sigsegv

cheers, this answers my question earlier in the thread

We're currently 'dawdlers' since for once it feels like we're not trying to get anywhere, which is a great feeling. Happy to let any boat past us, we tend to just get to the towpath and hang around with the center line to clearly telegraph our intent. But this discussion has made me realise a gap in my knowledge. Were we to not stop on the towpath to let a boat pass, and simply slow down and move over, to which side should we move over? Instinct tells me we should move over to the right of the channel, allowing the passing boat to pass to our port (as with approaching boats). Is my instinct correct?

Wait isn't that the best bit of swing bridges? Watching cagers pile up while you casually amble along in your life at 3mph?

Another fantastic thread for CWDF to be proud of

Today, 2023 Congleton Every single day I'm thankful to be out on the cut

Also the now defunct Probuild, which as I understand it is in some way related (in a familial sense) to Reeves

Hate to bring a thread back on topic but there we go. Today, we did the Harecastle tunnel. Prior to entering, the bloke manning the tunnel (and talking us through the safety stuff, etc) handed me an airhorn and asked if I could pass it to the bloke on the other side. Maybe a diplomatic way of ensuring people have an airhorn with them. About 150m into the tunnel (from the south entrance), my engine sputtered... struggled... I tried then to kill the engine myself but that didn't work. After about a minute, it finally cut out. Being without an engine in a closed-off tunnel wasn't particularly fun. I sounded my horn as per instructions (one long blast every 30 seconds) a few times. After that, I opted to use the provided airhorn pointing backwards towards the (obviously much closer) entrance. After the second blast, the fans wound down and the doors opened. Since we were so close to the entrance, with the fans off we could just about communicate via shouting. I was fortunate and was able to get the engine started again, backed out and could inspect the engine. After a chat with the tunnelkeepers, they informed me they didn't hear my boat's horn at all. Not surprising since it's facing the opposite direction to them, and those fans really aren't quiet. They heard the first blast of the airhorn, waited, then when they heard the second blast realised we were asking for help. Everyone was really nice, professional and reassuring. After escaping the tunnel, checking the engine over, running it under load for a while and being (reasonably) confident it wasn't just going to cut out again, we went for a second attempt and got through just fine. Still not sure what caused the engine to cut out, but based on my Victron's monitoring of the batt voltages, I suspect I left the ignition key in the off position (life lesson there, don't just let go of the key after the engine's started since it'd sometimes spring back to 'off' rather than 'on'... I should have known better and that's my f*ck-up). That would explain why I couldn't shut the engine off when I tried in the tunnel, but doesn't explain to me why it would cut out. Probably caused considerable damage to the alternator, but hey ho. Mistakes were made. Something to get checked out at the next available opportunity. Anyway, having the portable airhorn on me certainly made our recovery and subsequent passage happen a lot quicker, and for a few quid they definitely seem like a worthwhile item to have on board for tunnel crossings.

Absolutely chocka heading to Great Haywood today for the floating market. Must've passed a decent 20 or so boats heading south, and we got comfy in a queue of 4 or so boats at Colwich lock (6 by the time we left, broken paddle...). Got a spot maybe 10 or so boats before the start of the market (heading north, before the lock), and definitely shan't be moving on until Monday. Wonderful to see so many people out, and the weather's been absolutely perfect! Had a glass of wine sat out watching the sunset while the cat went into the nearby field and bothered a pheasant that was strutting it's stuff.

I've got an ex-Black Prince hire boat (as OP does), and yep that's our method! It's separated into two tanks, the first to fill being the (mostly) center tank, which then overflows into the starboard-side tank. Once this happens, we notice a slight list developing and we know it's definitely time to pump out - as the list doesn't develop enough to notice until the 2nd tank is becoming full.

We've recently discovered that turning the oven off at the (240V) socket saves us about 20W via the inverter (a surprising amount), but if your batts are measuring 12.5V and dropping to below the eberspacher's cutoff for low-voltage (iirc its 11V?) when being loaded, it sounds like your batteries might be on the way out.

Had quite a few black country ales in the Windmill Inn in Rugby last night. Really decent beers, I was a huge fan. My head this morning disagrees, but I'll definitely be seeking them out again

With modern banks like revolut, you can make any number of virtual debit cards which would help mitigate the tracking to some extent (though its most useful feature is if you're using a site of potentially less repute for a purchase). Create a new virtual debit card, tell Google pay to use it, buy your stuff and cycle it back out for a new one. I tend to do this every month or so, and obviously it won't help protect you from Google's tracking of your purchases but it makes me feel a little better

Ah shite I've been meaning to fill the form out to formally apply but didn't get round to it yet... I'll get it done probably some time tomorrow, promise!

idk dude, 66 is probably pretty representative of the number of *active* posters on the board

Thanks! As an aside, this sort of information (links to pertinent information made available but sometimes not obvious by CRT) would be very much at home on a wiki of some description...

Here's a list of all the boaters guides they host (requested via that link, then de-tracking-URL'd them from the email CRT sent me): https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/1_Aire_and_Calder_Navigation.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/2_Ashby_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/3_Ashton_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/4_BirminghamFazeley_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/5_Birmingham_Navigations.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/6_Bridgwater_Taunton_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/7_Calder_Hebble_Navigation.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/8_Caldon_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/9_Chesterfield_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/10_Coventry_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/11_Droitwich_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/12_Erewash_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/13_Fossdyke_Navigation.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/14_Gloucester_Sharpness_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/15_GrandUnion_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/16_GrandUnion_Leicester_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/17_Huddersfield_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/18_Kennet_Avon_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/19_Lancaster_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/20_Leeds_Liverpool_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/21_Llangollen_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/22_Macclesfield_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/23_Monmouthshire_Brecon_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/24_Montgomery_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/25_Oxford_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/26_Peak_Forest_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/27_Pocklington_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/28_Regents_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/29_River_Lee.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/30_River_Severn.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/31_River_Soar.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/32_River_Stort.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/33_River_Trent.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/35_River_Witham.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/36_Rochdale_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/37_Selby_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/38_Sheffield_South_Yorkshire_Navigation.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/39_Shropshire_Union_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/40_Staffordshire_Worcestershire_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/41_Stratford-upon-Avon_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/42_Trent_Mersey_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/43_Worcester_Birmingham_Canal.pdf https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/boatersguides/44_Yorkshire_Ouse_Canal.pdf

I sent an FOI request to CRT asking if they've got comprehensive visitor mooring information for the network. You can get the boaters guides for a lot of places from https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/go-boating/planning-your-boat-route/downloadable-waterway-guides - I've just requested all of them, we'll see what happens There's also a smaller set of mooring maps via https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/document-library?keyword=mooring+map but it's far from comprehensive

Post deleted cause I'm wrong

Yep that was the one! Prior to the last 30 minutes though (which is when the rules go down to the barest minimum of what can be considered 'rules'), it was genuinely genial and fun. Like I said, an existing. Next year I hope to visit the Ashbourne game

Made some delicious vegan pancakes yesterday (I know it kind of misses the point if you're not using up stuff you're giving up for Lent but whatever), and went classic with sugar and lemon... then headed to the atherstone ball game, which was an experience to say the least.

As with most mornings, the cat decided he'd hop on the bed and switch between attacking the curtains and attacking the cables by the TV. I begrudgingly love this little idiot

How was it? We were headed down there yesterday but opted to turn around about half way from hawkesbury junction to the basin after hitting 2 trolleys, pulling one from the canal and generally not liking the vibe 😅 so we turned onto the Oxford, moored up at the junction and had too many pints at the greyhound 😌

I'm not suggesting everything posted to the wiki should have 100% academically sound, rigorous citations (how many of those exist for canal-related matters?). If member Jo Bloggs is an expert on turboencabulators, and everyone knows she is, and her knowledge of things is generally trusted by the community then I think that would be good enough. Wouldn't even need to be verified necessarily, but if someone then comes along and says 'oh actually the flange manifold coefficient is actually 4 not 4.2' and corrects the wiki (ideally proving it) then great, we're tending toward correctness. Of course, we could also go the other direction...

The issue of bad information can be mitigated in the same way as Wikipedia: cite sources and references for information provided. No doubt, due to the expertise of a lot of forum members, a lot of that could be 'i have worked in field X for Y decades'. The idea that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source is quite frankly a little old-fashioned. Used correctly, it is in my mind one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The sum of (mostly correct) human knowledge at the tip of your fingers. I've worked with smaller wikis both professionally and recreationally and often see the quality of their content as a function of the quality of the userbase. It would require work from community members to ensure accuracy sure, but would that really be *less* work than having users ask the same questions, having to provide (or seek out threads providing) that same information, and taking part in the same 'discussions' over and over again? There's a wealth of information that could be provided in a wiki that is *not* really up for debate, and with a little careful moderation, those topics that *do* turn into debate could be either locked, or clear warning given at the top of the page. If the main argument of a wiki not working is 'our community simply argues too much' then it sounds like there's a community-level issue. If communities spawned from places like 4chan can have accurate wikis regarding fairly technical subjects, it seems wild to me that one serving the canal community could not. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good

It's a snake charmer!