john6767

Looking at the photo of MJG's rear fender, the chain fixing points look quite close together, which is how ours are. For that reason I decide that a tipcat arrangement would not work, and went with a single large fender as a direct replacement for what was on (and much worse than one one here I might add). Was that a correct assertion, or is it still possible to make tipcats work when the fixing point are closer together that the length of a tipcat, (22" or 24" if I remember correctly).

Not related to survey, but make certain the Saga meets your needs. When I rang up earlier in the year for a quote from them and asked questions about the extent of covert with respect to a) towing/being towed, and travelling at night, it was not clear that they covered either of those things. Whilst I don't particularly plan on doing them, it seemed a bit limiting when there were others who came out cheaper and had no problems with those. Perhaps as with all insurance the only true test is when you have to claim.

Quite..... no one said this stuff was easy, or obvious, but working in software development you get used to this sort of fun and games Anyway it is most certainly the Skpe add-on for IE that is doing that, moments after my last post I saw one appear. It depend on the time/date of the posting, making it what the plugin thinks is a UK phone number (assuming you have UK as your default of the plugin). So an example is a post time of "Sept 02 2010 08:28pm" which gets picked up by the Skype plugin as a phone number of "02 2010 08". I suspect the day needs to be 01 02 07 etc for this to happen. If you want to keep the plugin turning off the number hilighting does stop it doing that. Anyway back to Google Chrome for me......

If you are using IE and you have Skype and the Skype add-on for Internet Explorer installed then it could be that. You can turn off the number highlighting in the Skype add-on if you don't want it to do that. I don't normally use IE and do have Sykpe, but I have to admit that I could not reproduce this with the forum, but have seen do this on other pages.

As this thread proves, each to their own. Springers, good for keeping an eye on those pesky ducks.

We passed you on Saturday afternoon on the lower part of Atherstone locks. I believe I gave you (guessing it was you in retrospect) the standard grunt as you passed my on the towpath and I was getting back on the boat to go into the lock your boat had just come out of. It was not until I passed your boat I realised the name, and at that point the heavens opened big time. When I was in the lock I looked round and your boat we nicely across the cut , so I guess the sudden downpour caught your wife out too! When we were looking for marinas we looked within an hour radius of home (Solihull ) and Mercia at 50 mins looked quite promising for a while. In the end we decided we did not want to start out on the "northern" canals and settled for more home turf on the GU at Calcutt instead. In terms of the facilities I don't think you can really fault Mercia, and it was not expensive in comparison with others either.

We came down Spon Lane locks on Sunday afternoon, and the pound between the bottom and middle locks was the clearest I think I have ever seen on a canal. Did not notice fish, but you could clearly see the weed and the rubbish on the bottom! However bellow the bottom lock it was the opposite,a dirty oily mess and the black slick we churned up as as we made the tight turn left on to the New Main Line was horrible.

There are lots of sources of information on this, but a good overview can be had here

I didn't believe you could do it on line if it is a change of ownership, at least that is what BW told me. I was told you have to use the paper form in that first instance.

No idea if it really matters if the name matches what is painted on the boat, we were lucky the name was not written on ours. All you do on the licence form is above where you put the boat name you write "rename from [old_name] to new name" and in the name box put the new name you want to call it. That is what BW customer service told me to do and it certainly worked, the new licence came with the new name on it.

I would say as soon as its yours. We took ownership of our boat on Friday 25 June, and the license expired at the end of June. I took the form into the Fradley office on Monday 28 June, and the license finally arrived last Thursday 29th July. So basically a month from applying to getting the license. I did change the boat name at the same time, so I don't know if that prolonged the time taken. The only real benefit from taking into a BW office it that you go get a receipt to display on the boat while you are waiting for the license to come; looks a bit better than the classic "license applied for" on a scrap of paper!

Or perhaps Deep Cuttings Junction

Last year we moored exactly where you are now and I noticed the sign then. I agree it is saying that ONLY overnight mooring is allowed, except for on Tuesday & Wednesday when you can also moor there during the day (for the market). I assume the limitation on the daytime mooring is because of the new houses opposite. I believe the permanent moorers there have "special conditions" applied as to the time they are allowed to spend on the boats there etc. The town is not up to much in my opinion anyway, mostly empty shops

To me it looked as though it was only London where you were not required to have a permit. I can't really see the point of the permit, just the BW does seem to say you should have one. There is a list of where you can and can not cycle here, and the North Stratford that I was referring to is "no cycling".

The thing that annoys me about the cyclists that seem to believe they own the towpath, is that most don’t know that, 1) then are not allowed to cycle of that part of the towpath (northern Stratford), and 2) on the sections that cycling is allowed on that they should have a permit. So to me I have a right to be there, walking, but they don’t, so they should at least be considerate and keep a low profile. Out of interest how many that carry a bike around on their boat for lockwheeling etc, have a permit?

Yet another toilet question, but I think this is a specific enough question to warrant a new thread, and apologies if this has been discussed before. We have picked up our new (to us) boat, and am intending to use one of the biological toilet fluids in the Thetford C200 cassette. We have tried bluebio, but I suspect it is not working well, as there was a significant smell after only a day or so. I know the previous owners were using a formaldehyde based product. I suspect the residue of the previous chemicals in the cassette is killing the bugs. Does it just take a few cycles of rinsing out to make the switch, or is the only way to get a new cassette.

Ah yes, Barrow-in-Furness, at the end of the longest cul-de-sac in Britain. At least that is what we called it when I used to visit VSEL (as it was) in the early 90’s. The company I worked for was a supplier of computer software, and we used to get trips around the yard, so I did enjoy seeing it again. Next Sunday I think the program it at Rolls-Royce Aerospace in Derby, another of my haunts from the same job.

That caught my eye too, but looking on Maplin's site that would seem to be for a B grade setup with a 46cm dish that is not 12v. The more usual "suitcase" systems (39cm dish, 12/230v) are on promotion at £79.99 Did I miss something?

I am in the process of buying a boat whos license runs out at the end of this month. I spoke to BW, and they suggested taking the paperwork to my local regional office (in my case Fazeley), who will still need to send it on to Leeds for processing, but will provide a "license applied for" receipt to display in the boat in the meantime.

Yes, Bancroft basin is visitor moorings, and is a great place if you like Japanese tourists taking photos of your boat ;-) You can also moor on the approach to the basin, so if you send someone ahead to scout out if there is space in the basin or not you can decide to moor on the approach if it is full. If you go down on to the river to moor I believe you need a “lock and moor” licence for the Avon from the tourist information centre at £6. It depends on where you want to be in Birmingham as to which route works out best. If you are just making a run though Brum and sticking to the ring then the GU route is the more direct. If you want to sample Gas Street Basin and some on the BCN Main Line then the north Stratford is the way to go, once you have cleared Lapworth locks you are on the same level as Gas Street and the main line. North Stratford would be my choice, but then I do live there….

Thanks for the suggestions. It is interesting that in most cases they are either very short boats, or very expensive ones, ie. no run of the mill ones! Coincidently I believe I spotted Elan Valley at Lapworth on Sunday, and thought it was a nice little boat. We have hired cruiser and semi-trad boats, and wanted to see how a trad would suit us, particularly with the dog. So without wanting to open a debate on which type is best, how did others go about making their choice to stern type?