john6767

Yes its a good idea, and have it set up and ready to use. Was on the Thames end of August and not many narrowboats showed and sign of having an anchor, and a few others had an anchor but not attached to any rope or chain.

There are a few "Leonard" listed on Jim Shead's, but no "Leonard 1". LEONARD Built by MIDLAND CNL CTR - Length 17.37 metres (57 feet ) - Beam 2.08 metres (6 feet 10 inches ) - Draft 0.71 metres (2 feet 4 inches ) Metal hull, power of 40. Registered with British Waterways number 502426 as a Powered. Last registration recorded on 30-May-2011. LEONARD Built by BRAIDBAR - Length 18.74 metres (61 feet 6 inches ) - Beam 2.08 metres (6 feet 10 inches ) - Draft 0.01 metres ( ) Metal hull, . Registered with British Waterways number 514610 as a Powered. Last registration recorded on 31-May-2011. LEONARD Built by WELTONFIELD NARROWBOATS - Length 18.3 metres (60 feet ) - Beam 2.1 metres (6 feet 11 inches ) - Draft 0.8 metres (2 feet 7 inches ) Metal hull, . Registered with British Waterways number 516793 as a Powered. Last registration recorded on 31-May-2011. LEONARD Built by HANCOCK & LANE - Length 18.29 metres (60 feet ) - Beam 2.07 metres (6 feet 9 inches ) - Draft 0.61 metres (2 feet ) Metal hull, power of 30. Registered with British Waterways number 60270 as a Powered. Last registration recorded on 29-May-2011. LEONARD Built by JL PINDERS - Length 17.37 metres (57 feet ) - Beam 2.08 metres (6 feet 10 inches ) - Draft 0.46 metres (1 feet 6 inches ) Metal hull, power of 43. Registered with British Waterways number 519002 as a Powered. Last registration recorded on 31-May-2011.

Many of the ones that I have seen for sale ready made up are 10m/30ft long, which is what ours are. That seems about right to me.

Yes very easy to do. I did what BW told me to do and just wrote something like "change name from X to Y" on the licence application form, and it seemed to happen fine. You don't specifically say BW is the licencing authority though, others may be different.

Usually all the documentation for a planning application is available to the public (and usually these days online) so you should easily be able to see who was informed if you can find the planing application number.

I have been buying the 3gb for 3 months sim cards off ebay for the last 12 months, but I have never tried to top one up, as that would (assuming it worked) be at the £10 for 1gb/1month rate. I just throw it away when the 3 months are up (never use the whole 3gb) and put another one in. So I will be careful if I do get caught out, to put the original sim that came with the dongle back in and top that up and not one of the ebay ones, thanks for the warning.

So it works then . Now if they can just sort out the ping time; which perhaps is a big ask as we probably come down to basic physics.

Those are good speeds, and that ping time in not bad at all either. People often forget about the impact of ping time. For general browsing (say this forum) you don't need that much bandwidth at all, but mobile ping time can be quite high and 300 is not unusual to UK sites and that will make usage feel sluggish. Of course once you start downloading big files the effect all changes. I use 3 when on the boat, I don't generally see as good a speeds as you, but certainly get faster speeds than I get at home on adsl, but you will not get 20ms ping time on 3g (unless someone knows better) so it will always feels more sluggish on the boat than at home. Newbury is just where Three are connecting to the internet backbone. Speedtest has me in Sitttingbourne (Kent?) when I am in the Midlands on adsl.

We came back up the Oxford from Dukes Cut to Napton over last weekend. As I am sure you know, there are restrictions (already mentioned in this thread) at Claydon and Marston Doles (top 2 locks at Napton) which mean they are open 10-2 each day only. You really can't do both in one day, so you need to plan on coming up Claydon one day, and down Napton the next day. Virtually no boats moving and no queues worth speaking of.

Well that is it all done now. Boat safely tucked up in the marina, and we are back home. Set off about 10:30 this morning. Four or Five boats had passed us heading for Marston Doles, but when we go to the top lock there was no one waiting to go down, and a boat just coming up the top lock. Good timing. Most boats going down, 2 that had come up passed us on the way to the top lock, the one at the top lock and one other we passed gong down the flight, and that would be about it for boats going up today. There were 2 boats going down ahead of us. We moored up for a while above Napton bottom lock, and went and had a late lunch at the Folly. Despite the gloomy skies they were doing a good trade and the food seems good value. Another good pint of Hooky was had too. Then it was down the bottom lock, and back on home turf. The short cruise round the Oxford, and turn left onto the GU to Calcutt locks. Back to usual with lots of boats moving, something we had not seem much of at all on the Oxford and Thames. A Calcutt hire boat has just left the top lock, and they had one of the Calcutt guys on board giving tuition, and at the bottom lock there where 2 Kate Boats hire boats just arriving. The crew of one of them said to my wife that is was there first lock, so my wife said "oh so you have come from Stockton", and they replied "no Hertfordshire" . Surprisingly there did not seem to be anyone from Kate boats there to help them through. They are going to have to get the hirers off early with the restrictions at Calcutt locks that start tomorrow. As usual the wind was blowing hard across the meadows marina at Calcutt, our pontoon is on the most elevated spot and usually side on to the direction of the wind. Do not want to faff, so in bow first was the decision, but as we round the island we see our neighbour is not there, that's a first, never seen the boat move before. The result being we have a nice big hole to aim at for the first time. Then the final few jobs, drop the borrowed anchor back to the office, empty cassettes (always my job) while my wife packs up and give the boat a quick clean. Then load up the car and home, boo hoo......

I believe hearing a horn can give a few extra seconds to react and worthwhile on a blind bridge. If you hear a single long blast it is most likely to be a boat and not a car, and anyway a very high percentage of the blind bridges you come across will be farm accommodation not road ones anyway. To me it is nothing about giving you the right to carry on, it is just a case of saying "I am here". I don't see what is inconsiderate about it.?

Sunday now, we need to go up Claydon today, over the top and then down Napton tomorrow, both having restrictions meaning they are only open from 10 to 2.. So we sent off about 8:30, and there was just one boat waiting at the bottom of Claydon when we got there. Went up the flight one up one down in good time. Cruised across the summit level on not much more than tick-over, no point in rushing as there is no where to go. We are currently stopped a couple of miles short of the flight near to Priors Harwick. We will go down Napton in the morning, and then down the Calcutt flight and into the Marina. Luckily the restrictions at Calcutt locks do not start until Tuesday, so they don't impact on us getting back.

Decided that we had better have an early start on Saturday, with the aim to get to Cropredy. So that 8:00am off we went, very quiet as we went up one single lock after an other on the way to Banbury. It struck me, and I don't know if this is correct, that this section of the Oxford was built with little regard to water usage, there are single often very deep locks (rather than say 2 shallower ones), and with single bottom gates (so lock about 3ft longer). Was there a reason for this? Anyway got to Banbury early afternoon. The Cotswold Canal Trust were having a "do" in the centre, with a stand and a number of decorated boats. They seen to be very active. North out of Banbury, arrived at the first lock with one boat waiting, and one that we had followed at distance just pulling up. There was a young couple and older man on board, and there seemed to be a lot of faffing going on with ropes while waiting, then all 3 went up to the lock, and I thought great. The young man comes back and takes the boat into the lock, obviously he was not very experienced. When they had ascended, the older man can walking back down the towpath, and it was Timothy West, walking back towards Banbury. Once we were up the lock we tried to work out what had been going on, and our conclusion, probably wrong, was that these were perhaps grandchildren and Timothy had come with them to the first lock. We caught then up at the next 2 locks, and then we very going along and came to a bend, and there stuck on the offside were the young couple firmly aground. I offered to tow them off, and the gratefully accepted. This was all getting far to exciting . Anyway this now meant that I was ahead of them, so we did not see them again. Arrived a Cropredy at about 6pm, and moored on the 24hr moorings above the lock. Tried out both the Brasenose Arms and the Red Lion, good pint of Hooky in both, but preferred the Red Lion I think,.

Thanks PJ, one for next time now. On Friday we finally moved off about 2:00pm, and used the excellent services at Thrupp. We had just got onto the river section when the heavens opened, really heavy rain and one point hail. Pushed on and up the lock off the river part, and stopped. A complete change of cloths later, there we stayed until 5:30, when we moved off again, and kept going until, we could no longer see. Depressingly this was only at 8:30, the nights really are drawing in. In reality it was the mist that really stopped us rather than the dark, but we got to a couple on miles north of Upper Heyford.

We are still there by the Jolly Boatman! Can't get the motivation to move in the rain. You are right about the Thames, it's rubbish, don't go there In reality its not big at all upstream from Oxford, no bigger than the Avon in many place; perhaps a little disappointed by that, but we will do downstream next time. We were spoiled really as there was very little water flow, which made it easy. According to my GPS "speedo" app, I was doing 4mph upstream and 4.5 mph downstream. I did open it up to 5mph downstream for a while, but I still got burned off by a cruiser.