Canal & River Marina & Mooring Guide Map

I am working on a new page for our site, it all started by looking for a new marina for next year. We are very happy at Droitwich Spa Marina and would highly recommend it, but we would like to see some more of the canal network.

The new page started as a spreadsheet of potential marina’s, but it was hard to visualise where these were, so I created a google map from my data, that started to look useful so I added a few more locations, I now have hundreds ready to add and over the next few weeks I should have a good guide ready.

Below is a work in progress version and this will update as I add new places, but, you can also find it on our menu above as this blog post will age and not be so visible soon.

UPDATE: Thanks to some feed back from Canal World Forums I now have some data from the CRT and have imported this into my map, I am now editing the data to add street addresses, phone numbers and web sites as I find them. There are over 500 possible mooring sites to update so this will take a while.

If you have any recommendations please let me know I need:- Name of location, address and postcode, contact number and website URL. emailed to “dfloyd @ floyd.co.uk” (Remove the spaces)

Tug Boats at the Black Country Living Museum

Last year we had planned to visit the Black Country Living Museum while on our summer trip, but due to time constraints we had to motor past. Well this weekend we were on our mooring checking the boat over and decided we could make the trip, but this time by car.

From Droitwich Spa Marina it is just 22 miles by road up the M5 to BCLM, so after a slow start off we went, we arrived at approx 11am and found the overflow carpark, which with luck had a row of PodPoint electric chargers, so we plugged in and wandered in.

At £22.50 Per Adult it is not cheap, but as we found, there is a lot to see, with lots of work going on with new displays being built. I suspect this kind of museum is never finished, as you can see from the map below lots of areas for development.

Map of the current museum (There is lots in development)

I was not feeling 100% so this was going to a slow walk around, we also could not stay late as we had left Obi, our Sprollie dog, looking after the boat.

There is lots to see all arranged in areas around streets, we started will a look around Jerushah Cottage, inside the lady of the house was working on a Rag rug, cutting the material into lengths, she told us some of the fascinating history of the building and the how the family lived.

We then moved on to the The Workers’ Institute and Cafe for a well needed coffee in a tin mug, while Sonia had tea and a slice of Victoria Sponge.

A. Hartill Motorcycles

Then past the Elephant and Castle Pub popping in to A. Preedy & Son Tobacconists and the A. Hartill Motorcycles for a nose around, in which we found a early Seagull outboard motor, which was manufactured in the Sunbeamland Factory in Wolverhampton.

A. Preedy & Son Tobacconists

Then it was down to the canal for the main reason for out trip to see the old working boats that had come for a special weekend visit. We had a few chats to the owners and keepers of these fantastic old beasts, mostly tug boats used for pulling barges AKA ‘joeys’ around the local canals. We stopped and had a good look at Bitten a 1934 example which I was surprised to see had a draft probably 12″, 30cm, deeper that our modern boat.

Canal Tug boats and Joeys on the quay side

We walked around the quay side, had a quick look at a nail making demonstration, but it was hard to see as it was drawing quite a crowd. The on for a look around the Bottle and Glass Inn, then we could smell the fish and chips cooking just up the road at The Village Fried Fish Shop, unfortunately due to my diet, only Sonia could sample there wares, I did steal the odd chip and very good it was too.

The queue for the chip shop

All that had taken over 3 hours, and I would think we had still a good 60% left to see and sample including cakes and pasties from Veal’s Baker’s Shop and sweets from T. Cook’s Sweet Shop, all of which seemed very popular to the bank holiday visitors.

Due to out time constraints we started walking back to the entrance and the obligatory browse in the gift shop, not forgetting to buy a parking token so we could get our car out of the carpark.

With our entrance we got a full 12 months access to the Museum, but I suspect we will be back again in the not to distant future.

Planning for Solar Panels part 5 – Cable sizes, lengths and resistance.

Why do cables matter, they are all just the same, just copper in a plastic tube” this used to be my attitude when prototyping small electronic devices running at 5V on my bench and for 99% of the time I was right, it was not until I got involved in low power DC systems i.e. Power Over Ethernet and fibre that 48V being used as a power distribution system for networking and domestic DC power then voltage drop become an issue.

For your Solar Panel wiring, we need stranded wire so it is flexible, it needs to be tin coated so that it does not corrode, especially useful on a boat, then the jacket needs to be UV safe as it is going to be left out in the sun, while also being tough and durable as it will be bent and flexed multiple times.

Typical Solar PV Cable

Solar or PV cabling being tin coated means we are not looking at strands of copper that are directly touching each other, each wire in this case has a thin coating of the less conductive Tin, Tin is only 15% as conductive as copper. This has a very slight effect on the resistance of the wire, also being stranded we have a minimal air gap between the strands so 4mm2 of stranded copper wire is not as conducive as 4mm2 of solid copper wire.

When I have calculated the resistance of copper wire in the past I have only used the resistance of pure copper in my calculations, but now things are getting a little more complex.

When planning your install you also have to remember there is a positive and a negative cable in the circuit, so a 20m distance between your solar panels and your MPPT or PWM solar controller is really 40m of cable, so double the resistance.

To enable me to see how much the resistance of the wire changed I originally built an excel spreadsheet that took into account the resistance of the solar stranded tinned copper wire at different diameters in mm2, lucky the manufacturers only make a limited range of diameters of cable for solar systems with 2.5, 4, 6 and 10mm2 being commonly available and they provide the resistance per Km for these.

For your use, I have converted the spreadsheet into some javascript code for this page, so you can input your requirements and see the effect of that cable resistance in terms of Voltage Drop as a value and as a % will have on your plans.

Typically for this kind of DC installation you want a voltage drop of less that 2% is best.

Have a play about and see what is the best cable size/cost is best for your installation

Prototype Voltage Drop Calculator

Prototype Voltage Drop Calculator

Select cable size in mm2

Enter cost per meter of your cable

Enter the system nominal DC voltage in volts

Enter the current draw in amps

Enter the one-way circuit length in meters





NOTE: This Voltage drop calculator is designed for Solar PV Cable, with Class 5 stranded tinned copper wire, which has a slightly higher resistance than solid copper wire.

Also see
Planning for Solar Panels – Part 1
Planning for Solar Panels Part 2 – Panel Mounting Options
Planning for Solar Panels Part 3 – Types of Panels
Planning for Solar Panels Part 4 – MPPT vs PWM solar controllers
Planning for Solar Panels part 5 – Cable sizes, lengths and resistance.
Planning for Solar Panels part 6 – Panels in Serial or Parallel
Planning for Solar Panels part 7 – Buying the cable and Circuit breakers

Safety Disclaimer