Midnight

When we moored for 6 years at Ripon we regularly filled up at Boroughbridge without any problems.

DON'T COME ON HERE MR SMELLY ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS WITH BAD SPEELING!!! but actually Blah, Blah, Blah Builders are unknown to all of us - have a nice day. ?

I am (wimper, wimper)

Yes thank you, that's a great letter Dave and if I ever get to repeat the matter I may hand it to him. Regrettably I'll probably not be back in Skipton for a long while and would only moor in the same location if there were no alternatives. In my case it was easier on me to just move but others heading that way are now forewarned and forearmed if they so choose.

Could get worse what if he buys the boat. If he gets hot under the collar for being told about caps what's he gonna do when someone tells him Ecofans don't work.

I did in this case because it was less stress for me to move across to the Springs Branch mooring than sit wonderin about it all. Life's too short sometimes.

Funny thing is I didn't see any "Quiet Zone" signs at Skipton. I understand from locals that the gentleman in question had only recently moved in. Reminds me of something to do with church bells. I suspect he will have a lot of stress living there especially when it gets colder and boaters light their stoves. Oh and for good measure the following day the church bells were rung loudly for quite awhile and would have drowned out the noise of my Beta 43.

I WOULDN'T CALL ANYONE A TROLL WITHOUT GOOD REASON - HMMMMM! (written in caps so everyone can read it) PS I have a John White boat - nice lines and some good features. A very nice guy too.

Not a stoppage a such but received a call today from a mate who's on the Rochdale. It took him 6 hours to get from Tuel Lane to Hebden Bridge because of low water levels on every pound. He doesn't think he will be able to continue uless the levels recover. Just letting those considering the same trip know

A thread on the 'other place' reminded me of a recent incident which left me somewhat bemused. On a recent trip up the L&L we moored at Skipton just up from the junction with Springs Branch. It was 1pm and I started the engine to charge the batteries. A few minutes later a chap living in the new flats behind summons me from the veranda and tells me it's now illegal to run the engine there and hands me a printed page from the 'considerate boater' website. "I need to charge the batteries" says I so he tells me he's going to report me (?). He reappears on the veranda a few minutes later telephone to his ear and reading my registration number. He then says "Oh he's been reported before has he" (???) I suspect he's on the phone to nobody as I definitely haven't been reported before. Wondering what to do as I am a very amenable chap, I noticed an empty mooring on the Springs branch opposite so decided to take the least stress option and move over. Got me thinking what's the validity of his claim?

It's highly unlikely to be sewage from a passing boat. In all my years boating I have never seen anyone pump out into a canal though I suspect it occasionally happens. To have more than one boat pumping out as it's passing the same location would be stretching probability to the limit.

The Rochdale in my experience is fine. Must have done it 5 or 6 times now and never had any problems anywhere apart from the odd low pound. There's a few (3?) locks which can only accommodate 1 long boat at a time look out for the warning signs on locks 47, 38/39 and 5. The trip though Manchester is slog especially if you do it from Chatterton to Castlefield as we do. Rochdale is a dump but at lock 50 you may encounter the gentlemen's morning drinking club. A bit intimidating at first glance but they are usually very friendly, very helpful and very drunk. Yes there are wolves on the summit but they only kill and eat softy saverners. From the summit down to Sowerby Bridge it's all very nice especially Hebden Bridge.

Me too, but after Easter I realised nothing is infallible just different ?

I wonder if they will use the opportunity to clear out that crap. (Hmmmm)

Wouldn't have been much use to us at Easter unless we used the outside bog in full view of the city centre goers and CCTV cameras. ?

Off topic but an "Oh Hell No" moment so I can sympathize. During our Easter spell, stuck on a pontoon in big floods at York I was getting rather concerned that the holding tank warning light had been on for several days. When we finally managed to facilitate a pump-out I unscrewed the roof mounted deck fitting ready to connect the pump-out machine. At the same time SWMBO flushed the vacuum toilet. The resulting effect being the boat resembled a whale spurting liquid (in this case shhhh.. you know what) about 2ft into the air. Luckily the windows were closed.

Closed for estimated 6 weeks

Put them on the towpath in London if that doesn't sort out overcrowding nothing will!

Who mentioned "Good old days?" It's the state of the canals in our area today that are worrying. This year we and several other colleagues had to cancel a trip to Chester, we know at least three of them who are currently heading for Liverpool with fingers crossed. Marple is a no go area for outward or inward cruising. The pound above our moorings is 12"down because a third of the weir boards are missing. There is no date set to fix them so boats are sat on the bottom on the moorings. The pound below is 6" above normal because contractors rebuild the weir below too high, which means the flood lock has to be used in all but lowest river level and the indicator boards are 6" out. The ground paddle culvert at Broadcut lock is stuck open (and has been for years) requiring all 3 (1 broken) lower paddles to be lifted else you can't open the gates. Same at Thornes lock. Several other locks on the Calder have just 1 paddle (how long before there's another stoppage?) The swing bridge at Rodley requires an athlete on steroids to open it. Maybe it's just here oooop norf but apart from that I agree CaRT are doing a great job. Now will someone please help me get this bear trap off my leg.

Isn't that the heart of the problem though. I talk to lockies who are frustrated because they aren't allowed to fix things anymore. There is a constant stream of failures because nothing gets done until it's too late. I see substandard work by contractors with no warranties. The way things have gone recently more and more serious stoppages are likely in the future. A 2 week cruise anywhere is now a gamble. I wonder if anyone at CaRT has costed getting rid of the pen-pushers, inspectors, method statement writers, risk assessors, procurement officers, bean counters, performance monitors, contractors and bringing back lengthsmen and lockies who look after and maintain their own patch. May have to ditch the lock poets, marketing bods and PR men though.

It's irrelevant who pays and who doesn't. The point is CaRT have money but they choose to squander it on silly schemes instead of sticking to the core business ^^^^^^. It's about priorities and management. I suspect a lot of the problems could be avoided if they had more local lengthsmen keeping an eye on what's going on. I heard the whole Leeds and Liverpool canal is checked by 1 man based at Nantwich. It must take a very long time to check the whole area. Question: who would be happy to pay a lot more (double?) for a license and mooring if there was a guarantee the system would be properly maintained. The extra £35 million would go a long way to achieving that.

Here's how to rinse the batteries. Make a solution of hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio of two to one. Take half of the mixture and add sodium carbonate or any proprietary liquid detergent. Fully immerse the batteries in the liquid then remove suds and bubbles with a remaining solution of H2O. Hey presto "rinsed batteries"

My mate told me he was a musician. Then I found out he played banjo!

I was approached at Bingley Five Rise recently. Mr Chugger got most annoyed when I pointed to the "waste of resources", new sewer logo signs. Working in a pair there was Nice Mr Chugger and Nasty Mr Chugger. Nice Mr Chugger was errr... very nice even offered to buy me a coffee, before suggesting I may like to sign up. Ironically we discussed the new logo colour scheme which I agreed was most refreshing but pointed to the one remaining swan logo interpretation panel which had the same colour scheme as the new signs. You have to give credit to those boys they are in for a lot of 'sewer logo' abuse over the coming weeks.

I agree with Nick (now where did I hear that before). The proposed extension to the clean air zone will have a big impact on boats. I suspect the group includes the local authorities and housing ministry because they can't simply remove all the live-aboard boaters from London waterways. They will have to consult stakeholders at a later stage and will probably come up with affordable housing/mooring alternatives. The legislation will have to be changed. At least that will sort out the freeloaders who don't want to pay anything at all. Unfortunately I suspect that will cause problems for genuine continuous cruisers in places where there's less of a problem.