Jess--

unfortunately the best way of getting the experience you need is to get your boat out on the cut. taking someone else's boat out will give you experience of how their boat handles which is not what you need, you need to know how your boat handles. my suggestion is to take the boat out (slowly and carefully) and find a empty bit of canal, then experiment with your boat (learn how fast it picks up speed, how fast you can stop it if you have to, how it turns at various speeds, how it reverses etc etc) all of these things will be unique to your boat and could be quite different to a seemingly identical boat. You may be able to find someone to go out on your boat with you but they would be trying to learn how your boat responds at the same time as trying to teach you

Hmmm my keyboard must have been taking the P. I meant pipes.

I tend to use rawhide as protection on pies through rough holes, soak it in water for a couple of days and then put it in place, once it dries its pretty near bulletproof. had a pipe on a vehicle that rubbed on a sharp joint in the bodywork and rawhide protected it for well over 10 years

with fuel cells don't think of the hydrogen as a fuel but more as a battery (of sorts) since that hydrogen is likely to have been produced using electricity to crack water into oxygen and hydrogen. so you end up using electricity to produce hydrogen only to shove that hydrogen through a fuel cell to produce electricity. for a car this makes some sense (even with losses at each stage) because hydrogen & fuel cells etc can be made lighter than a battery capable of holding an equivalent charge. for a boat it makes no sense because for the most part a larger / heavier battery system would just mean taking some ballast out of the bilges

environmentally friendly until it farts releasing methane (which is now though to be a worse greenhouse gas than CO2)

I passed that boat (floating) about 2 months ago on the ashby, there were a youngish couple (and I think a youngster) working on it, I commented that it looked like they had an interesting project, they responded that they had but they were enjoying it.

quick(ish) method of changing front - rear trim is to empty your water tank (assuming it's in the bow), your bow will float higher but stern should drop a little. my boat is noticeably more efficient with a full diesel tank and an empty water tank (although it is more of a pig to reverse)

You wouldn't get a widebeam in or out of Brinklow. Even if you could you wouldn't be able to take it from there past rose narrowboats in one direction (about 2 miles) or Hillmorton in the other direction (5 or 6 miles at a guess)

1 month and 2 days from being blacked we have growth on the waterline... so it's pretty quick

Gut reaction is go with mppt even though it is a bit more expensive to start with, the few percent of extra efficiency adds up quite quickly. Messing about with a damaged 140w (26v oc) panel and an mppt controller I was impressed with what it could get from the panel (so much so that I am fitting the system on my boat)

Some countries you can use it (look up threes "feel at home", in quite a few countries there is no roaming charges, you still get unlimited data BUT you get limited tethering (I seem to remember that it's around the 2gb mark)

Another one on an expired one plan here, mine ran out at least a year ago. Still have unlimited tethering although like others this may only be because I am not a heavy user of it even though it wipes the floor with my home broadband (home = 12mb download / 1.2mb upload, tethered = 40-50mb download / 10-20mb upload)

I have always found the braunston black hole to be a myth (even when I lived there) networks I have used there with no problems Vodafone & Cellnet - voice text only, data was almost unheard of at the time Virgin mobile (piggybacked on T-Mobile) - voice / text / gprs Three - voice / text / 3g / 4g (max speed at bottom lock 30mb down / 12mb up)

when moving I get a little water through the stern gland (10 seconds running pump after 8 hours cruising) but the pump cannot get the level below 10mm (it sucks air) so I expected to come back to maybe a touch over 10mm of water (depending on how well the grease had sealed the stern gland) to find it totally dry was a very nice surprise.

I was pleasantly surprised when I came back to my boat after a month the find the bilge 100% dry this is on a boat with totally shot batteries and a bilge pump that the float switch may or may not work on

I've known a copper fuel line to be leant on while "servicing" an engine resulting in a kink that caused the exact symptoms you are describing

there is no limit on hull thickness for licensing, they just want your money, they don't care whether your boat floats.

gut reaction says that if you have stopped water with any sort of epoxy you should be ok for a while. also a 1/8" hole should be well within the capabilities of the majority of bilge pumps

couple of comments added in red. Jess (M0VBR & Repeater Keeper for GB7DL)