Coal boats

I'd be interested to hear about the 'thugish' behavior if you'd care to relate the story, Nick.

Can't picture Rick on Auriga being 'thugish'. Wouldn't have thought he had it in him

I've always found the coal boats (if you're within their bailiwick) are very amenable to texts and phone calls to arrange meetings.

But of course if you're an eight or more hours a day type cruiser, it will be more difficult to rendezvous.

Rog

I do try to support coal boats when possible, but I think in the 7 years we’ve had Telemachus I’ve only bought fuel from coal boats twice, one from Bletchley on the nene and once from Auriga when I passed him tied up at Rugby. I wouldn’t use the former again as a result of the proprietor’s thuggish behaviour towards someone I know. But generally I find that when we need diesel, a coal boat is not around. I have passed Halsall on a couple of occasions, tied up with no-one home. Bought coal from Ozzie fuel boat having come across him just after buying some rather expensive Thames fuel, and failed to get fuel from Dusty once due to their running low on stocks and keeping it for their regular customers, and once because the boat was tied up and they were on holiday.

So overall it’s a bit like the old corner shop - people want to give them trade to keep them open but they don’t actually sell what you want and are closed when you want to shop there (this being before many such shops were run by our Asian friends!)