Jess--

My best one was being told to slow down while sitting out of gear approaching the narrows / turn at sutton stop / hawkesbury I had watched a full length boat ahead of me go through the narrows and mess up the turn so decided to hang back and let them get sorted before going through the narrows myself so I had dropped out of gear and slowly drifted to a stop between the boats moored each side and was now just sitting not moving when a head popped out shouting slow down, I looked at them, their boat and my own boat and asked them if they want me to tie up alongside them as that was the only way I could go any slower, the head dissapeared.

I always assumed that the shape evolved to allow an even balance of the tiller above the bearing or bush while allowing a long handle pointing forwards for leverage, most other designs would put extra weight on one side of the bearing and increase wear

I suspect the solitary pair claims the area as their territory and will defend it whereas in a group the area is either nobodies territory or the territory of the family group

I'd never admit to going up and down that section a few times to get a feel for how the boat handled when doing stupid things rudder if anything has a touch too much on the front end, it will put itself on the towpath quite quickly if you leave it alone, although I find that it gives a good feel for what the boat is doing so I have ignored two chances to change it.

Not that I have ever found a nice wide and deep bit of water to test my boat on. but if I had....... I might have found that with enough power on that it is just starting to produce black smoke from the exhaust the boat will just manage 9 Mph and shows no sign of overheating after 20 minutes at that speed, Steering feels like it's on rails (I have never felt such a positive tiller on a narrowboat), You might want Geoff Capes steering though as the forces on the tiller increase massively with speed.

For the thames we always check here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/river-thames-conditions-closures-restrictions-and-lock-closures also if you have a look on there you will find instructions on how to subscribe to the notices via email (look under the keep up to date section)

Interesting that they are now allowing end of garden moorings on non-residential land (but only for the landowner)

I found that my tv (also cello) had a low level buzz (not a hum, more like the low throb of an engine running somewhere) on it's audio at all times which seemed to be caused by the backlight, I didn't get to the bottom of whether it was actually in the audio directly or was being induced onto the audio ground line. I ruled out ground loops by temporarily running the audio amp from batteries, which made the audio ground the only link anywhere between the amp and any other equipment. for me the simplest solution was to switch my audio feed from the tv to the computer since the computer was already handling everything, I have usb tv tuners setup allowing the computer to run as a full pvr system capable of recording & playing multiple channels at the same time so never actually use the tuner in the tv

have you considered adding one of the diesel water heaters from webasto / ebersplutter, in theory it could be fitted in tandem with your alde heating system to heat the same radiators / calorifier while minimising the amount of changes on the boat. unfortunately the Chinese & Russians don't seem to have copied the water heaters yet so there are no cheaper versions. Just a thought as it leaves you with 3 viable sources of heat including one that will still work when you're frozen in, have run out of diesel & gas and have flat batteries

Identifying the Owner / Keeper / User of the boat is irrelevant, from memory the CRT license is deemed to be held by the person legally responsible for the boat, they don't care who actually owns it

similar story around here, the only place I know of that runs a waste oil burner is a manufacturer of high end stainless exhaust systems (mainly for older Rolls-Royce cars), we use them because the quality of the exhausts they make is excellent and they will custom make them to fit around various non-standard bits we have under the car (full custom stainless actually works out cheaper than manufacturer original, and it's better)

PAT testing is very much ass covering, even more when you are bringing your equipment into someone elses premises. We had many arguments with one sites electrician about which pieces of our equipment fell under PAT testing, in one case he was trying to tell us a small winch used for lifting some parts of a ride into place during assembly MUST be pat tested, we explained to him several times how the winch was powered but he insisted on testing it.... so we left him to get on with it.... somehow a 12v winch powered by a car battery failed the test (Oddly 3 days later he was no longer employed by the company and they were quietly retesting all of their equipment). Another silly one involves ADIPS testing (ADIPS is a voluntary annual inspection scheme that covers fairground rides etc). after the 1st year we always had all of the rides inspected at the end of the season, working on the theory that it was better to have the inspection done on a ride that is in daily use and has been assembled for several months rather than a ride that is fresh out of storage and has just had all of the deep maintenance jobs done (A fairer representation of the ride on any given day if you like). anyway... new year, new site we arrived having already given the usual copies of insurance, adips certificates, and pat test certificates and assembled the ride ready to operate a few days later, only to be told that the owners of the site wanted the ride re-inspected since it was freshly assembled on their site, reluctantly we agreed (mainly because we didn't want to lose the site and we were the first people to bring in a big bit of equipment). We managed to arrange an inspection for the next morning, an inspection on the ride in question involved about 3 hours of checks with the ride assembled and then about 6 hours of component testing on various parts of the ride while it was disassembled (so a full days work) and cost us in the region of £2000. at the end of the inspection the ride was given a clean bill of health. the ride was left disassembled to be rebuilt the next day since daylight was fading fast. The next day we reassembled the ride and went into the office only to be told that they wanted it inspecting again because they had just watched us build the ride again, they didn't realise how in depth the inspection was (in that it took 9 hours to carry out and needed the ride dismantling) or how much it cost in cash, they assumed it was a case of someone quickly looking and saying that looks OK. they then decided that our inspection report was acceptable. A few days later they watched as our staff carried out their daily safety checks and commented that our staff were checking a lot more than they thought would be tested by ADIPS and they never queried our inspections again.

I'm getting a bare heater (not the all in one case kit) to test as a small workshop heater, if it works well I am thinking of installing one in the front of our boat. on the boat I plan to install it boxed in under the gunwale in the cratch with the exhaust exiting through the hull (skin fitting) and a separate fuel tank for kerosene, the only things going to the cabin being hot air & wiring. what I can't decide about is whether to recirculate cabin air through the heater (more efficient but no good for getting rid of moisture / condensation) or use outside air for heating (less efficient but should be dry heat)

I wonder if Richard 3rd equaling Bird could be where Dicky Bird originates from