floydraser

Absolutely. For £2 you haven't got to use this one much to get your money's worth. In fact it's worth £2 for the connectors alone.

For the record there is a tiny charity shop in Brundall but I'm not sure if they're open in the present circumstances.

Me for instance. I would gladly pay for a safety course if the cost were offset against my insurance. Better still for me, get an experience helm to accompany me to Reedham for a pub lunch.

In my dreams the cost of improving safety would be offset by reduction of insurance fees all round. Or they could even stump up some the cost in the first place. It's early for me though; maybe I haven't properly woken up yet.

Safety: Vaughan probably hit the nail on the head with his reference to litigation lawyers; the BA may think, quite rightly IMO, that they should be seen to be doing something in the light of the publicity given to accidents. Investigations into accidents often look at competence and training. As MM eluded to, how many who were told something would claim at an enquiry that they weren't? So the more training boxes ticked, the safer you are from blame. Having said that, I can also believe that there are probably no more accidents today (relative to the amount of people) than there has ever been, it's just that the internet and social media means more people get to hear about them and talk about them. Of course there's no substitue for experience though. If I were hiring I think I would prefer the hand over to be from someone who instantly shows a relaxed demeanor, seen it all before, met all sorts type of attitude. Along with a bit of banter and a sense of humour. I doubt the BA or anyone else can teach that. They may well get better training by reading "In search of excellence" by Tom Peters, but I doubt there's a copy in Norfolk.

Absolutely Fred, then those who are left can make up the shortfall, and wonder why pubs shut etc etc.

Having thought about Griff's comment a bit more I'm thinking it's a shame only 3 of us reacted to it. I'm fairly confident the BA will be monitoring all comments especially on this subject and I would hope they may sit up and take a bit more notice when those of us who are not consistently BA bashing make what we believe to be a valid point. Apart from inflation, now let's dial in the "penalty" introduced for internal combustion engines. Another little money maker based on the latest pc trends. I wonder how many more private owners feel they've been ever so slightly stitched up? Given more thought a better system may have been the generational approach: apply the system to all new registrations and even take engine size/HP into account. Given it's 50 year life, my diesel has been relatively speaking, very eco-friendly. There is no incentive to change, just an incentive to not have it. There may be an incentive to change shortly though: When my 75 to the gallon Corsa goes bang it will need replacing. The 280 mile round trip is too far for an electric (recharging away from home is more expensive than diesel) but the cost saving of moving the boat nearer to home (away from the Broads) could be worth the shipping cost etc. But that's just me. 3% of something is better than 100% of nowt.

"Get ready, the President's just coming round the corner!"

So you get what you pay for, and the ranger's job sounds like a load of hassle with all that confrontation. So what kind of person would want that job and how much would you have to pay to attract someone to do it in the first place? Hmm, getting quite pricey on those arguments. I still wonder if there is anything to be learned from the canals over volunteers. I and I suspect a lot of you, learned to play football (badly in my case) by kicking a ball against a wall or garage door. So let's try something different: We'll all pay about £100 a season for each of our kids to join the local football club then every Saturday morning they can go and be trained for a couple of hours by a volunteer coach. The coach will have had evening classes in coaching by the FA and DBS checked by the club. All we need is to find volunteer coaches to give up their Saturday mornings and a few evenings to look after someone else's brats. There is no shortage. I respect all of them as it's something I would never do. My point is that although we find it unattractive there are people out there who would enjoy it.

Do they need powers to add to the safety and provide a deterent to speeders? I've been "caught" by volunteer locals wielding a speed camera before. Not prosecuted but a constructively worded warning letter. A living wage for anti-social hours is quite a lot. You are then back in the balance of toll charges vs what you ask for.

Enhanced payment for working outside of 9-5 may be one reason. Late shifts should be covered by volunteers, and by that I mean paid or unpaid. I wouldn't want anyone with children to be put under pressure to work evenings on my behalf, for a leisure activity. But what about unpaid volunteers though? They didn't seem to be factored in to the meeting agenda (I only caught the tail end of the stream) and on the rangers page it just says that there are some. On the canal system there seem to be plenty and talking to them, they have a great time.

Apologies if this upsets but how many of us are using 14 year old computers and if we were, how would we expect them to handle modern software? If the next system lasts as long that's just over £8,500 a year. Without it, how many more employees to operate a file card system? That is of course in complete ignorance of the size of the system etc, but just saying.

I was wondering about volunteer rangers; it seems they exist. Would they cover the winter period?

I've never used the shower on the boat as it was part of the diabolical plumbing system I inherited. It looked like the shower sump started life as a stainless steel frame inside a plastic sump, the pump being fixed to the s/s. At some point the plastic sump had been removed leaving the pipes dangling in the bilge and the shower pump acting as the bilge pump. If shower sumps tend to smell and get blocked with hair it may well be that people could get rid them just before a sale to avoid replacement. I remember a piece of advice I was given when we bought our first caravan: due to the plastic pipes being ridged, it's a good idea to use liquid soap rather than bar soap as there's less likelyhood of blockages.

Vaughan has reminded me: mine had the shower sump removed and the shower just drained into the bilge. Could the same be true in this case? Is there something about boat shower trays that renders them useless? I'm wondering if they would get gummed up with soap etc. over time?

If 12v is getting to the motors and they're not working I would expect a fuse to blow. If it that's not happening it could because there is a wiring fault somewhere within the motors, or they have burned out. Very strange if both motors on the same circuit have the same fault. I inherited a similar fault from the previous owner, turned out that crud had blocked the pump, burned out the motor so no current got through. Covered their tracks by installing another bilge pump in a different place! Working out what previous owners have done is all part of the fun, I think.

Looking at the pic I see three black wires not connected to anything. That would be my starting point with a meter to find current. I don't see a float switch anywhere?

Forget Britbox and have a look here: Just a shortie at 13 minutes, it covers some of the things relating to the BSSC. D.O.19 will cover the solutions, and may be quite long. Not shown in the video is the attention Will showed to the engine's fuel supply, particularly to the pipework, filters and shut off valves. Thankfully he was happy with all of it. As an aside I asked him if he could see where to connect a calorifier to the cooling system and he couldn't find anywhere. Well if an experienced engineer can't find anywhere, there ain't anywhere!

Don't include me in "us punters". Maybe a decline in the relationship between the BA and those who sign on the dotted line then decide not to conform, but once again I thik you're seeing what you want to see and not what's there.

Ooh, that's spooky, probably: click on the video link and there's a series of short vids of the boat in St Katherines Dock, one of which shows David Suchet (Poirot) switching on the Christmas lights. So a Broads boat in St Katherines Dock and a famous actor - I'm fairly certain Ewar Woowar had a boat in St K's.......

Nothing new about stand up paddleboards then? And I hope those nets are knotless or there'll be trouble.

There must be something about this video that makes more people want to watch it; could it be a fascination with human waste? The other videos in this series usually get around 60-70 views but this one is nearly double that! I wonder why some are watched more than others but just to help those who don't know: If you click on the Youtube text at the bottom right it opens in Youtube, then under the video bottom left you see "Floyd Raser". Click there and you go to my channel, click on "videos" at the top and you'll see all my videos. The weather forecast looked good for Wednesday and Thursday so I nipped over Wednesday afternoon with the sole mission of fitting the new water heater. This one: https://www.screwfix.com/p/ariston-undersink-water-heater-2kw-15ltr/9720g As we will be mostly using the boat as a floating caravan for now it'll suit us nicely thank you. Tom has very kindly pointed out that there are quite a few moorings with electric points around and I think there can only be more in the future with electric boats and all. But even so, 15 litres in a well insulated tank will keep warm for long enough to be practical. Well we'll see. It's mounted in the forecabin and will need boxing in eventually but it gives a nice, short run to the galley hot tap. The pipes need a bit of hiding too when I get the time. An added bonus is that a blanked off twin socket in the galley has been freed up to supply power for the heater and we can possibly have an electric kettle and a microwave. It wasn't the best of trips: I was working until around 23.30 (quietly!) Wednesday and finished at 15.30 Thursday but had to work mostly with the cover on and artificial light because the weather forecast couldn't have been more wrong! On the brighter side, we now have piping hot water at full pressure and I got 40 quid for the old heater!

What is your speciality, whacky headgear, orange skin or mis-matching shirt and trousers?

That's actually a more reliable method than looking at the BBC weather app. I was over Weds pm and yesterday when the forecast was dry. It pi**ed down most of the time. In fact it was pi**ing down at 09.30 yesterday as the app was say it should be a sunny interval! Water levels were extremely low Wednesday at BGM when I got there at about 17.00 and a neighbour says low levels forecast?

Excellent neighbours I should add.