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Jess--

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Everything posted by Jess--

  1. I have seen yoga mats and spray glue used as weed hatch seals before
  2. Pipe clips (designed to clip up 15mm pipe) laid flat are ideal to put in as spacers, minimal surface contact and usually strong enough to not deform under the weight of the ballast (cheap from builders merchants too)
  3. actually safer to weld a full tank than an empty one that has had fuel in it
  4. I close all gates unless I can see another boat waiting to use the lock.
  5. watford locks are between crick tunnel and norton junction (close to watford gap services on the M1) and they are narrow (no chance of meeting a widebeam there), I think Junior meant watch out for widebeams in pounds in general.
  6. once you reach the bottom of watford locks you wont feel like a novice any more. you will have... got your boat out of ABNB's wharf (it's tight, we had about 2 inches in a 43 footer) probably been in and out of crick marina to get some fuel (including winding within the marina) passed through crick tunnel (not too long and no nasty surprises but a fun first tunnel) passed through your first narrow locks & staircase locks
  7. everyone agrees that the current law is wide open to interpretation. but I would bet that a new law stating similar to below would soon get some teeth gnashing. a boat (not on it's home mooring) must move XX miles within 14 days and should not return within XX miles within 14 days unless there is a genuine reason for doing so (such as reaching the end of a section, turning to head for a new section or turning to head back towards it's home mooring. the owner of a boat unable to move due to mechanical breakdown or similar circumstances must inform CRT of the issue whereupon they may be allowed a maximum of 60 days to make repairs or arrangements for movement of the boat. situations such as serious medical conditions will be assessed on an individual basis. on the face of it such a wording would seem to be following the spirit of the current guidance while also being very clear as to what is required and where exclusions may apply in exceptional circumstances.
  8. Jess--

    Hs2 Amendment

    Dammit... now I've got KLF : 3AM Eternal stuck in my head
  9. Jess--

    Hs2 Amendment

    there does seem to be a lot more freight being moved on trains these days (compared with what I remember from my youth) and the amount would seem to be increasing further with new Rail-Served distribution depot's appearing. however this increase is having an effect on the rail network, as an example there is a level crossing near to stamford (I forget the name) which carries 3 tracks, in the past (about 10 years ago) the most the barriers were down was around 15 minutes in an hour during busy periods, these days if you time getting to that crossing wrong you can be waiting up to 45 minutes for all three tracks to be clear enough for the crossing to open. current usage on that crossing seems to be 1 track carrying high speed passenger traffic, 1 track carrying lower speed passenger and freight traffic and the third track with nothing but slow moving freight
  10. Kris, to use the car parked at the side of the road analogy you must also include that the road the car is parked on has parking restrictions over how long a car can be parked. to follow the analogy through and using a 2 hour restriction for parking (in place of a 2 week restriction on the canal) you might expect a little leeway (say 2 hours 10 minutes) in normal use and possibly a lot of leeway in case of a breakdown (say 6 hours) but if you were to leave your car there for 36 hours you can expect a parking charge or your car to have been removed
  11. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  12. sabotaging a system would benefit no one. using a system that automatically logs boats passing various places or entering / leaving the network would give a far more accurate picture of how the whole network is truly being used overall and the data could be used by CRT to make informed decisions about where extra VM's might be needed, where moorings on 48 hour restrictions might be relaxed, where an extra water / elsan point might be placed etc etc. while the system can be used for checking the activity of a single boat the data the system would produce can be used for other purposes which could benefit boaters. of course a system like this would also free up the current volunteers that log boat positions to do other jobs on the network that boaters might see as more useful
  13. Add me in if you want, One of my jobs is coding backend systems for websites so I have a pretty good idea of what can / does break systems.
  14. CRT's guidance seems quite clear.... https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/633.pdf "What the law requires is that, if 14 days ago the boat was in neighbourhood A, by day 15 it must be in neighbourhood B or further afield. Thereafter, the next movement must be at least to neighbourhood C, and not back to neighbourhood A (with obvious exceptions such as reaching the end of a terminal waterway or reversing the direction of travel in the course of a genuine cruise)"
  15. another similar option but geared more towards video would be Plex. around the house here I have a central server with a massive video / audio library (just under 5tb) the library is accessed by Plex and XBMC / Kodi depending on the device being used to view. one advantage with plex is that it will transcode video on the fly to a suitable format for the viewing device & connection type, this means I can watch part of something at home in full HD and then watch the rest on my phone while sat on the boat using a 3g connection
  16. I never said that I agreed with the 14 day rule, it's just a one of those things that we agree to comply with as part of the conditions of our licenses. I know that given my current work commitments there is no way that I could stay within the rules for CC (mainly because for around 10 weeks each summer I work 18 hour days 7 days a week) so for now I have taken a berth in a marina. My work commitments should change over the next couple of years and then I fully intend to go down the CC route, but given my history on the boats unless the canal is frozen or the weather is truly atrocious it's unlikely I will be in one spot for 4 days let alone 14.
  17. to use your analogy not everyone sticks exactly to speed limits or any other limits like 14 days, but very few exceed those limits by 18 times and then complain when the group enforcing those limits (loosely in some areas) pay attention
  18. don't forget that boat design will make a big difference in usable space. a 50 foot trad stern will have a lot more space inside than a 50 foot cruiser stern
  19. 9 Months does seem to be beyond what anyone could describe as a reasonable time to be stuck waiting for parts (what are you doing ordering one nut per week?) given a problem that would disable my boat for that long I would have made some temporary modifications just to get moving... no engine? Beg steal or borrow an outboard and strap it to the stern somehow. no rudder? use a plank of wood.
  20. pull the alternator off and see if the engine on it's own is still hard to turn with the plug out. if it's still tight then your engine is most likely shot but you have a good alternator that could be dropped onto a replacement engine or back onto your original engine after a repair if it's loose then you probably need a new alternator. given that it's a known make spares should be available, but I wouldn't like to guess at costs
  21. I'm glad you got a chuckle from extreme bridge hopping comment, that's how it was intended to be taken. With regards to the tech side of things I'm really just thinking out loud here, I work with tech systems most days so viewed it as something that would be an interesting system to design so that it would work by gathering the minimum of information. obviously there will be flaws in any system like the taking my license for a bike ride example but for the most part I would think that a system that roughly tracked boats around the network would work well for boaters and CRT assuming the system would give access to view your own records since it would give both parties access to the same data.
  22. that's the reason I would rule out GPS tracking RFID tags can be added into something flat that could be required to be on display on a boat (usually in a window), a perfect example would be the license.
  23. moving a boat from one location and back every day sounds very much like extreme bridge hopping to me. an obvious flaw in your plan is if the area you would be moving from / to each day is checked each day / week etc at the same time of day your boat would always be there (allowing CRT to make the assumption that it had never moved). If I am understanding what CRT are looking for it would be better described as onward travel rather than continuous cruising
  24. the passive RFID tags would be exactly that... passive, they require no power gps tracking I would agree "could" be used to infringe your privacy (or rather your boats privacy as there would be no way of knowing who was on board) the RFID system would be far less of a privacy risk since it is passive, the tag can only be read from around 8 feet away so it would be even less effective than using eyes (it would probably be largely similar to human volunteers taking note of passing boats) since the only records would be when your boat passed an RFID reader or was read by a CRT employee passing your moored boat. If I was designing a system to do this I would make use of natural choke points on the network (places where a boat would have to pass close to a reader like locks or tunnels) and entrances / exits of the network (marina entrances etc), using this premise the tracking details for my boat would read something like below. 03/06/2015 14:30 - Passed through entrance to crick marina 03/06/2015 15:15 - Passed through entrance to crick marina 03/06/2015 16:00 - Passed through Crick Tunnel 03/06/2015 17:30 - Passed through Locks at Watford 04/06/2015 10:00 - Passed through Braunston Tunnel 04/06/2015 12:00 - Passed through Locks at braunston 04/06/2015 19:00 - Passed through Locks at Hilmorton 05/06/2015 08:30 - Passed through Newbold Tunnel 05/06/2015 21:00 - Passed through entrance to brinklow marina No records - 06/06/2015-16/06/2015 16/05/2015 14:00 - Passed through entrance to brinklow marina 16/05/2015 15:30 - Passed through swingbridge at rose narrowboats 16/05/2015 19:00 - passed through hawkesbury stop lock 17/05/2015 15:30 - Logged by volunteer 700yds south of atherstone locks 17/05/2015 20:00 - passed through hawkesbury stop lock 18/05/2015 16:30 - Passed through swingbridge at rose narrowboats 18/05/2015 18:00 - Passed through entrance to brinklow marina No records - 19/06/2015-present date as you can see in my case it would give a good idea of how and where the boat is being used. in my case I would generate quite a lot of tracking info since the boat has moved a fair amount in this time, given the current ideas behind what could constitute genuine CC usage a boat might generate less data than this in a year although you would expect to see a fair few more logged by volunteer entries
  25. I can see pro's and con's for gps trackers (I'm not going to go into the rights or wrongs) but on a technical side there would be a few unanswered questions. how would a rarely used boat keep one powered? since they would have to be reporting in via mobile networks how would they handle areas with no coverage where would you install one on a boat? (outside could be tampered with / inside would struggle for signals) how would you handle the tin foil hat brigade? if some sort of electronic tracking becomes necessary I would suggest using and RFID based system using long range tags (can be read from around 6-8 feet away) these could be read by a CRT employee (while taking part in the tour de towpath if needed) or by automatic readers placed at strategic bridges / locks etc. obviously any system would be open to abuse since gps sensors or rfid tags could be removed and moved elsewhere on the network leaving the boat behind
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