Tom and Bex

This. We've cut the entire back off our squirrel ash pan and it makes it so much easier and cleaner to empty, whether into the tippy or elsewhere. No. Some does, but once removed from stove none spills out when carrying outside. With the back removed completely, then when putting back into stove it shovels any spilt ash back into itself again. Definitely a very worthwhile mod, tippy or no tippy, and makes for cleaner emptying with less dust. Lots of stoves come with the ash pan like this from new for exactly this reason.

Unfortunately there's no accounting for people's stupidity. There was a new house that was built near the River Tone in Somerset several years ago and the new occupants weren't happy with the wall at the end of their garden blocking the view of the river so decided to lower it. Unsurprisingly, the next winter the whole village flooded the worst it had since the defences were built in the 60's with many houses flooded. Surprisingly the owners moved out after that and put their flood damaged house up for sale!

This. There must be more to this that for whatever reason CRT are not willing to say. There's been problems with individual lift bridges on this section before that just result in isolated stoppage notices relating just to the actual bridge. With so many winding holes and moorings it makes no sense to close the entire 10 mile section.

But public rights of way are closed on an emergency basis all the time with or without signed diversions in place. Not beyond the wit of CRT and the local council to come up with a short term solution surely? It's not exactly a busy thoroughfare! I'd also be asking questions why the original repair failed so soon -: it's a simple hydraulic system, permanent repair should be easily sorted in a matter of hours not weeks!

This is ridiculous. Why the need to close such a long stretch? If there is a need why not explain in the stoppage notice? Why can't CRT give more info? None of this makes any sense st all. Last time I seem to recall it was a boater that winched it open and left it that way, but don't think CRT were very happy about it! Can't think of any reason CRT couldn't open it and leave it that way until fixed. Only carries a footpath and not a very long diversion to get round. Bet this would have been sorted much quicker in the main hire session with hire companies pestering them!

That looks like it would even give the Walsall a run for its money!

I do all my own work and don't bother with receipts either. General servicing is actually quite easy and saves a lot of money over paying marina prices!

A basic system should cost no more than £200 if doing the work yourself, and that includes battery charger. If having boatyard do the work, then no idea but would take a guess at £500-1000 for a simple system (2-3 double sockets and charger). Note that those prices do not include inverter for using 230v away from mains hookup. Having inverter will put the price up significantly as well as adding extra complexity. As to electric heating, could work if on permanent hookup, but most marina supplies are max 16a (some less). You need to be mindful of total current draw as even a basic 2kw fan heater will draw around 9a, electric kettles often draw 13a and so on. You're also left with no heating if the supply fails for any reason (and marina may not give same priority to restoring supply as domestic suppliers). For grp I would suggest going for diesel blown air heating as first choice. I would have no issues with a boat that had been serviced by the owner, but be guided by how clean and tidy the engine bay is, general tidiness of wiring, and how well everything works. Would suggest you put links up to boats you're interested in, and you'll get comments about them, ideas of other boats to look at etc. You may even find someone on here knows the actual boat.

As it does on many underused parts of the BCN! So true. Shame I never got to cruise it. Still, planning to take our folding dingy on it sometime.

I think the last boat down there was 2010 sometime. I know we tried in May 2013 and this was as far as we could get! I don't think there's actually an official closure, I think it's just a polite request, although as above, you can't navigate anyway. I also think the sign has now gone, but suspect it wasn't CRT who removed it!

Another point to consider is make sure any inboard engine is diesel. Petrol is ok for outboard, but petrol inboard is a safety concern, as well as difficult to pass BSS. If boat is 12v only then adding 230v system is not too difficult (if mains hookup available at the mooring), but factor the cost into the purchase price. You should br able to get a decent grp boat at that price point. Have a good look round and don't rush into purchasing the first one you like. Put links on here to any you find that you like, and you'll get lots of opinions on them, things to look for, and an idea of if the price is realistic or not.

Another video comparing the safety of different lithium cells during overcharge, short circuit, mechanical damage, and fire. https://youtu.be/Qzt9RZ0FQyM

Similarly with us, only had the weed hatch up about 3 or 4 times on last year's challenge, despite doing the Walsall twice! Only weed hatch trip on our recent 10 days away which included a lot of the BCN was coming up Wolverhampton 21, a well used route. I do think a lot of problems are down to rushing and not slowing down at bridge holes. Like you, I doubt I'll ever get to cruise the Lichfield (and hopefully have even more boating time ahead than you?). Hopefully our daughter may get to cruise it though, although I very much doubt even she'll ever cruise the Hatherton. As for the Lapal at the other side of the BCN..... I don't know why the need to wait for more connections to encourage use, after all people are happy to cruise dead end canals, and the W&E already has 3 connections and can be used as an alternative to other through routes. Despite agreeing with most of what has been said about the Walsall, there's something satisfying about cruising it, and it does have some interesting features along it. I would say the locks are easy and quick to work, but that would be bending the truth somewhat as there's nearly always one lock with some obstruction or other either stopping gates opening or closing fully. Generally found the locals friendly and willing to help though if you take the time to engage and talk to them.

A lot of good information there and anyone considering a lithium install would do well to read and make sure they understand all the points @Dr Bob is making. Particularly the point that the emergency disconnect is just that - for emergency use. If it activates at any time then something in your system has already failed and needs urgent further investigation. I'd also just like to point out that in addition to MP we also control charging based on voltage and tail current when alternator charging, although our solar charging is purely voltage based and therefore set more conservatively. The Nordkyn site is certainly a good source of information about system design, and we did copy several aspects of our system from there. The advantage of separate charge and load disconnect is the batteries will still charge back up (on solar if away). That way they'll not sit at very low soc (with the parasitic monitoring current drawing them lower) if they're allowed to get too low such as if we're away and left stuff on, or don't hear and/or react to any of the low SOC/voltage/cell voltage alarms!

Not really. That's the bit that wears first as you push the bow out and motor away from the bank, pushing that corner (start of swim) into the shallow water. Hire co said it's very very common on their Llangollen based boats for just that small section to wear and need work, sometimes after just 3 years or so.

Our 2006 ex-hire boat will be needing shore plates in the not too distant future. Was advised by surveyor when we bought it 3 years ago to keep an eye on it as wear edge was getting close to the weld bead - still nearly 10mm to go though so think surveyor was being overly pessimistic! When speaking to hire co about it, they said not unusual to have to shoe their Llangollen based boats twice during their 10 years on the hire fleet!

I think that's just standard ambulance speak. Still regarded as a patient even if no treatment given, and even if no 'patient' is found when we arrive on scene. Condolences to his family and friends.

As has been touched on above, a survey is only required for fully comprehensive insurance - 3rd party insurance which is all that's needed to get a CRT licence does NOT require a survey. Depends on your view of risk, but I consider the risk of fire and sinking on our boat acceptably low not to bother with fully comprehensive insurance, and I'm happy that the condition and maintenance of our boat is sufficient to reduce that risk to an absolute minimum. Out of the 1000's of boats on the waterways, it's only a tiny tiny number that come to any harm. And yes, losing our boat would mean losing our home, and no we can't afford to do that, but I consider the risk to be so small that it's a risk I'm prepared to take. Good luck with your project. Boats don't generally make financial sense anyway, particularly project boats, but the satisfaction of rescuing one is worth the effort in my view.

We need to know a finish point so I can plan how to get to work at Moreton in Marsh on Monday and Tuesday. I'd be surprised if the dates were to change, it's always on the late spring bank holiday weekend. I think it more likely to get cancelled than have a change of dates.

I was wondering thre same. Been very quiet on this subject this year. I have the actual challenge dates off work, but currently working on the Monday so will need to try and swap some shifts, or find a mooring for a few days with parking.

I understand the maths, but the OP just stated gates, and your post suggested a pair of mitre gates counted as 1 gate. I haven't bothered to read any CRT report or press release so can't comment on what they do or don't say.

We needed something that could take external antennas and was good at picking up weak 4g! We have an expensive external aerial 10ft up in the air and just about struggle to pick up 0-1 bar of 4g signal on ee. On a (very!) good day we get up to 1.2mbps download, and 0.3mbps upload? Our previous mifi work worked well at our last mooring, but got nothing here, even with the external aerial. Our current router also has the option to plug handset in and make voice calls over standard mobile network which we make good use of considering the complete lack of mobile coverage here!

We're not obsessed with 80%. I consider we have fairly robust protection, and just charge as and when. On our recent 10 days cruise, we switched our alternator controller off every other day, so ended up charging to 100% every 2 days or so. From what I've read, charging to 100% is ok, so long as it's not held there which on a boat in constant use it won't be. Our charging is set to 14.0v, but batteries seem to not get there until over 80% so not seen the need to go any higher anyway. I wish we had a base load as low as that! Ours seems to be about 1-1.2A, and that's without the back boiler pump that draws about that on its own! And that base load does not include our monitoring and protection (BMV, BMM8v2, ISDT BC-8S, battery balancer, motorised switch, and bi-stable relay driver), all of which are connected prior to the shunt, but I suspect (hope!) are quite low. We find our BMV gives fairly accurate soc even after 3 months. Last time when I watched it approach 100% after 3 months of not being near, the BMV reached 100% and I estimate the batteries took another 20-25Ah, so well within 10%. I did have to slightly tweak the settings the first couple times to get that though, but still worth it for reliable, easy to understand soc. Mostly I don't really get hung up on what the batteries are doing, and just charge for 2-3 hrs every 2 days in winter. Not had any recent alarms so must be doing something right! The soc % on the isdt facing me as I go into the bedroom is a good general guide, if it's down in the 30's I know I need to charge soon, if in the 70's the batteries are fairly well charged! That's about all I need to know!

We've got a Huawei router which we've done just that on. Usually takes a fairly standard size 12v plug on the power lead anyway, most of our 12v stuff uses the same size so no problem finding a lead to charge stuff, plug router in etc. All our 12v stuff runs direct from the batteries (via appropriate fuse) including router, blue ray DVD player etc. No problems so far in 10+ years, 2 boats and an array of different charging solutions and voltages. Have been known to look at back of stuff in currys etc to see what input voltage is, as usually only info available from manufacturer website is 230v adaptor. We' even tend to try any appliance with a fixed input voltage in the 9-15v irange direct fron the boats 12v supply. So far only issue was our tv (15v input) switching off when (old lead acid) batteries were getting low, and high power use such as macerater toilet was used. Probably could afford to replace the odd item with amount saved not buying 12v to 12v adaptors! As to cheap 12v led lbulbs though.....

If this is correct and CRT count a set of mitre gates as one 'gate', then taking the figures fron the op I make it an average of 26.8 years which sounds about right. Makes sense as you wouldn't plan to replace a single gate on a pair of mitre gates, surely they'd always be replaced as a pair?