct me if I’m wrong), so perhaps this is just a return to the mean . They didn’t seem too bothered though. We’ve seen a fair few boats while out and about in the last few weeks, though less recently since we’re near the river sections of the upper GU and they’ve had quite a bit of flow.

Is anyone aware of HMRC ever investigating a boater declaring any split? They’re a busy bunch, I imagine they have bigger fish to fry

Cheers I’ll check that in the morning, weather permitting. Not a fan of doing much with the solars when these gusts are as bad as they are. I store stuff under the panel so it’s entirely possible somethings knocked it underneath at some point. Would testing the diode be a simple continuity check?

I'm pretty sure one of my panels has had it. This morning I noticed I was getting 0 watts despite it being nice and sunny, and the batteries being down to about 90%. Did some fiddling, disconnected the oldest of our three panels (which came with the boat) and suddenly we started getting power again! I also noticed our max voltage was higher, much more in line with what I would be expecting to get from the two newer panels. I've not done much testing on it yet, but I'm presuming the panel's had it. So next comes what to do with the (potentially) dead panel. Dumping it by CRT bins seems wrong, disposing of it at a tip seems wasteful, but doing a quick search on Google only found solar recycling services for much larger installations than just one smelly boater with a single 300W panel. So my question is; is anyone aware of any recycling places near the canal that would take the panel? Ideally on the T&M or GU as that's where we're likely to be for the next few months, but I don't mind if it's not for some time - it's not exactly taking up space used for anything else.

LMGTFY

Missus works full time WFH, and I used to when we moved aboard. We use my parents address for correspondence and employment stuff (BUPA, HMRC, etc) but in reality only really get any post every few months. Most stuff is online these days which means the only thing we really rely on is an internet connection. Deliveries and stuff, including medication, we use post restante to varying success (the more ‘boaty’ a town, the higher chance the post office will have any idea what PR is), as well as Amazon and DPD collection points.

The only quick example that came to mind for me was minimum alcohol pricing - which when introduced, I expected to not considerably reduce drinking among problem drinkers, just make them more poor. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in-between. Reduced deaths caused by alcohol by 13.4% and related hospital admissions by 4.1% [1]. Of course, those addicted (which we can use as a vague analogy to those on the system that are not in a position to change their circumstances) cannot stop and will simply pay more and end up poorer. [1] - https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1477.full

Aaah so that *is* the Goliath from this forum. I too saw him on the move on the shroppie a few weeks ago, at Norbury junction I believe.

I spent about 10 minutes practising it one day and managed the final bit maybe 2 or 3 times. Obviously nowhere near as quick, and definitely not consistent, but it’s not outside of most people’s abilities with a bit of practice. Helps to visualise what needs to happen to the rope as the flick ‘travels’ to the cleat. Give it a go the next time you’re at a cleat and have some time, you’ll surprise yourself! … that being said, I tried again a few weeks ago and couldn’t do it so maybe it was all beginners luck

people *do* like seeing boats, and they probably *wouldn't* like it more as just a water transfer channel with etc etc... until you make them face the costs of keeping the boats on it (were it not paid by boaters). Then I imagine they'd adopt a much less favourable view of those people messing about in boats at their expense. Now, if they were instead paying for something they benefit more materially from.... towpath and picnic area access maybe.... hmmmm 🤔

I'm sure the boat builders see this as a feature not a bug But yes that's the downside of closed-source, proprietary solutions (as well as custom-built stuff).

Indeed and my solution is close to what I used to do for a living (among other things ) so it was perfect! We did look into going the venusOS route but why go for a turnkey solution when you can hack together a frankensolution I considered offering this as a full solution to other boaters but after running the numbers, it just didn’t make sense cost-wise for myself or the consumer - too small a market, too costly a setup

Been dying for a reason to post this for a while I actually built up a fairly nice remote telemetry system for my boat - stuff mostly goes into a raspberry pi then pushes it to a remote server running Grafana so I can make fancy charts of power, weather, movement, etc. Wouldn't be the cheapest thing to do if building it from scratch but it was cobbled together mostly from stuff we already had installed, it all just needed connecting to the pi in some way. http://blog.narrowboat.life/2023/09/19/narrowboat-telemetry/ Your use of teamviewer to remotely control the device is ingenious by the way!

@Isher1883 Hope you stick around mate. Once you've got enough posts, feel free to DM me and we can have a chat - as another relatively younger boater (well... 34...) that moved aboard a year and a half ago, I can probably give some relevant and useful information about the transition to life on the water.

Already been reported to CRT, who say contractors are going to sort it out (though not today). We actually only found out about it a few bridges away after crossing the aqueduct upstream. Hopefully it gets sorted soon - we've got a dinner reservation in Llan on saturday 😅

Not entirely sure what the point of this topic is. Yes, I imagine most boaters are aware that pollution has effects on health, and that setting fire to things for heat contributes to localised pollution. Or maybe they're not and read this thread and suddenly become aware. But then what? Are they going to decide to stop burning wood and coal, and simply be cold in winter because they cannot afford a less polluting solution to heating their homes in winter? There's an interesting line between 'making people aware' about things and chastising them about things they are not in a position to change. For better or for worse, there are a lot of people living on boats and the most energy and cost efficient way to maintain a comfortable living situation in the depths of winter is to burn wood and coal in a big iron box. Informing them of the effects of PM2.5 particulates on the respiratory system essentially does fxxk all except potentially make them feel guilty - they have no other option. To be charitable, because I apologise that this is a bit of a rant and I guess I'm coming off quite abrasive, maybe you are targeting those that *are* in a position to do something different - those that have a reasonable amount of money and therefore *can* choose other options for heating their boats in winter, or have other abodes that can be heated with methods that don't cause as much localised pollution such that they don't need to worry about the issues with heating a 50-70ft floating steel tube in winter.

I've run into Elektra on a handful of occasions, most recently on the Peak Forest this summer. It's a very well kitted-out boat, with both bow and stern thrusters so it's certainly a boat that would be able to handle the situation, and the helmsman (sorry, don't know his name) seems very capable if, in this situation, maybe not the best judge of risk to go on the Soar in these conditions..... Very fortunate that such a capable boat was in that situation, not sure I'd've been so comfortable with it

Employing full-time staff at the border of each region would possibly be cheaper than employing thousands more spotters. But then without reintroducing/maintaining stoplocks at those borders (which would create massive boat jams at peak times as well), there's not much to stop an unlabelled boat cheerily flipping off the border guard as they cruise past into pastures new. Not sure if that'd end up cheaper, monetarily, than an automated tracking and charging solution but it'd definitely be cheaper politically. I would not comply to being tracked (I track myself thank you very much), and it'd be an absolute political nightmare as well as likely running into the failures/struggles of any large-scale IT project

Our 52ft ex-Black Prince has had I think two previous owners who changed the layout. When we got her, from stern to bow the layout was Stern -> Bed -> Bathroom -> Big empty space -> Dinette -> Galley -> Bow. We shifted the dinette back into the empty space and fit a sofa between it and the galley such that it was then Dinette -> Sofa -> Galley, the idea being that since the stove was installed directly next to the galley, it made more sense to have the L sofa there facing the stove for those cold winter evenings. Not a lot I'd change to the layout to be honest, though I do like the thought of having a reverse layout with a closed bow a-la Ian D's boat.

I'm probably not one of them. Not due to malice or anything, but sheer laziness and a tendency to forget things, and I doubt I'd be the only one. Having to fill out a form on a weekly basis for where you are, and update your license would be forgotten/not gotten round to by so many people unless CRT *also* drastically stepped up their enforcement - which I doubt they have the resources or people to do effectively.