Stories about boats and waterways
There is a surprising amount of unused bits of canal across the UK, in varying states of decay. In this vlog I take a look at two separate projects which are digging out and restoring parts of the original route of the North Oxford canal.
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With only a few weeks to go until I set off on my Grand Spring Tour, I’ve decided to go through the boat and check I’ve got everything I think I have. So in this video I’m rummaging around in the port side well deck locker and taking stock of what’s what. I’ll do the starboard side locker in the next vlog!
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I’ve had a few people ask how you get TV while out and about on the canals on a narrowboat so here is my quick guide to watching telly. It’s mostly just like watching TV at home but you have to muck about with the aerial when you move the boat.
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Can a decently-sized solar array provide enough power for day to day living on a narrowboat during the winter? There’ll be sunny days, there’ll be cloudy days, there’ll be rainy days and maybe even snow – but can the panels pull in the power? In this video, I do some sums.
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We’re right into the middle of winter now and unlike last year, this time it’s quite cold with overnight temperatures in the Midlands (where I’m moored) dropping as low as -7C. So although I’ve talked about my stove and the radiator system before, this is a dedicated video on the subject of narrowboat heating including various types of stove, diesel-fired radiators and insulation. Plus – there’s a very special guest apppearance from Mads and Jökull from Sail Life!
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With many thanks to Alan and Wendy for letting me on board, this is another video where I peek into other boaters’ craft – but also, this particular narrowboat has a fairly rare type of engine set up, being a hybrid diesel-electric.
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This is part 2 of my extensive narrow boat tour; in this video I cover the bathroom (“head”), bedroom and then the engine room (the latter to a very detailed degree!)
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This is a follow-up to the last Vlog which was all about narrowboat toilets, hence the odd numbering of this Vlog. In this, I show you how I took out and replaced all the seals, vents and slides inside a Thetford C200 toilet cassette.
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I’ve been sent an 80 Watt semi-flexible solar panel to review by a company called Lensun so here are my thoughts on the panel (until the point where I broke it, for more on which, watch the video).
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Now back at Yelvertoft, my narrowboat gets taken out of the water so that I can tackle the rusty gas locker properly, using Fertan rust treatment followed by red oxide primer, bilge paint and then two coats of Intertuf 16 blacking for good measure.
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