Stories about boats and waterways
Posts including videos
What do narrowboat brokers do and should you use one, either to sell or buy a boat? These questions and more are answered in a sit-down interview with James Millsop of brokerage firm Rugby Boats, based at Stowe Hill Wharf in Weedon, Northamptonshire.
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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.
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In October last year I headed along the North Oxford canal to Hillmorton Marina where they have a little dockside crane, suitable to lift an engine out of a boat. Over the course of the next week I scrubbed out a load of muck and rust from the engine bilge, treated it with Vactan and then primed and painted it before getting the engine put back in.
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When taking the narrowboat to a marina for work on the bilge and also to get the hull blacked, I noticed that the batteries didn’t seem to be holding a charge and also that the alternator was disturbingly warm. The result was that I bought a new alternator and fitted it. This is the (almost “real-time”) recording of my hamfisted work, including several things you shouldn’t do when changing an alternator.
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It’s the start of a new year and since there’ll be nothing much to watch on telly this New Year’s Day, I thought I’d throw out a few suggestions of utterly splendid YouTube channels for you to enjoy instead; these are some of the people I watch regularly and I hope you like ’em too. Happy New Year!
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It really is that simple – a Happy Christmas message from me and a load of “boat-tubers”, who all assembled – much like the Avengers but with boats – at the Admiral Nelson pub in Braunston at the start of December.
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Time for another fireside chat as I sit down and answer (the first tranche of) questions submitted by viewers after I recently said a Q&A was in the offing. This covers topics including bow thrusters, lift bridges and tunnel lights amongst many others.
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Over the summer I noticed that in heavy rain there was a slight trickly of water coming down the stove flue. It appeared to be getting in underneath the chimney collar so I had to take it off, clean everything up, de-rust and re-seal. This video shows how I did it and how it was a bigger job than expected.
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A bit of DIY and a product review in this video as I think back to when I was moored over the summer and took the cratch cover off, firstly to kill off the algae growing on it, secondly to clean it, and thirdly to re-waterproof the canvas.
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With my summer cruising for 2017 all complete, in this video I sit down by the roaring stove and give a general update on where I am, what I’m up to and what’s coming in future vlogs.
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