BenC
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Posts posted by BenC
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Great film. Love it. Thanks for the link
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Slightly off topic, but I see 'Hawksbury' is now on at £45k. Obviously just going on the ad, that looks a decent price. Anyone looked at it? (Just being nosey, have no intentions at the moment to change boats).
Hawksbury still shows £59,950.00 on apolloduck. You could buy Bletchley & Argus for £55,000.00
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A sunny day makes all the difference!
Still get confused by the Apolloduck 'Tug' description!
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http://grandunion.boatshed.com/narrowboat_70ft-boat-155066.html
Even though i've got my own converted historic boat I still check Apollo Duck now and again for what's on the market in that category. Afraid you have to register with Boatshed to see most of the pics.
Cambourne
Been for sale for a while
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He tied his boat up in a lock, started to fill the lock and then walked off to get some lunch?
Suddenly I no longer feel sorry for him.
A little harsh I think!
Have you never left a lock filling while you walk to the next lock in a flight so that it set, therefore avoiding the lock bollards that you know are to shallow to get to.
Managed to help a boat last summer that cilled itself, the bow had started to go under, but the doors were shut and the vents were a few inches off the deck. Managed to drop the bottom paddles and slowly let water back into the lock before the water started to fill saloon. Also lucky that the self draining deck outlets were large. (doors closed while cruising isn't a bad idea)
Mistakes happen, no one is immune! I would hate this to happen to anyone no matter what the circumstances
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Hello all
Some time ago I posted regarding a potential HNBC 'gathering' over Easter 2014 in the London area. After considerable research we have drawn a blank. We are still looking to hold an event in Easter 2014 in the south and would welcome any thoughts that you might have. It has been suggested that we look at the newly revitalised Basingstoke and the Aylesbury Basin, any thoughts?, contacts?. Broadly we need secure but accessible moorings for 40 full length working boats plus a few smaller boats, a hall or similar for around 100 nearby to host social events and real ale bar and decent pubs/eating places nearby. We bring considerable economic benefit to the area over the period and would be prepared to pay for the use of the facilities. It would be helpful if there was an event, etc to which we could add our support as we can raise its profile by putting on quite a show. What I need is names of contacts if possible so that I can start the process of organising an event and we would welcome working in partnership with others to achieve a common aim. Does anyone have a contact for the West Byfleet Boat Club as they contacted me earlier and it might be a 'goer' if the Basingstoke seems the way to go.
What about the wides between Apsley and Kings Langley. Long pound with plenty of room for mooring and reasonable depth along the bank. The Red Lion pub have a very large beer garden and are always up for money making opportunities. Apsley lock is only a short walk away with shops, restaurants and pubs as is Kings Langley. There is also the field next to the canal that is used in the summer months for carboot sales, and has hardcore paths for carparking I'm sure that the farmer would be up for this being used for a fee. Nash Mill community centre (although not much to look at) is also located next to the car boot field. I'm sure that the reach out boat project would help out if they could.
PM me if I can help in any way Ben
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Banstead and Bodmin will be there. 13 locks would be a crime not to!
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Here is "Birmingham" & "Bordesley" new in 1936/7 quite early in the life of the boats has the public helath number has not been sign written on the motor. Launched into service in November 1936 the boat wasnt gauged until the following february.
Congratulations from Banstead and Bodmin. Be warned of the windy day!
Did the butty doors always just have a flat door with a recess, rather than the raised panel of the motor?
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Upon moving into Apsley Marina (then Bw owned, later it became BWML although our cheques were still signed to BW!
)about 9/10 years ago, when it first opened, we were on a residential mooring and subject to paying council tax. The marina insisted that they were able to place overnight boats upon our poontoons when we were away, and that they could use our hook up! We decided to question that we were therefore eligable to pay the council tax and took the local authority to a tribunal. We compiled evidence, such as over-nighter boaters standing next to their boats on residential pontoons holding their receipts, money that the so called council tax payer (us) would never see. We won. To this day Apsley marina residential moorings do not pay council tax.I have heard that other marinas have tried a similar approach and not been successful, but I don't see why.
Ask other moorers what they pay on their moorings within the marina.
Don't be afraid to contest it and take it to a tribunal, but have hard evidence with you.
We were charged Band A and got a nice little rebate once the case was won.
Good luck
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A boat festival with beer left
I'm not sure I understand -
That's the one and that's the house boat I mentioned. hard to get an further up stream. The whole of the creak below floods at a high tide. I've sat in a rowing boat on the mud before for 5 or 6 hours waiting for the tide to come back in. You sink up to your waste if you get out!
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They could always fill with jerrycans, so the fuel issue would not matter.
I think we are all keeping an eye out throughout the country, but unless drunk I have not seen any boats as fuzzy as this.
A photo of the Bow wouldn’t go a miss
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There is an old foundry up the river Carnon River, (Which joins the Fal Estury) This has been up for development for years, but never quite seems to get off the ground. There is also (much further up) Wheal Jane tin mine, some may remember a large scale environmental spill some 20 years ago where the pumps that kept the mine from flooding were turned off, the mines reservoirs then breached and the river was filled with all of the heavy metal from the mine, turning the River an eerie red colour, devastating the local mussel and oyster beds, but great fun to row across as a teenager.
There is currently a house boat further up the river. He was recently taken to court but the council who claimed that he did not have planning permission as couldn’t move due to a road bridge. Waiting for the lowest tide of the year, he managed to float his boat under the bridge, take a few photos at high tide floating on the river and then get it back at the next low tide, proving that it was a usable boat not a static home!
There are many side creaks in that area, but the Carnon is the only one that heads towards Perranworthal.
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We have run a washing machine for years through our 3kw Victron from 3 x 100amp hour batteries, but the inverter does call for additional power (we use a 2kw Honda) or will go into overload.
We live on a butty so are unable to run an engine at the same time, maybe if you do this you will be ok.
We also have 2 battery banks, one always fully charged in reserve so that if you find yourself outside of houses or near other boats late at night, you can switch over and deal with recharging in the morning at a more sociable hour.
Batteries fetch about £8 at the moment at the scrap yard
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I must be miss-reading this as the length of the butty has nothing to do with the effect the butty has when travelling abreast. What is important is that the butty is tied tightly against the motor and is prevented from 'slipping' backwards and forewards by tying the butty anser pin to the bollard / dolly on the motor boats counter and tying the butty tunnel hook to the anser pin on the motor boats gunwale. It is probably fair to assume that APACHE does not have an anser pin on its guwhale so a compromise will need to be found. Simply tying each end of the boat together is not sufficient as the butty will slip backwards when travelling forwards, then slip forwards when slowing down or going into reverse - which will cause all sorts of problems.
In my experience an empty butty is much happier being towed behind the motor boat on cross straps, usually requiring little or no input from the butty steerer at all. Travelling long distances abreast with empty boats is fine on the lower Grand Union Canal but not really suitable on the Kennet & Avon Canal, apart from short pounds of course.
As a professional boatman (retired 1985) I felt it was for me to control the boats, not the boats control me. I have always put the motor on the left to ensure it is in the deeper water, although clearly I have to work around the rotation of the propeller - which in my opinion has much less effect than the inertia of the butty.
The motor that i was referring to didn't have an anser pin on its guwhale so that's probably the reason I had the problem of the butty overtaking and turning the boats. Thanks for pointing this out. I was purely passing on something that I have experienced while breasted with a butty. I'd say inexperience not incompetence! One is giving it a go and learning from your mistakes and the other is unable/unqualified to do a task (and rude)
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This is not about local knowledge. It is about courtesy.
The two boats turn up after dusk. They know that other boats are waiting, some for several days, to pass through Cowroast lock. The reason they know this is that they are told so. They moor overnight in the lock chamber because the pound is down. By morning the pound has dropped a lot further, leaving every waiting boat aground. The owners of the boats that have waited there for several days say that this has not happened previously, so if the pound is leaking badly, it is a new leak! Whatever.
What happens next: the two boats reverse out of the lock chamber, realising that others are in front of them in the queue. They offer a line to some the grounded boats to try and snatch them back afloat. No they didn't. They simply used the lock and disappeared off along the Tring summit.
What then happened: a boat locks up into the short pound (about 600 yards at a guess) below Cowroast, gets to us, and offers a line, which pulled us free. The first boat has managed with some effort to get free as well. I then offer a line to the next grounded boat and pull them free.
That is courtesy, and decency, and what I like about boating. You help each other out. I wasn't angry about the behaviour of Archimedes and Emu; others waiting there were less sanguine. But I do think it was pretty poor behaviour, and very inconsiderate.
I don't even want to get involved with this, but I can't help myself.
Firstly that pound leaks very badly, has for a while. People are known to open a paddle so that the pound stays full over night, letting the summit drop so that Darren at Cow Roast marina is unable to get boats onto hard standing.
Secondly, if I look ahead and see free lock bollards and an empty lock ahead of me, in a shallow pound with a boat the draws 3ft or more then I head for the lock, especially if its open!
The next morning if the pound had dropped overnight, there would have been no point in trying to back out to pull boats off the bottom, as they would have been stuck fast, better to use the water from that lock and get the day started rather than cause any more hold ups.
Should the original boats at the front of the queue not have been waiting in the lock or at least been on the bollards!
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That's fine if you have a right-handed propeller, the inertia of the butty when holding back will work the opposite way to the paddle wheel effect from the prop.
OTOH with a Left handed prop, both will be working in the same direction, tending to swing the pair anticlockwise.
I'd try both ways if regularly travelling that way with a LH prop, see which works best for you.
Tim
Didn't think of that! I was just going for the motor in the deepest water.
Also if you bump into a moored boat, then you have the butty to hide behind!!
Ben
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Generally I'd say put the motor on the left, not the butty, as, if travelling breasted, the motor will be in the deeper water as you pass people coming the other way, and the butty can float in the shallower water near the edge.
You just beat me to that. Definitely motor on the port side.
Ben
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Good luck with your first trip
It can be a quick learning curve!! We have had several mismatched pairs, one thing to remember if the butty is longer than the motor, then when you try and stop when breasted up, the butty can start to overtake and turn the boats. Can be useful when wanting to turn around, but cause problems when slowing to pass other boats,
Hope I'm not telling you what you already know
Ben
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Paddles I'm not so sure about, but gates are a sticky one. As many have already posted, lots of gates on GU wide locks swing open the second you power away from them, hardly the crew's fault.
Second, opinions differ about what is the best thing to do. If we're meant to be waiting to share locks, and waiting for oncoming boats rather than turning a lock, wouldn't leaving the gates open be sensible?
Happy to be corrected, I'd rather understand...
You are right about the gates swinging open. Maybe the gates should be fitted with weights like on some of the Avon locks. You can drop these to the ground once you close the gates and then they will not swing.
Leaving the gates would work fine if they didn’t leak so badly!
Just buy a Butty then you never have to wait
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Council tax. For the place they live in and the services they use. For a contribution towards the education and health services within the local authority they "continuously cruise" in. For the right to utilise the towpath that the taxpayer funds. For the cost of collecting their rubbish. For the right to vote. For the right to live in Britain.
Edited to add: To pay for their membership of society, and not expect others to fund it for them.
Most people in marinas don’t pay council tax either, lets please not even get started on that one, it can be hard enough talking to land lovers about that, let alone other boaters.
They certainly shut the gates at lock 59, I watched them go past (even took a break from my F1 viewing)
However one gate did swing half open as many do on the GU.
A lot of boaters seem to have forgotten the etiquette of shutting gates. It’s just laziness. BW needs to enforce this with signs at every lock so that there is no excuse. Emu is usually very good at shutting gates. They passed me at lock 69a on Sunday and left the lock shut. But if they did leave the gates open then there is no excuse, boats that work the canal regularly, should be setting an example to others so that they see how things should be done.
As far as CC go. Some may blur the law a bit and move within an area but keep their boat looking good, never pile things on the tow path and move every 2 weeks. Admittedly returning to that spot once or twice in a calendar year. Not the biggest crime in the world.
Surly the real problem is the unlicensed, unloved doss boats, rubbish in the hedge, rubbish on the roof, and rubbish in the boat.
Forgot to say, please see link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pyrotronicdisintegrator.gif
If only
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They'll need to get past the good folks of Devon first though, mind you if they know they're not stopping I guess they'll let them pass !!
Why would we stop!
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There's 20,000 cornishmen waiting to march on London! .......... ONE DAY......one day .........one day
I think there’s about 20,000 of us already here dreaming of a way that we could afford to go back home! -
As an immigrant in London (in Hackney for the last 4-5 years!) I find some of the views expressed in this thread completely offensive as well as ridiculous. I hope a moderator will step in and do something about it.
Alex
I agree. Bring race into the discussion is sad and narrow minded. I work in Tottenham and every race has its goodens and baddens.
I have also moored in the East of London may times and have never had any problems.
My advice if someone approaches you is to; Start dragging one leg, lower your head, look up through your eyebrows and say
“Llow it man, I aint want no Beef, your Butters init” and then kiss your teeth (suck in between your tounge and teeth) then you’ll be fine!!!! (Please don’t try this)!
)about 9/10 years ago, when it first opened, we were on a residential mooring and subject to paying council tax. The marina insisted that they were able to place overnight boats upon our poontoons when we were away, and that they could use our hook up! 
We decided to question that we were therefore eligable to pay the council tax and took the local authority to a tribunal. We compiled evidence, such as over-nighter boaters standing next to their boats on residential pontoons holding their receipts, money that the so called council tax payer (us) would never see. We won. To this day Apsley marina residential moorings do not pay council tax.
I think there’s about 20,000 of us already here dreaming of a way that we could afford to go back home!
Historic Boats for sale online
in History & Heritage
Posted
Another one
Duke Royalty Class
http://narrowboats.apolloduck.co.uk/display.phtml?aid=294816