Swallowman
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Posts posted by Swallowman
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http://www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=21339
Just like the one I bought for the boat some years ago - but cheaper.
I have bought lots of Powerfix branded tools from LIDL and the quality is really good at the price. Not quite up to Snap-On but not far short - havn't broken or worn anything out yet.
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Well done. Does the electronic gadget work?
Give me time. It appears to be a TENS machine.
Course it doesn't work - that's why it was in the cut!
SWMBO took a photo of me moored in Gas Street basin up to my armpit down't weed 'ole on our very first cruise on Swallow - first pic on our page of the boat's website.
http://www.nb-swallow.co.uk/styled-8/styled-22/styled-24/index.html
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It's gone!!
River level was lowered to enable some remedial works to the weir just downstream and according to friends who live in the flats opposite, some bods turned up on the Saturday morning to try and pump her out but like Fred Carnot's Army, failed dismally.
Consequently the EA came along with the A Team on Sunday and Achilles was back afloat within an hour. it was apparently towed through the lock and away downstream but to where is another question entirely.
Strange but true, a smaller red and green narrowboat is now moored where Achilles lay on the opposite side to the Council run moorings..
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River level has been lowered considerably and Achilles is now about 85% visible. I took a few pics on my b***dy silly BlackBerry yesterday but I can't extract them to post on here. I have pm'd Dazbot8 but as he hasn't been on here since December last year, i don't hold out much hope. Wouldn't mind betting the EA themselves will pull her out and dispose of as scrap. Don't know what engine it had but it would be pity to lose an old one.
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Tat nipple greaser for your grease gun on ebay
Easier than guessing the thread size..
Good luck,
Mike.
When I bought my first car (1947 Series E Morris 8) in 1969, I bought a Swiss-made Wanner 315 grease gun which I still use on my 1937 Morris 8 and Rover 3 litre cars. There were a few nipples that were difficult to get at with the rigid steel tube from the pump to the nipple connector and I found that by using a flexible rubber brake hose instead of the steel tube, I could get at the awkward nipples much more easily. It strikes me that the TAT nipples need the grease gun to be applied at an almost exact right angle to ensure a tight fit so the brake hose idea may allow a little more leeway if the space is tight.
Good luck with all the work, with all Marcus's enthusiasm it will happen.
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I always liked the T & M when Swallow was moored at Great Haywood - pretty countryside and nice people.
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Experiment.
Bucket of clean water, beer/milk bottle, and drinking straw.
Put enough water in the bottle to just float it with the neck above the water in the bucket.
Suck out some of the water from the bottle, the bottle will rise.
But if the bottle is already full with the neck under water as seems to be the case here?.......
You would need a pump capable of sucking water out faster than it can get back in through the large holes on the top of the superstructure which are under water.
I hope Marcus does get Fairstar floating again and wish all good fortune for next week.
(Edit for fat finger syndrome)
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I have also found - e.g.with stone throwers, that getting your camera or phone camera out and pointing it at vandals inhibits them too - they mostly run off.
The only time we were ever stoned was by 10 year olds already known to Police near Wolverhampton. Getting the camera out actually encouraged more of them down onto the towpath and two of of the little fatherless children chased us along the path as we headed North. This happened during a huge storm and the the first place we were able to stop and moor was under the M54 bridge. The Police did offer to come and take statements but because of the age of criminal responsibility...........
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it would have been impossible for him to sit on his stool or stand up in Harecastle tunnel - I have only been through once on Swallow and I had to kneel on the rear deck of our semi-trad with my napper just over the parapet to see where I was going. I hit my head several times on the low roof and mentioned at the time on here that I wish I had my "work" bump cap with me.
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Draper folding pruning saw to cut ropes and other detritis off the prop; even cuts steel tyre cords! £9.99 well spent.
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Notice from CRT today:
Update on 22/07/2014:Following additional control measures and ongoing monitoring we are now in a position to allow unrestricted use of Lock 10. Therefore Napton Locks are now fully open without restriction.
We will however continually review the situation and should the need arise we may need to reintroduce a restriction pending the permanent repairs this winter.
We would like to ask that all boats take particular care in this area to avoid impact with the approach walls.
What this actually means is that there is now no need for a lockie to supervise passage as people are being sensible about it. We went through in both directions last week and there was a lockie there on the way up reading his SUN (looking at the pictures
) and coming down three days later, no-one in sight apart from four elfin safety wallahs who came for a shufti.Lockie told us on the way up that on the day it happened, a boat was approaching the lock as the offside approach wall just gently slid under the boat as it went into the lock; crew a bit shaken but not stirred. The wall is still there under water and the fabric cover is to prevent erosion of the bank as the lock is used.
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This is a great shame. The boat (Hesperus?) was raised after much pumping earlier in the year and, when we last went past a few weeks ago, looked well afloat. It must be heartbreaking for the owner that she has submerged again.
She was on the bottom of the very shallow pound when we went past last week. Water was coming out from between the planks at the stern as we slid by.
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Just to say from reading a blog tonight it has sunk again
And still resting on the bottom of a very shallow pound when we went past last week. Very sad.
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We passed him a couple of years ago with a large range of sausages etc. on display. We were told later on by one of the nearby farm shops that he bought all his "home-made" produce at a butcher's stall operated by Poles in Market Drayton and should not be eaten under any circumstances. At the time I thought sour grapes but maybe not......
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Went to take a lookysee yesterday and the status quo remains. Now that the EA have restored the river level to normal, Achilles is still under water and a hazard to navigation as there are no markers anywhere to show a sunken boat other than the 6" or so of the bow visible above the surface. From the attitude of the boat in the newspaper photos, it looks like an attempt had been made to drag it towards a slipway near where she lies, but the bow is now further out into the stream a few yards away from the slip
One factor affecting the willingness (or not as the case may be) of the authorities to assist is that the boat was moored for months if not years on the Council maintained Visitor Moorings just above Tonbridge Town Lock which are chargeable at £5.00 per night with a maximum of 7 nights in any 30 night period....... There is another plastic un-named and unlicensed boat on the same mooring with an un-named narrowboat seemingly permanently moored on the lock landing downstream of the lock, thus effectively closing it off for use.
My sympathy has waned somewhat although to lose one's home is a bit of a b****r to say the least.
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Anybody local know the latest, I'm hoping things will go positive soon. I expect the continued rain is hampering recovery plans.
The Tonbridge edition of the Kent & Sussex Courier reports this week that Achilles has been revealed by "dreging of the river" but actuallly by lowering the river level. She looks a sorry sight in the newspaper photographs that show most of the timber superstructure lying alongside having been smashed off by the force of the water. The bow is resting on what looks like a slipway but the stern is still under water. The owner (Karlie Sinfield) hopes to have the boat pulled out of the water by the weekend with the help of friends,
All very sad as the boat has been in the Tonbridge area since being built in 1972 as a "trip boat".
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Guess what fell out of my top pocket when emptying the elsan yesterday through a manhole (at home on my land), and yes guess where it went.
That's why my phone lives at the end of a lanyard round my neck when out on't cut!
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So, I assume everyone who has commented on this thread has now had a slightly threatening pm from CSH? I received one, with solicitors and police apparently informed of the norty things I have written....
Erm.....
Hmmm......
Ok, I admit I did say pink and orange is not to my taste.
I am duly sitting on the norty step!
He also made some onerous comments about our business coming to an end and suggested we had no home mooring, which of course we do....but just not there! We chose another local marina for reasons I won't bother with.
Bless.
Do tell - were the comments libelous?
I think we all know why you had to close your business and all also sympathise greatly with the reasons.
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But to the topic.
The new NAA will be signed as soon as possible. The meeting between RR and PS ironed out some stipulations and both CRT's and our solicitors are working together to have it finalised.
So how come the marina can afford to pay it now with fewer vessels moored now than there were when it allegedly couldn't afford it?
Something smells and it's not just the water when the marina becomes a stagnant pond.
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I'm unaware of any public pronouncement by RR, which suggests he's more of a protégé of Mr Steadman than of Paul Lillie.No pronouncement from Chris Herbert either - he undertook many pages ago to tell us what sums had been paid to CaRT.
PL is getting desperate if he only now thinks of suing CaRT for unfair treatment As someone said before, he signed up to it without duress, why didn't he squeal then?
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I was going to comment on this earlier, but didn't want to admit to going over to the far side.
However what Mr Johnson seems to be missing is that, as I understand it, there are no official liveaboard moorings at P.L. Perhaps he should keep his head down rather than attacking others.
NBW's constant siding with P L is losing them a lot of credibility, or at least of what credibility they had left, over their reporting of the marina's woes.
Mr Johnson also doesn't appear to realise that if Lillie the Paul had paid CaRT their just dues that he willingly signed up to, he would probably not be in the position he thinks he will be - juggling two boats, two cars, family, job, etc. Does Mr Johnson understand that PL took money off him to pay CaRT? Probably not because the rose tint has darkened a bit.
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I don't suppose you get much say in how it is recovered.
Absolument! I once was marshalling on a stage rally many years ago and the recovery team came to pull a car out of the ditch it had veered off into. They attached the chains to the front anti-roll bar instead of the cross-member in spite of my and the driver's protestations and ripped it clean out of the car, one of them narrowly avoiding being hit on the head by a large piece of spring steel. How were the mighty so nearly felled!
They were of course, experts.
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Out of curiosity, I tried to get a copy of the title deeds from the Land Registry, to see exactly what the boundaries were, and came across something I’ve never encountered before.
The Land Registry website recognises the property, but states – Tenure: n/a; price paid/value stated: n/a, and adds: “Sorry, we do not have a record of any titles for this property. This does not necessarily mean that the property is unregistered.”
That's actually quite common. I was trying a few years ago to find out who actually owned the rights of way shown on an Ordnance Survey map and the LR returned my fee saying exactly the same thing. Everyone in the area knew exactly who owned the land across which the bridleway and access road to several properties in a forest passed but because it had never been registered, the owner could not be forced to maintain it. It was maintained by the property owners themselves until the extremely wealthy owner of the track started to drive large trucks down it destroying what the property owners had done. His reaction when asked to repair the damage? Guess - but it generally involved two fingers pointed skywards!
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Did Ownerships go bust using a Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation too?
MtB
No, it was placed into the hands of the official receiver when Allen Matthews died owing monies left right and centre to the vast majority of his syndicate members of which there must have been over a thousand when he fell off the perch. He was the MD of the company but there was a company secretary who through her financial advisor told all the interested parties at a meeting held in a large sports hall that the cupboard was bare, several people had made six figure sum unsecured loans to the man and his house was mortgaged to Barclays Bank. Doubtless, there were funds squirrelled away somewhere to fund his family's survival but no-one ever discovered how or where.
The firm of accountants lumbered with winding up the whole sorry affair was Begbies Traynor in Southend and I believe their fee was paid by the official receiver after their failure to generate any funds by selling the buy-back shares to the individual boat syndicates except in a very few cases where syndicates were given bad advice.
) and coming down three days later, no-one in sight apart from four elfin safety wallahs who came for a shufti.
Corbyn
in Current Affairs
Posted
Just shows how thick and isolated the average Yank scholars must be!