adam1uk

Yes there are a few of us on here who own shares. Advantages are that it's significantly cheaper than hiring, you get to know your own boat, and you have a real sense of ownership. Disadvantages include not being able to go out on the boat at the drop of a hat if a sunny weekend comes along. There are several schemes, all of which seem to do things differently. Things to check: Do you (and the other owners) actually own the boat, or is it just time share; is the allocation of holiday weeks fair; can you get extra weeks, and how are they organised; how easy is it to move mooring location. I know there'll be people along shortly who say they'd never go for shared ownership. One day, we too will have our own boat, but while holiday time is limited it works for us as a cost effective way of getting on the canals. If you have specific questions, feel free to PM me. Adam

When we did the RYA helmsman's course in the autumn, one of the exercises was to stop the boat quickly (and from a much higher speed than you'd normally be travelling at). I was very surprised just how quickly you can stop a narrowboat, certainly within its own length, if you give it enough reverse. Of course you never know which direction you'll end up facing (although when I did it, I managed to keep the boat dead straight!) On the horn issue, there always seem to be plenty of people giving a good blast on the horn at Napton Junction. We always do, and occasionally get an answer. Interestingly, the local car drivers using the canal bridges near Napton all know to do two blasts, so they can tell whether it's a car or a boat.

Here is Sarni. This was on the Staffs and Worcs, just outside Wolverhampton, May 2006. And this gives you an idea of how small Sarni really is.

It dates from much earlier than Shakespeare. The origin is the Old English word scitte, which means diarrhoea. Chaucer described a corrupt priest as a "shitten shepherd" in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales. When the Victorians did a translation into more modern English they found the phrase so offensive they changed it to "dirty shepherd", which doens't have anything like the same impact.

Any of them will freeze over if its cold enough, and they do so regularly. This blogger published a photo of ice on the Coventry Canal yesterday. And there plenty of reports of the Victorians having fairs on the frozen Thames, so even rivers freeze is extreme conditions.

Hired from them twice, which I suppose is a recommendation in itself! Decent boats (the newer ones a particularly nicely fitted out), and friendly staff.

And what this has to do with General Boating.

We did the Leicester Circuit in May 2006, and had no problems at all (apart from the weather, but there's not much you can do about that. We extended the ring, so that rather than turning left at Fradley to go down the Coventry, we carried on through Tixall Wide, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. As far as Leicester is concerned, we went through the city in a day, but having seen the secure moorings at Castle Gardens I've have no worries about spending the night there. Trip report here: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4889

Although the closing date for submissions was 31 October.

It's one of the series of boards between Hawkesbury Junction and Coventry basin. Don't remember exactly where the Hindu funeral one was.

Coconuts can also be seen on the approach to Coventry, and there's even an information board explaining why.

Glascote bottom lock is in the winter stoppage programme for 3-7 December, so my guess is that things will continue to be a bit slow until after then.

Interestingly (or not) one of the long term moorers in Braunston was out cruising during the summer and had put a sign up on their mooring inviting people to use the space while they were away. A nice gesture, I thought, particularly in such a busy and popular place.

Trip report for our Warks Ring a couple of years ago here: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2514

There's an account of the first one here. It seems she lost power and couldn't stop. The second one was also in Canada, and there's an accident report here.

Already a thread here: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10841

Just checked the Midlands Today running order for 1830 tonight, and there's due to be another piece (or possibly the same one!) on the cuts. It's some way into the programme, just before the sport.

As I understand it, Mike was exasperated by "Victor's" innaccuracies, and frequently asked for a right of reply. They gave him a column instead. Even Mike's last column contains what appears to be a little dig: "A friend of mine (from the newsgroup that Victor used not to like) gave me a lift to and from the talk in Macclesfield".

I agree. I seldom look at NBW because it's so unremittingly negative. Virtually every story is about bandits, the stupidity of other boaters, exasperation with BW etc etc. All the NBW people seem to have a consistently bad time while boating. I wonder why they don't try something else instead.

As well advertising the boat for sale, how about offering a swap? Unconventional and with only a slim chance of success I know, but it might just get someone's interest, and if you can find a suitable swap bot owners would save a bit of cash. See post 13 on the previous page.

Those Calcutt hirers must have very short memories. The Calcutt hire boats all start from the pound between the top and middle locks, so they can't go anywhere without going through a lock. I've seen the staff there going through the lock with hirers, and then staying on board until well towards Napton Junction. On the other hand, I was talking to the crew of a Clifton Cruisers hire boat on Saturday as we passed on the Napton flight, explaining how to avoid their boat being flung into the top gate. They said they'd learned more in that five minutes than they had since they arrived at the boat.

We have done the Warks Ring from Kate Boats in a week (although it was in September, so longer daylight hours) and we got up the Hatton flight on the first afternoon. Each time we hired from Kate Boats we were lucky in being able to get away early. We arrived in Warwick in time for lunch, and phoned them on the off chance the boat might be ready. It might be work phoning the week before, because if that particular boat isn't out, you might be able to arrange an early pick-up.

Yes it's been a problem for a while. We came that way in August, and I was chatting to the woman who lives in the cottage next to the lock. She was saying that the problem is made even worse if too many people come down the top lock. Each lockful of water going into the middle pound means the bottom lock takes an extra five minutes to fill. There was a one day stoppage a few weeks ago to try to fix the problem, but it doesn't appear to have done the trick.

I see a few problems with this type of maintenance stuff being in magazines, not least that there's no standard design or fit, so what might be true of one boat won't be for another (or possible ANY others). The list of suggestions you put forward earlier in the thread included things such as repacking stern glands and fixing window leaks. The trouble with things like that is that they're very useful if your need of such information happens to coincide with the month it's in the mag. It's the sort of thing which could go in more than once, but then others will complain of repetition, and if you already know the answer, it won't be of any interest at all. Surely the only way to do this sort of thing is to do what Canal Boat do: have a problem section, where people ask specific questions and Tony or another member of the team answers them. (WW may do the same thing. I don't know, I haven't seen one for a while).

NUJ rates would only apply to those of us in the NUJ. And the rates aren't binding anyway.