Ian Mac

I too have been pumping boats out for many years. Firstly an 8" pump is not the same as 4 2" pumps its at least a square law bigger so you need at least 16 2" pumps to get the same flow rate, probably more! Secondly - Trousers go straight through an 8" Vac Pump as do most other things! Thirdly ply is better because you dont need a good seal with a big pump you just need to slow down the incoming water a bit, and have something which is ridged 4thly I an't got all day to carry loads of pumps around and muck about waiting, and getting a good seal. An 8" really does bring a boat up as you watch, not just little narrow boats but wide boats and barges as well. 5thly one hyabs the pontoon into the water of your lorry, then the pump, pipes and bits of ply into the pontoon, you float up to the stricken vessel - job done, back down the cut, stuff out, back to the yard refeulled (24hr tank by the way), home for dinner. Life is just too short for little pumps! So if you have plenty of free time and no money carry on with the little pumps or get a bigger pump, and get the job done. -- cheers Ian Mac

What one needs is a BIG pump, a 6" Sykes Univac is getting good, an 8 inch one is man enough for the job. Assuming the roof isn't under that water, one throws the suction hose into the cabin and turns the pump on, once a differential appears use bits of plywood to stem the flow, and up she will bob, in less time than it takes to boil a kettle. Been there done that, it works. Little pumps are a total waste of space, you need at least 16 two inch pumps to get anywhere near what an 8" pump is capabill of. The moral of this tale is don't play at it, get a BIG pump, its far cheaper in the long run, also it stops them getting stuck to the bottom, which can be a problem if you leave them for any time at all. Also to stop water, builders 1T bags full of sand make excellent quick dams. -- cheers Ian Mac

Am I missing something here, why do CRT have to do anything? Its not their boat, they probably already know the owner has no money, no licence fee received perhaps? So if its not blocking the channel, why touch it, unless they can claim the salvage, which the local farmer may already be doing. CRT are not there to look after peoples boats that is the owners job, I don't want them spending my license money on someone else's problem, I want them to maintain the waterway with my ex money, which is what I'm paying them for, I also pay insurance in case I sink, so some one can sort the mess out. So stop slagging CRT off, its not their fault, someone doesn't/can't care about their boat, they need to pick the bill up. -- cheers Ian Mac had a 500 error and it double posted! so edited to fix

If your thinking of doing the ship canal, you need to consider the things you will need, in some sort of order. a certificate of seaworthiness. at least £130. 2 50ft ropes - 100ft are better particularly if your going downhill, it means you can hold of both ends on the boat, so you are in charge and can let go when you want, rather than waiting for the lock keeper crew to undo you. a proper horn - an aerosol one will do at a pinch. beer of the lock keeper crew. vhf radio - mobile phone maybe! an anchor a full set of life jackets for the crew navigation lights good waterproofs there is no shelter! it is horrible in the wind and rain, remember its name - Manchester S.C. a good set of headphones so you can listen to some music - most of it is as boring as hell, with great photo opportunities. We moored in the old dock 9 near Media city, there is a good pontoon there, when we last went down. If your coming from the south, Marple I think is a better option, if you have the time. -- Cheers Ian Mac

I'm with Laurence on several counts, I too think its a young John Jinks, it would make sense for him to be there. Its also Johnny J's stance at the tiller, we each have our own style and that's his. -- Cheers Ian Mac Also still missing him and but not forgotten. I'm in my mid twenties when I appear, working on Dungebooth Lock.

Actually I think you will find the crow act has superseded some of this. It has certainly mucked up what can be put on a common with TRTR, but they don't want to touch it, as it will cause the 2015 dead line date to be amended. -- cheers Ian Mac

One way of stemming a breach, which I believe as attempted here, is to tie a boat across the affected section. In this case the flow was already to great and the whole bank got washed away, shame really. -- cheers Ian Mac

Because that is what they are officially called these days. It was only when the Ashton Canal was restored that they spread off the L&L, due to the Ashton being managed out of the Wigan office. As they were no long handcuff locks, they changed name. They have now spread right round the system. At one point it was common to discover that on a midland waterway features they were locked with Bog keys, but that has changed due to the expense of a yale lock compared with a bit of 1/4" bar and a bit of hollow rod, which is a good thing in my book. -- cheers Ian Mac

Each Bridge is a new and interesting problem, as already stated if its original then it is probably C&RT who own it, but not always! Most newer bridges are owned by the respective authority Highway or railway, and C&RT do there absolute best to make sure it stays that way, thus the dispute over the footbridges over the old water channel in Manchester, which are clearly owned by Manchester Council, how tried a fast one at transfer time and failed. As also stated C&RT only have to provide what was originally required by the authorising act, so if a bridge needs to be improved at all, then that cost falls to the highway authority. Thus the bridge in Oldbury where C&RT have come to an arrangement over maintenance cost versa a new bridge with the LA. -- cheers Ian Mac

Just had several page load errors myself, all worked when retried. Would appear to be the server end as it is issuing the error reports. One page came in plain, with no style or formatting, other than basic HTML layout. When I attempted to post this I got this message XML Parsing Error: undefined entity Location: jar:jar:file:///C:/Users/........../AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/una1zoea.default-1361097569552/extensions/speedtest@gotomyhelp.com.xpi!/chrome/speedtest.jar!/content/netError.xhtml Line Number 392, Column 33: <div id="ed_netOffline">&netOffline.longDesc;</div> --------------------------------^ so used the back button to try again and add the message. -- Cheers Ian Mac

Just had several page load errors myself, all worked when retried. Would appear to be the server end as it is issuing the error reports. One page came in plain, with no style or formatting, other than basic HTML layout. -- Cheers Ian Mac

Having watched a D3 bulldozer getting sliced in two separate bits (lengthways) when a steel hawser pulling it out of a big bog parted, I have always give steel hawsers a very very good clearance. They sing before they snap, all the operators knew this and ran away, but it still snapped. The said hawser was attached to a D10, which was going for it, it lost most of its blade, which was also sliced nearly into half, by the other end of the cable whipping around. Wicked stuff steel hawser. Those blades are 2" hardened steel and it cut it like a hot knife through butter. So maybe that's what they will be really doing, cutting the crane up into smaller bits -- Cheers Ian Mac

Bu..er! I to would have sworn it was you, Welcome Hugh Chertsey - Owned by the Cherstey Kid (Dicky Barrent) from the late Sixtes, leant to Ian Kemp, who brought it to Marple/High Lane around 1970 and refitted it, Ian then took her away and did several coal runs off the Ashby with Andrew Boucher, using a butty as well. Some time in the late 70's Richard had her out on the bank at Allens yard in Oldbury and he and I and others helped him hot rivet new plates into the bow end. Not sure when Tricky got rid of her, or if it was after he died. -- Cheers Ian Mac

I can confirm it is the Daphne hauled out on the side slip at Ashton Canal Carriers, Hanover St Guide Bridge on the Ashton Canal, also home to Maria and Joel, and a Mecca for wooden boats. These Guys really know what wooden boats are about. This is currently Daphnes home mooring, as I understand it. -- Cheers Ian Mac

my dell power supply is a dc091-006 from Powery of China 90W max at 18-20v. Drives my old Dell Precision M60 well, but only when the alternator is going on some boats, if I'm too far away from the battery - vole drop down the cable! Some boats don't have big hawsers like we do I got it off amazon, the MEXXTRONICS shop for £30 -- Cheers Ian Mac

Ah that would be the time before then! The top wing wall has been jacked out twice since then that I know of. It moves all the time and when it gets too tight they just come out and jack it out again They have to drain the fore bay to do this operation. Given it is so regular I'm surprised they don't measure it and fix it before it gets too bad, they set it to 7'4" when they fix it. One of the lads actually watched them do it back in the 80's. -- Cheers Ian Mac

Two things about your design. 1) larger pipe to vent the system please, boiling water expands the volume by a huge amount it will need a way to escape easily, not by a twisted small pipe, run at least 22mm pipe up, at least, 28mm better. The pressure can rupture small pipes, then you have real problems. 2 Don't forget the 25C rule for returning water. A cold return really does rot boilers It also encourages it to rot from the inside out, so you don't see it happening till its a puddle on the floor! You should have two thermostats, one on the return which inhibits the pump while the water is cold and another which runs it, come what may, because the flow is getting too hot. -- cheers Ian Mac

Now then this is a job I've always fancied having a go at. My old gaffer designed and fitted a Solid fuel central heating system in a bungalow, that's not that clever, doing it without a pump is. The art is fitting the biggest pipe that the boiler has as a outlet for, preferably to the top of the boiler so the pipe rises directly upwards, one can up the size but the initial throttling matters. If the connection comes out the back you have to use a large slow sweep, the slower the better. The large pipe should go as high as it possibly can, then still rising on maybe a 1 in 100 climb, with the boat in its most nose light mode, assuming you are running the pipe towards the back. This is a good reason for having the fire at the back of the boat, but I know most are at the front! The size of the near horizontal pipe should be such that its volume is slightly less than that of the vertical pipe. The junction between the vertical and the near horizontal should be made with a large radius swept T the upright should either continue up and be an open vented or have a safety valve fitted, both must be external to the cabin. The radiators then come off the horizontal in small pipes vertically down to the radiator top, from the bottom of the radiator should come a large pipe down to the lower return horizontal, again this should fall from the far radiator all the way back to the fir at about 1 in 100. This return pipe should be the same size as the horizon flow, and should ideally arrive at the boiler return port directly, ie it should not need a vertical piece. If it does then this needs to be the same size as the horizontal return, and the corner piece should be a slow sweep. Now you can actually work out the sizes given the known stiction of the pipe, you can find this on the interwebbie I'm sure, and its length and the temperatures required in each radiator. On the other hand one just adjusts the return check values appropriately. You also have to get you boiler size right for the required room temperatures. Also remember when sizing your boiler that the return temp should not fall below 25degrees c otherwise you will get condensation forming inside your boiler and this will rot it for fun. -- Cheers Ian Mac

In the days when I was responsible for organising lifts for boats around breaches and closed tunnels, I use to use a standard 35ton Mobile Crane with 6 wheels. This would lift out a 70ft boat and place it on a trailer, we would whip several boats drive them around the obstruction and then drop it back in, a mornings work. We never had ringing bells, Tyseley, the Mikron Theatre Co. boat weighs just over 21tons, fully fitted with everything on board.

Each gate has its weight chiselled in it these days, but they are big gates for the middle set at Apperley, so it was just a guess. If someone is there abouts they could take a look. -- cheers Ian Mac

I've just had a thought whilst out milking the chickens, maybe this is a spot where a boat or several boats have moored for some time, and run their engines in gear whilst moored up, in the mistaken belief that it stops their engines glazing up when charging their batteries. Doing this totally wreaks the wash wall and causes precisely this sort of failure. There are some classic example around the canal system of this hooliganism. The worse ones I know of are at Ashton opposite Portland St Warehouse. People should be shot for doing this to our canals. -- cheers Ian Mac

So 2.5 is as close as it can get the load, so another metre to the lock edge, then 3.5m to hold the far gate in position. 7m max so the crane is far too big for the job, no wonder they had problems. Lets do in feet 1m = 3ft the canal is 14ft wide, therefore the centre of the far gate is 11ft from the edge 3ft to the outrigger and then the crane & outrigger is 16ft wide so another 8ft added up 22ft = 7m -- cheers Ian Mac

So 2.5 is as close as it can get the load, so another metre to the lock edge, then 3.5m to hold the far gate in position. 7m max so the crane is far too big for the job, no wonder they had problems. -- cheers Ian Mac

It didn't die it was merged into ICL "New Range machines and VME" which is still very much alive and processing. The last full emulation of S4 was written in the early 1980's. I know because I was one of the chaps writing it!. -- cheers Ian Mac "It has taken the world nearly 30 years to recover from Bill Gates, I can now, nearly do things on my computer, which were common place in the 1980's"

One word which still strike fear into any WPO is BAGDERS and this bit of the mont has them! However there is then another word, a far worse word though, NEWTS which is ultimate bad word. (can be made even worse that that by prepending "Great Crested") As the canal under restoration is now vaguely holding water, these little beauties have turned up, and that is the end of the game till GNW. The problem is that they are totally protected, Our laws, EU laws, everybodies laws, so nothing can be done, I'm surprised the towpath is still open as a footpath!, people are looking for a solution, lots of effort is going on, but don't forget this is with one group of people who bear the brunt of the government cuts, and are loosing their jobs, its really hard to negotiate, as its a set of fresh faces at each new meeting. Work on the towpath has being carried out but the main channel is currently a total no go area, I believe. How long it will remain like that God Only Knows. The aim is to get to the welsh border, as once that is reached that will enable the Welsh office to Burst into life, but we have to get there first. Plans are being discussed about starting else where on the English length, but nothing in place yet. The environmentalists have a total whip hand at the moment, even though I believe we have totally demonstrated that a restored canal is as good as the set of lakes, which we had to build alongside the canal to get it restored beyond the A5. -- Cheers Ian Mac