Chris Lingwood

I made some cat ladders for my young pussy. Just a bit of carpet suspended slightly below the water level so she's got something to dig her claws into. Of course being a cat she doesn't use something provided for her and finds her own way out.

Yup still a charge for slipway and there's a boat in it at the moment so it would be a fuss too. All the marina facilities are still just for berth holders. I don't know if they would let you use them if you asked but your key certainly won't work. If they put a pontoon there you'd have a bit of a job getting the bigger boats round to the diesel pump. Thats a bit off about the LCBC rally. I thought they were supposed to be preserving heritage instead of trying to destroy it. Might only be a rally but these are the things that make the canals interesting. I imagine they are talking to the woman who seams to be an area manager of some sort for the BWML. I don't think they will find much flexibility there if she conducts her business as she conducts herself. Everyone I know that's met her has taken an instant dislike to her. The manager of the marina is a reasonable fellow as far as he is allowed, but unfortunately he has a job to do with aims that directly oppose the quality of the marina. As far as I can tell the more unpleasant a marina is the more profitable it is. Fortunately the worst of the changes will take time.

There was a slight confusion and the new charges already include the vat and the old ones didn't (which wasn't overly clear)....its still gone up a fair bit though and I'll still be attempting to find somewhere else. In fairness to the manager he said that the charges would go up 4% which is what they have. Unless of course you have BW licence where it has gone up much much more. You might think the yachtys have left but there's more boats there now than ever. I've never seen it so full! In fact its starting to get hard to park because there's boats everywhere!

BWML bought my marina last year and I've just had next years marina fee's through. Previously the narrow boats had a discount so for instance last year we only paid £77 instead of £100. This year however that appears to have gone and they've put the price up to £123 a meter. The kind people have therefore increased my mooring charges from £1540 to £2460 and for what improvement. Bugger all. If anything its a more incompetent place than it was before. It took 2 weeks to fix some pontoon lights despite me reminding them everyday with increasing irritation. Congratulations BW you've ruined my day. Now I've got the entertainment of trying to find another mooring...which I probably won't be able to because BW want everyone in marinas...like the one they have shot the price up on. At least I'm all paid up untill october. To put the icing on the cake my marina is one of the nicer i've seen because its for yachts so there is a good 60ft between pontoons, BW of course isn't impressed with something being nice so they are adding finger pontoons so they can fit even more boats in at this absurd new price in an increasingly unpleasant atmosphere. BRAVO!!!

I don't think water flowing back will be a problem as the outlet pipe will be horizontal to a sump pump. Is this all that makes these pumps leave water behind? I thought it might just be the design that meant they would only be capable of getting down to a inch or so. Will the cheapest rule pump down to a few mm? I've already done a search here and didn't quite find the answer i was after.

What's a good pump for getting as much water as possible out? It shouldn't flow back because the water will go horizontally to the shower sump to get launched out of the boat. I've read about people saying that it sometimes leaves and inch of water in the bottom which firmly defeats the object of the whole exercise if you ask me! I'd be a bit miffed with a any more than a few mm.

I have too and if it happens it will wipe out the existence of classic cars almost overnight. I can't and have no intention of paying for someone else to do things I'm perfectly capable of AND ENJOY!!!! Its always nice when you get told that your hobby is now illegal. Having said that I can't see a life for me here anyway, not unless something severely changes. By the look of ca-moron its not looking good. By the sounds of it its going to be illegal to leave your wife soon But anyway I've got about 8 double sockets and I'm going to add more. If I plug too much in a fuse or mcb will blow. A fuse is there to protect the wiring, if it doesn't blow it doesn't need protecting. I will add a fuse box to my wiring soon, I'm not overly bothered if I'm not allowed to, its slightly dangerous now and it won't be then. Thats good enough for me!

I hope you left clearance between the floor and the ballast? the...."person"...who did mine didn't, so you have to sacrifice a hole saw every time you want a hole. Which is a pain! Concrete/brick vs hole saw has a remarkably predictable result. just something to ponder on.

a friend of mine just fibre glassed the entire room. He's only just done it so I don't know if it worked or not. Looks OK though! I'd certainly like to see the water try and get out of it!!

Got a bit hairy out at glasson. We had 2-3 foot waves at one point The odd one reached up to the windows...I got a mite concerned! A bit of water came in where the exhaust pipe should be but other than that it was ok in the end. had to stay at home and look after it though. A few yachts looked like they were about to tip up but I don't think anything of great importance actually flew off any thing. I think all we lost was a chimney hat.

I thought about roof heated hot water but I wanted to just take the chill off it and send it through the paloma to finish it off. Unfortunately this is wildly dangerous. The main problem I can see with it (as far as I am concerned) is my lack of calorifier (which I should probably remedy at some point) and the fact it only works well enough in the summer so in the winter you need extra heating anyway. If however you have a back boiler on your stove (i don't ) and you plumbed you roof heater into the calorifier just like you would the engine you could have a nice clever system which could hold antifreeze for when it gets cold. Unfortunately for me I'm missing the bits that should already be there.

its cold here...but its not THAT cold. We didn't even light the fire one night (although we were out all evening)! We've only had a light frost this week so far. Having said that I probably get up after its all melted

more fun than aural sex *shudders*

http://www.vintagebus.com/wiring/defs.html http://www.international-auto.com/index.cfm?fa=ad&aid=18 http://www.autoelectricsupplies.co.uk/file...esignations.pdf For those wanting a longer list (or 3) I found a few (now I know what the numbers are called!) Very handy! Ta!

the more life goes on the more things we are told we can't do. Why don't we ban those pesky boats...making all that noise and scaring the birds! Not to mention the fish. You'll need a licence and permit signed in triplicate to take a dump sooner or later.

So what are people trying to do? Make that figure higher? Have we not met our quota yet?

Good lord some people are ignorant. I wouldn't normally say anything but you don't piss around with mains voltages! I just hope you don't hurt yourself or worse still someone else! Are some of you people honestly telling me that you want to endanger peoples lives just to avoid a little bit of metal evaporating off your boat. Christ!

They are doing it because they think that if they don't they will glaze their bores. (The oil and additive pack turn into a varnish on the inside of the cylinders) Load on the engine is suppose to stop this. Whether or not this actually happens any more or ever did seams to be a matter of opinion. You can search for glaze and bore now and fine a plethora of posts arguing about it now

Right. OK another challenge. I'll unearth my hull. I will then connect live to my hull simulating a fault. I'll stand there at 230v ac quite merrily. You can stand at 0v ac also merrily. You can then step on to my boat from the jetty......BANG! SIZZLE! OK rubber soles might save you but I'm sure sooner or later you'd find a way to touch the jetty and the hull at the same time. OR more proof. Scale your boat down to the size of a microwave. Throw that useless earth wire away, we won't be needing that! Now connect the live to the metal casing of the microwave....do you want to touch it now? of course you don't, neither will you start shoving screw drivers into mains sockets. A boat in this respect is identical to all metal cased appliances, which, with our electrical system, needs to have an earth! Otherwise there is the risk of death!

I've got a physics degree and I'm doing a phd in microwave engineering (ok so not electronics but its not a million miles away) and I think it should be bonded too. You could perhaps have an arguments when you are using an inverter but not with shore power. A live hull = bad! I'd rather it dissolved to be honest! Unless inverter manufactures are a bit dense (or have a very good reason I've not thought of) they should be earthed anyway. They've got a dirty great cable going to the hull via -ve that they could use (and I presume do). I know my boat wasn't earthed when I bought it, but shore power had never been envisaged when it was fitted out so its not as shocking (geddit?!?!? )

chuffing 'ell and we wonder why nothing ever gets done!

The purveyor of my downfall was some green slime which had decided to set up camp right next to my stern on the jetty. It met high pressure doom shortly afterwards. You'll be pleased to know that it still hurts! And I've grazed my "inner thigh" which is at the very least displeasing I dread to think what it would feel like to land on a cleat! I should sue the marina for allowing...green stuff.....yeah! And Daniel you should sue for someone being negligent enough to put a wall any where near some concrete. The audacity of some people never fails to amaze me! *mutter mutter mutter...grumble grumble*

Indeed! Watch out kids...its a dangerous world! On the plus side I'm still bleeding!

Yup...fell in not in the normal albeit embarrassing unpainful way. No no! I decided that I would slip while taking the gas tank off the boat. Managed to generally bash and scrape the skin off right left leg as it plummeted to its watery doom AND land on my left knee and groin on the jetty. Its a good job the tank wasn't full! I can't really walk now AND I've got a wet foot!