Keeping Up

This ^^^^^

If anybody would like an empty 13kg FloGas cylinder, and can collect from here in Milton Keynes, they are very welcome to it.

A few years ago we borrowed some sheep to keep the grass short at our mooring while we were away. They were too stupid to stop moving when they reached the canal bank, & kept falling in until we installed an electric fence.

Seconded. We ate there again on Sunday

In any area of work - boats, cars, houses, roads, electrics, etc - there are cowboy operatives who do a bad job. To then condemn all work as bad practice which must be avoided, is simply ludicrous (unless of course you are a surveyor who has a vested interest in generating work for your favourite boatyard). The above article only just stops short of saying that all welding should be avoided when building a boat in the first place. To suggest that all overplating is bad, and quoting specific examples where the aforementioned cowboy hasn't properly welded the overplating and hasn't done his homework on depth and stability etc, is simply crazy. To recommend that you remove the entire outer of a hull, plus the interior at all those places, leaves you without anything at all! A narrowboat such as ours - which is the one referenced above that went from 6mm after 24 years to 1mm a year later - which has been properly and carefully overplated by a highly professional and extremely experienced boatyard is every bit as sound as it was before the repairs suddenly became necessary.

Ah, that's different from the signs that were there a few days ago, they were just plain red with the words "No Mooring" in white letters.

Is that why there were homemade-looking signs saying "No mooring" at various random places above and below the lock a few days ago, with no reason or timescale stated on them?

One possible action could be a small sticker on the microphone saying "Do not transmit for more than 1 minute in any 6 minute period"

I was recently told by a reliable source (a re-seller of Marine 16, who buys it in bulk and markets it under his own brand label) that yes the recommended quantity is correct if you suspect a mild case of the bug that needs to be cured, but that as a purely preventative measure then one-half of that amount is correct, ie 1ml per 2 litres of fuel, so a 500ml bottle is sufficient for 1000 litres of fuel. He assured me that Marine-16 agree with this, but do not print it on their own bottles because then they would only sell half as much.

Where was that?

Or, as I have done in other circumstances, use a hair dryer or a fan heater (on cold setting) as a source of blown air. A plastic bag or bin-liner with the end cut off, plus a load of sticky tape, makes a perfectly good connecting tube, and you can leave it blowing air for several hours to evaporate any moisture.

I took the pipe off completely, then upended it and just blew through it

There is also a little bit of smelly stuff ("stenching agent") in the bottles. This can also condense in the pipes as an oily brown liquid, this has caused a blockage in ours on several occasions.

I remember once setting my alarm clock for 4 a.m. to get an early start (whilst on the BCN Challenge) but instead being woken at 3.45 by the sound of an approaching Bolinder. In comparison to the raucous screech of an alarm clock, it was like being woken by the sweetest of music!

Nobody seems to have mentioned, open the paddles just a little bit at first - then the water doesn't "rush" in - and then slowly open them a bit more as the lock fills up.

Remember the horn signal of 3 hoots followed by 4 hoots followed by 2 hoots followed by one long blast. It translates as "I've engaged reverse, I'm turning around to port, GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!" or alternatively in Morse code as " S H I T " which amounts to much the same thing.

For many years I helped show hirers out, teaching them as much as possible in a short time. On one occasion I even gave them a demonstration of how to fall in by missing your footing when stepping from the boat to the bank .

Yes but is the boat used as a residence or only for leisure purposes? That makes a big difference.

As always Graham, as always!

I always love to stop there and pretend to work through that lock, pushing the imaginary gates and winding the imaginary paddles. It sure confuses any boat that is following me, especially when I stop and back-set it for them!

It shows the correct location for me.

I didn't get the notice on my email, even though my list includes the B&F.

In my experience, no more than about 1 boat in 10 actually travels too fast past moored boats. If when moored you disagree with this figure, it almost certainly means that you have not moored properly.

Many years ago I had a set of Varta Hobby batteries, and they gave great service for over 5 years so then I bought a new set; they lasted for just over 2 weeks. It turned out they had changed the formula to include calcium and we were the first UK customers of the new type. When the replacement set also died within 2 weeks it was clear that they had got things totally wrong, and they withdrew the entire range from the market for about 4 months while they re-engineered them. We of course got our money back. Yes they reintroduced them, with calcium, but they have never been as good since.