Quinafloat

I ran the General Motors (Vauxhall, Opel etc.) customer satisfaction survey program for Europe for a year or seven. Firstly the only type of survey that indicates the effectiveness of management is a rolling survey, the proposal is for a rolling survey. Secondly the survey should be pick it's potential respondents randomly, or include everyone. Having an email address registered with CaRT does not fulfill this criteria. Thirdly a minimum respondent rate of ~1000 is needed for any form of accuracy. Sending out 1000 questionnaires would not come close achieving this. Fourthly, large groups, such as those without internet, must not be excluded. A realistic suggestion might be to send out a questionnaire with every licence application. It is a rolling survey, It is inclusive, you have the full attention of the person at that time. Costs would be minimised by doing this as postal questionnaires are required to cover all person types and they are sending you a mailpiece anyway. Does it matter what the questions are? Yes, they should include all aspects of the product or service and include questions to verify the completeness of the questionnaire, they should be neutral, they must remain unchanged over several years or it's a fudge. Stability of the questions is paramount. What needs to be measured is change over time, not actual respondent values. That is how management actions are measured in the real world. Total cost should be about £4 per completed questionnaire. However the results do need to be read and acted on, compared to that such a survey is easy.

I had 6 of the UFO vents on our roof. After a few years they started leaking one by one leaving discolouration of the ply round the vents. The very thin seal which is part of the vent had hardened and allowed water into the boat. I ended up fitting mushroom vents to limit the damage. The UFO vents are very tough indeed, they do let in light, they are very neat and they do not catch ropes and so live up to their advertising in those respects. I would inspect a vent very closely and make sure exactly how it fits together (needs 7 holes in the roof if I remember rightly) and how it seals to the roof before buying. They are not easy to clean inside and the "mosquito net" inside does need cleaning every couple of years if you decide to fit it. I would also keep the mushroom vents you are replacing in case they turn out to be the lesser of the two evils.

Personally I believe that distance is important. As nobody knows what Bona Fide navigation is (because no court has clarified what it is). In the event of being taken to court I believe that a judge would have to take into account a few hundred miles of travel using a CaRT issued gold licence as valid navigation during the period of the licence even though it is not on the waters they directly control. It is the case that my boat is regularly seen, and may be logged, in the same place as there is only one exit to the canal system from the Nene. This puts me in the same situation logically as a marina user who must exit onto CaRT water from the same place each time they cruise, and must return to the same place at the end of a cruise.

Why should a boater have 2 moorings? Why should a person have 2 houses? The answer is the same. Convenience or just wanting them. In this case the boater owns a mooring on the Middle Levels and has done for many years. However, finds a rented mooring on the Great Ouse is more suitable to his needs. Obviously he has no reason to sell the property he has, which may well go up in value or at least retain it's value as it is a residential mooring. It seems, and I don't know all of the details, that at one point when he renewed his gold licence, he was told by BW or CaRT that the were classing him as a continuous cruiser. It made no difference to him as he cruises well within the CC'er rules so he never bothered challenging it. After all no point in making a fuss about something if it is never going to happen.

A friend of mine has a narrowboat and two moorings for it, neither on CaRT waters. They are classed by CaRT as continuous cruisers despite having two places to legally keep their boat. A lot of the assumptions being made are being based assuming that CaRT are the only waterways authority. If you add in the gold licence and the fact that a boat will not be recorded by CaRT cruising EA, Middle Levels, Uant, Lant, Bridgewater canal, The Pool of London, the odd seaway and probably a few others, It is perfectly obvious that the resulting mess means that CaRT cannot determine every boat's movements even approximately. I frequently overwinter on the Great Ouse, and in doing so cruise 100 or so miles either way between CaRT waters and the Ely area where CaRT has no oversight as to distance travelled. The question is: Considering that CaRT actually issue the Gold Licence, do they, or, should they respect distance travelled on EA waters, or in fact any other waters. This sometimes adds up to half of my cruising in any one year.

Same here, "The" is intentionally part of the name and runs much better, and clearer as "Narrowboat The Beech Nuts" over VHF. Mind you, the normal reply is "Beech Nuts go ahead". It also works well as people referring to us tend to miss out the word Beech, but do remember to use the "The".

I agree that it is a compromise and that every case is individual. However we are somewhat towards the other end of the scale. Panels are 260w and battery bank is 825A. It ensures that all of the harvested power is used or stored. We do tend to move every couple of days summer and winter and have no problem keeping the SOC between 50% and 100%. We are using deep cycle batteries and they are now in their 8th year so are obviously not suffering too badly from their treatment. It's horses for courses but my vote would be for a big battery bank and less solar as a good long term solution unless you plan on being stationary for long periods.

A MPPT controller gives about 30% uplift in power in marginal conditions, much less in most conditions. I would suggest that if you add 30% extra panels and use a PWM controller would end up paying a lot less and getting more most of the time. With current panel costs MPPT does not make economic sense unless you are short of roof space.

Just sounds like a lot of folks obstructing the navigation and facilities for the fun of it, for a very long time!

A friend tried her satnav aboard our boat. The poor machine gave the position perfectly and then sat their bleating "Please regain the highway" till we switched it off to put it out of it's misery.

I always buy my fire extinguishers from my BSS examiner.

This is the Upwell church bridge which my map tells me has an air draught of 220cm. http://www.ccer.org.uk/cn/cn1211/cn1211._html_m4798e01f.jpg The bridge between Outwell and Nordelph which was originally 210cm was lowered, I heard, by a cement lorry sitting on it, and then raised again, I think a bit higher. Even the lowest bits of the Harecastle have more headroom than Upwell church bridge, I once went through there with the chimney still in position, and another time with 40 bags of coal on the roof.

I would target a total air draught of 210 cm. That would get you through most of the system and the EA and middle levels under normal conditions.

I rather think that we will have better batteries before we get better fridges. Google carbon-carbon batteries. A company is going to mass produce them shortly in a 18650 format for electric car use. In a couple of years they could well be on the general market and we could all build our own battery banks to the size we want/need. They are supposed to be good for 3000 cycles. Battery technology is moving very fast at the moment. A few of the recent advances will make it to market at a decent price/performance level and we can consign lead acid technology to history. The average, large capacity, supercapacitor should be good for a million cycles, it should easily outlast an old BMC 1.5.

I really do not see how this can be caused by boats only using one gate. The widest part of most boats is a couple of feet above the waterline, yet the damage is on the waterline. I have certainly hit some gates with my boat, but never at the waterline level.

I am referring to the document posted CaRT's site as the result of the FOI request and the one presented by the NBTA. I understood that Parry had taken direct control of the legal department when Johnson retired. The point I was alluding to is that there is a lack of transparancy as to the proceedings of this action from CaRT, contrary to Parry's publicly stated aim of transparency. For me it is destroying any faith I had that in a new broom sweeping clean.

Well both "transcripts" can't be right can they! My guess is that Parry should fire the head of his legal department for lack of transparency. There is. of course, a minor problem with that.

The elsan at Marple was marked as suitable for pump out, as was the elsan point at Braunston last time I passed them. Elsan points connected to mains drainage are all, in principle suitable for pump out. Some elsan points are marked not suitable for pump out for various good reasons such as they are not on mains drainage or are on mains drainage but next to a pub. The disgusting people who mess up sanitary stations either with a cassette accident or a self pump out accident and do not clean up after themselves deserve our ire, not the method, or the substance they are dispensing.

CaRT log positions of boats. If the positions and dates on your log match those of CaRT's then your log is proved, or CaRT must disprove them. CaRT do not log all boat movements, just when they happen to pass by.

The only way to have an equal discussion about your boat movements with CaRT is to keep a log. It doesn't matter whether it is simple pen and paper, a spreadsheet or an automated one such as my company produce. Keeping a log is your only defence.

I am not claiming that tea lights, candles, oil lamps or anything else apart from being born, is inherently dangerous. Naturally they can be made safe and most people have the wit to do that. We use both candles and tea lights on our boat. However if you want to understand what a humble tea light plus, possibly an insect, can do read. http://www.highrisefirefighting.co.uk/case/harrowct/HRSR%20Inquiry%20into%20the%20fire%20at%20harrow%20court.pdf My grandmother used to leave a night light (read tea light) alight in my bedroom in a saucer when I visited her as a kid. She had a farm which had very limited electricity. I survived every visit. My only contention here is that all naked flames have a, very limited, risk associated with them and that tea lights are part of that risk.

I totally agree. The only point I was making was that tea lights are not "safer" as was stated. I am not trying to dissuade people from using tea lights or candles if that is what they want to do.

Just depends on the temperature, but it will be close.

Tea lights are just as dangerous as candles. How do I know? The fire at Harrow Court (google it if you want) was caused by a tea light on top of a television, The fire killed 1 occupant and 2 firefighters and made a lot of people homeless for the best part of a year. My daughter lived in the opposite flat and had given them some tea lights as their electric had been cut off. They had put them on the top of a TV and when they burnt down the metal enclosure melted the plastic of the TV. Please treat tea lights with the same consideration as candles.

I totally agree with everything you said. However the 12v battery is basic to modern boating and will remain with us for many years. Using best practice and design to prevent accidents is surely the way forward. I am sure that the BSS office could supply you with the actual known fatalities due to the causes you describe. Lasers! I wouldn't play with those, they can make you go blind !!