Vlog 298: Mr Fusion
This video profiles the incredible Edwin Fasham and his two custom-built canal boats, both of them unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and mostly hand-built by him in his back garden!
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Category: Engineering
Vlog 293: Amped Up
An all-electric narrowboat is now available for hire by the day so it’s a low-cost way to test the waters of near-silent narrowboating and leave no air pollution in your wake.
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Vlog 286: Click and Collect
For single-handed canal boaters, shimmying up and down lock ladders or trying to get through swing bridges can be a huge nuisance. How much easier it would be if you could steer your boat with remote control! That’s exactly what Gill Gregory can do aboard “Desiderata” so I went to see the system in action.
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Vlog 282: Lord of the Flies
Following on from the last video, about wooden narrowboats, which are quite rare on the canals, here’s another wooden narrowboat which is even rarer – a “fly boat”, the parcels service of the canal network.
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Vlog 281: The Self-Preservation Society
The Wooden Canal Boat Society in Ashton-under-Lyne is a wonderful group of enthusiasts who not only renovate and bring new life to decaying ancient wooden narrowboats but also provide valuable services to the local community. And, curiously, the boats have been restoring the volunteers as well.
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Vlog 280: The Blue Bird of Happiness
A few weeks ago I went past the well-known historic narrowboat “Dover” on the Grand Union Canal but its looks belie its actual interior so I went back for a proper snoop around.
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Vlog 269: Fire Power
On a sunny day at the Anderton Boat Lift, I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with Katherine Hutchinson who operates the steam-powered narrowboat Emily Anne.
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Vlog 268: Gate Expectations
Every year, the Canal & River Trust replace a load of worn-out lock gates across the 200+ year-old canals of England and Wales. But how do you lift a 4-tonne chunk of wood out of its bindings, on waterway, often with limited room to manoeuvre? With a crane on a boat, that’s how.
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Vlog 266: 2 Unlimited
What would a narrowboat look like if you were able to start with a blank sheet of paper and design it so that the boat was still very usable in later life or with limits on your physical agility? A couple from Hampshire have done just that so I went along to see the finishing touches being put to the boat ahead of it going on display at the Crick Waterways show in June.
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Vlog 260: Power Ranger
A sit-down chat about how the new 540W solar panel helped over winter, and mention of the lead carbon batteries I installed in summer 2019.
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