In this vlog I visit the “Pamela May”, a trip boat run by the charitable Droitwich Canals Trust. We see their current boat and hear about the excellent work of the Trust but visit Ortomarine, the company building the Trust’s brand new, all-electric powered boat.
The sun is out and it’s time to sort a few bits of the narrowboat that are looking less than prime, notably the paintwork needs a spruce-up and polish plus one or two tiny rust spots on the roof need attending to.
After getting frustrated with the cheap little twin-tub washing machine I had aboard the boat from the early days, I ditched it and bought a proper automatic machine.
In this video I explain what I think of it and why it fits the bill.
Last winter, I was disappointed during winter to find white grungy muck dribbling down the flue inside the boat onto the top of the stove. This was down to a badly fitting and broken chimney. Rather than buy an off the shelf replacement which might also not have fitted well, I opted to get a custom-made replacement.
Following a few recent questions and comments from viewers, here is a beginners guide to how electrics work on a narrowboat. It may also have general relevance to people in campervans, motorhomes, caravans and RVs although there are slight differences but the gist is similar.
Every winter the Canal & River Trust shut parts of the network down for a time in order to do maintenance which often includes taking out broken or old lock gates and replacing them. New lock gates are not something you can just order in from Amazon however, so the CRT have to make their own and in this video I visited their Birmingham workshop to see how the process works.
The third and final part (for the moment) in this mini-series about unusual, rare and vintage narrowboat engines. Here we meet Keith Lodge who had a replica working boat built to his specification including a two-cylinder National DA2 engine from 1949.
This is Part 2 of a three part mini-series about classic / vintage narrowboat engines as often heard chugging past on the canal. In this episode, I talked to Rob Goodman about his 1940s-era Kelvin K2 and its unusual starting procedure!
This is Part 1 of a three part mini-series about classic / vintage narrowboat engines as often heard chugging past on the canal. In this episode, I talked to Chris Wenham aboard NB Herbert about his Russell Newbury engine.
This vlog picks up immediately where the last one left off, as I head from Hillmorton Wharf to Yelvertoft marina where I had the boat taken out of the water and into their shiny new boat shed for blacking.
