Chimbleys, the RN and electrickery

I mentioned in the last blog that the person that owned the boat behined me at the time also owned one of the four RN narrowboats from the seventies. Thanks to Bill Rogers and Geoff and Mags from nbSeyella for supplying the link to the photo that I couldn't find. The owner also told me that there was a lot of ironwork when he lifted the floorboards and on looking at the photos, if the superstructure of the boats were steel, the extra metal could have been for ballast as well. Although I somehow doubt it was metal and it would have more likely been ply. Possibly a tad top heavy otherwise.

I know absolutely nothing about Royal Navy ships or boats (yes I know that ships sail on the surface and boats go below it, as in Das Boot) so I have no idea which one is the frigate although I'm fairly certain that it's probably not the black one. Maybe they are not copies of actual ships but only a representation. Any ideas? Where are the retired RN contingent when you need them, nbArmadillo?

We have moved to Shakerstone for a while but I have suddenly realised that we cannot make it through the Snarestone tunnel as, when I installed the Rayburn, I left the flue at full length and didn't cut it down for an exterior chimney (or chimbley as blooger nbMinnow calls it. Traditional I believe). So I will have to buy one and fit it before we go any further. I lost a chimney in the tunnel last year so I could just trawl for the old one. But we are now looking forward to getting off the Ashby and are planning our easter cruise.

We have been iced in for the second time this year but it has all but thawed since. We don't really want to be iced in due to the blacking later in the month. The downside of the lack of ice is the mud. Something has also happened to the electricity as it hardly lasts an hour or so from fully charged batteries. Something is eating the power but I don't seem to be able to track where the problem is. Hope it's not the inverter.