mrsmelly

I used to be able to come north on the cut out of Leicester and boot the 72 footer round in one go across the top of the weir and go down to our moorings 300 yards or so on the left. I did it one winters day when river in flood and as I drew level with weir the shear pin on the shaft did shear!! I had a full load of people of 38 on board on a christmas do. We went broadside onto the weir and tilted, customers thought it was funny, it was cold and dark, they had no idea how deep the poo was we were in. I called fire brigade and two came with power winches on the front and we attached one to front cleat and one to back, I fixed shear pin, they dragged us centre of river and away we went. All went well but it could have been a much different story.

Its got worse year by year due to not being used. I used to drive the Duke of Bridgewater 72 ft trip boat right into Abbey park, we had a jetty in there to pick up passengers to take on various trips, we had 3 ft draught minimum and had no problem, that was 91/2 and I last went in there about 2000 these places are all a matter of use it or lose it.

Mine was a " Pre Alexa " Boat

On one of my boats I plumbed the washing machine into the Paloma hot water outlet. I found a setting that gave hot water and as you say it disabled the heater element. When wash cycles had finished we simply turned paloma off for cold water rinses.

Nothing much worth doing is entirely safe, people will and do get killed boating but its a far lesser percentage than those that get killed motorcycling for instance as a hobby. I am all for sensible safety measures, I have to be or my youngest daughter bollocks me as she is an HSE inspector/prosecutor. For instance check out how many people die or are seriously injured doing something as mundane as going a few rungs up a ladder at work or at home say cleaning the windows yet people have sets of stepladders which is barking mad.

Was that the lady at Cropredy on the kate boat mike?

You are right, peeps would find a way to not use them. Similar to why Taxi drivers are exempt from wearing seat belts for many reasons including freedom of movement in/out etc

Thanks for your input. Take it from me, you will be badly affected by this for life, you suffered trauma although you will have not known it at the time. I would bet money that you dealt with the situation perfectly without any problem at the time, it will have crept up on you days, months or even years later. DAMHIK. Enjoy your pension.

Very sensible. We see it time and time again on here where people admit that they just pay what the insurance company asks when in reality they deliberately do not ask the insurance company pertinent questions or disclose ( fully ) pertinent details to enable them to obtain cheap insurance, the insurance if the shit hits the fan may well then be invalid, people do it all the time with modified cars stupidly.

I too left aged fifteen as I hated it, best thing I ever did.

I won a scholarship to merchant navy officer training college aged 13. Boarded out in the vicinity. The place was horrendous, all male staff who these days would be in prison for child cruelty, I kid you not, old pervs some of them. We were beaten and I mean beaten with various objects nearly daily. Never did me any harm 😳 My pet hate is " color" 😒

Ahh thanks folks, seems my jungle drums even tho I no longer do inland boat dwelling are still on the ball. Bloody hell, so far recently things are not looking good for the waterways!!