Onewheeler

We use an épée. Well, it looks like a decorative épée as it's not flexible and the end has been cut off so it's a few mm clear of the base of the tank. It came with the boat.

I had a bag of that olive stone stuff. It seemed in my experience not to burn for long, but it lit very easily (I ended up using it as kindling) and smelt quite pleasant (although not everyone agreed). I've not seen it in my usual merchants for a couple of years or more.

Dried dog poo will stop anyone mooring near you. Have you got a composting toilet? Thinking laterally....

Ideally you will have two vent pipes from opposite ends of the tank and with their outlet points as far apart as possible to encourage air flow. Our old holding tank had 25 mm hoses with vents about 2 m apart and we never had any smells with no chemicals added. We now use a portapotti after the macerator toilet died. A much better solution.

Strensham Lock especially - we were breasted up with a dead engine to the largest size of Black Prince boat, had a bugger of a job getting out.

Our Sunshine Solar inverter runs a modern fridge and assorted electronic bits and pieces happily. I've never put a 'scope on the output though.

Dunno about the heat but ours definitely don't like the cold and go into alarm at near-freezing.

We fitted our (new) toilet tank with two 25 mm vents from opposite ends of the tank, spaced about 1.5 m apart on the hull, and never used blue. Never had a whiff of a smell.

Yup. Before we got rid of the pumpout our boat had a small tank (actually a 5 l polyethylene bottle from something) in-line with the washbasin drain. Worked fine. I fitted a Sanimarin electric bog to our boat on the mainland, lovely to use but might be a bit generous on its water consumption for use with a holding tank.

Late to this but FWIW it depends a lot on the wheel mechanism. I've got a NB with tiller, so about 1 second from full starboard to full port, and a share in a smallish barge with very heavy wheel steering - seven turns from one lock to opposite, perhaps 10 seconds minimum. It's difficult, and (despite what Tony says above) the barge gets taken much more readily by wind than the NB - the wheelhouse acts like a sail. If the wheel is hydraulically assisted I'd not worry so much. I would not be at all happy single-handing our barge (not helped by lack of a bow-thruster).

Well, it's feasible to get from Brentford to Lechlade in under a week but it would take out a lot of the pleasure. My favourite spots would be Cookham (visit the Stanley Spencer gallery), Wallingford, Abingdon and Oxford, all with free moorings (not necessarily "official" ones). It's very pretty above Oxford but not many moorings near nice pubs once you're past Wolvercote - mostly Greene King tourist "destinations" until you get to Lechlade. I prefer the lower river. Kelmscott is worth the visit if you can stop on a day when the William Morris house is open (and it has a nice pub about ten minutes from the river).

I imagine he's not got a delivery address...

Don't forget to book the harbour gates at Lydney! Check that someone is there before setting off. You'd feel a right plonker if you arrived and found them shut. Only alternative then would be to go down to Portishead. VHF marine is useful to maintain contact with Sharpness (or other places in an emergency). And, basically, don't even think about going up the river to Gloucester. It might be an idea to call SARA and see if they fancy launching one of their boats to accompany you as a training exercise. At least you could hand them your camera for a photo!

I've done the crossing to Lydney. Go out from Sharpness about 30 minutes before high water, the tide will take you upstream a bit but the Lydney side reverses early and you'll have a gentle ride down to the harbour entrance. Coming back leave a bit before high water and go straight across. Don't do it on a very high tide or in a high wind.

I only realised recently, and it's not been noticed in six BSS examinations, that the nice louvre vents on the front bulkhead are screwed onto solid sheet steel!

Also worth remembering that self-amalgamating tape breaks up after longs exposure to UV. It's good practice to overwrap it with a good quality insulating tape.

Even better if then covered with Denso tape, but you'll never want to remove it!

You may have an automotive Webasto which needs more volts to start than the marine version. Ours is reluctant to start after a couple of days moored off shore power (but plenty of charge left), and needs a bit of a boost from the engine to get it going. (And before anyone chirps up, the connections are fine!)

Nope, that's very different to mine. Must have been an odd one.

It's the part that makes contact for the high current to the starter motor. Very crude when it was dismantled. Yes, a relay.

I can't remember the ins and outs, but undoing the two or three screws on the end cap enabled access to the big bit of springy copper or brass which could have the contact points filed clean. I think the big bit of springy metal came out with the end cap, but it was twenty years ago...

That looks like the old Duckhams Oil depot. I had a holiday job there in the seventies. The first few weeks I went round the plant collecting empty drums for loading onto a truck, then spent most of the day looking at boats. The management then noticed that I was underemployed and found a warehouse full of out of spec one pint tins of oil that had to be emptied into 200 L drums.

It depends on the model. On my long dead BMC the contacts could be removed with the end of the casing with a couple of screws once the big cables have been disconnected. Can't remember the details but no soldering needed.

Could be the contacts in the starter solenoid, with a fully charged battery just giving enough kick to overcome the corrosion. Take the solenoid off if possible (more than one model of starter used I think) and give the contacts a clean with a small file (a nail file is good enough).

I was dragged up within 100 m of Fulham FC. In those days the site of the luxury flats immediately upstream was used by lighters which tied up on a well-dredged wharf. (The warehouses burned down in around 1972, always wondered what started the fire). Indeed, the whole stretch upstream almost to Hammersmith Bridge was used as wharves.