Wintering on the L&LC
Posted by Ange, Jan 11 2010, 08:58 PM
I'm not very good at this blog business am I! I never intended to write every day but did intend to update it a little more regulalry than I have.
Anyway, we made our way down from Skipton to the section between Wigan and Johnsons Hillock before the numerous stoppages on the Leeds & Liverpool would have made it impossible. We're now caught between two stoppages for the time being - not that it matters too much - we're embedded in thick ice so won't be going anywhere for a while anyway. It got a little uncomfortable over the last few days when the boat started listing over. When we arrived at our current mooring (Adlington) the water levels were quite low so we could only get the front end to the bank. Then the water level must have risen and the back end drifted in of it's own accord, so Dave tightened the ropes. After that the ice came (we've been iced in since 19th December) and the water levels must have dropped again leaving us grounded. Each day we listed a little more, and late at night there'd be a long "bang" which we assume was the boat moving a little further over and breaking the ice that was bonded to the boat - very creepy! Today the ice melted enough for Dave to push the back end out so we don't have to live on a tilt anymore - phew (I was getting a bit panicky as well - how far can a narrowboat list before it falls over?)
Dave's bought himself a workbench so he can work indoors on the cupboards - we have one already in the kitchen and he's working on bedroom cupboards now so we can store our clothes.
I can't wait for the ice to melt. We've ran out of water so we're having to cart containers of it along the ice rink they call a towpath, we can't empy our pumpout (fortunately we have a portapotti for just this type of situation), and we ran out of diesel the other day. On the positive side we got iced in near to a marina with a laundrette, toilet facilities and a chandlery, and in a small town with a good selection of shops, so it could have been a lot worse. (And we're only 10 minutes from mum & dad's house and my dad drives us anytime we need to go anywhere, my mum feeds us every Thursday and my sister & brother-in-law feed us every Sunday.)
I've got a job interview tomorrow for a 3 month temporary contract that, if I get it, will set us up for next summer. That'll (hopefully) be the next new experience for me - putting on my business suit and walking boots and going off down the towpath to work! My brother-in-law said I'll be "that" temp - apparantly there's always a "different" one in every office and I suppose living on a boat qualifies me as different!
Hopefully I won't leave it so long till the next blog (and Dave's got one saved up from the summer that hopefully he'll get round to posting soon).
The water tank saga
Posted by Ange, Dec 31 2009, 11:23 PM
Dave & I decided to do a joint blog in my name rather than separately - this is Dave's first contribution (and his first every blog entry) (Dave is davel on the forum)
We picked Iona up on 9th October and spent our first week on the boat taking her from Northwich to Coventry. We noticed the water consumption seemed very high, but put that down to the fact we were doing a lot of cleaning (she'd been standing around at Harrals for the last three months). We also noticed a distinct and rather alarming list, which we thought must be due to the poo tank being full. Not so - on 19th October, just as we were about to lock up and leave the boat for the first time, I discovered that the back of the boat was full of water up to just under the floor boards. On inspection the water tank was dripping water - not at a great rate but sufficient over a period of time to deposit between 50 and 100 gallons of water into the back of the boat. We spent over two hours with a jug and buckets baling it out (or is it bailing?).
It proved impossible to trace the source of the leak - the space was too awkward to investigate properly - an anorexic double jointed monkey might have been able to get behind it but not me 
)
I decided to cut out the stainless steel water tank and replace it.
I spent many happy hours (not) under the front with the angle grinder. I rigged up my snorklewith a bit of hose attached to the hole in deck where the filler cap used to be. Ange had to be very careful where she trod when she went out the front for a fag in case she inadvertantly cut off my air supply 
Initially I was thinking about making a new SS tank using the remains of the old tank but we would have had to make 3 tanks to get any where near the capacity of the old tank (about 170 gals) because the hatch from the cabin is only 16" x 21" so I decided to have a flexible rubber tank.
I measured up as best as I could and made drawings to send off to Hovercraft Consultants Limited / Duratank and a firm in Billericay, the latter were not able to make it but fortunately HCL were.
Once the old tank was gone it revealed a huge space, over 9 feet to the point of the bow. I rigged up my snorkle again and cleaned off the old red oxide paint with a wire brush attachment. There were a few lively moments when the grinder overheated, siezed up and started buzzing. I went to switch it off, but the switch had melted, so I found himself in a confined space, scrabbling around in the dark surrounded by thick blue smoke trying to unplug it from the extension, with the buzzing grinder next to me, the genny straining overhead and Ange hopping about panicking - alerted to the fact something was wrong by the struggling generator
I painted the water tank area in white - it was such a dark place when it was red oxide, now it's a dark place painted white - but you can see a bit better. I then built a framework with 25 x 25 x5 angle irons (which I had prepared during a recent visit to Kent and had to be dragged back on the National Express to London and Megabus from London to Bolton). This was then clad with plywood and lined with bubble wrap. The stainless steel tank was square and about 15 inches away from the access hatch, whereas the new tank has been placed right at the front of the boat, gaining us about 4-5 feet of storage space. This meant a new hole had to be drilled on the front deck for the filler cap. I fixed rings into the ceiling of the area to support the tank and stop it collapsing when empty, and also one at the front at floor level to stop the tank sliding backwards along the sloping floor (the tank has flaps with eyelets in for this purpose) .
Our new water tank was finally installed and working on 12th September. We moved on the boat in June so to say it's a relief would be an understatement!
I forgot to put isolating valves on the outlets so I will have to install them sometime when the level gets low.
Blog Update
Posted by Ange, Oct 2 2009, 12:26 PM
After finally getting round to starting a blog I've been very remiss in updating it. The main reason is actually, for me, the biggest drawback of life aboard, but fortunately not a permanent one. Our batteries are so shot that even when they've been charged all day they don't have enough oomph to power the laptop. This means I have to have the engine running to spend any length of time on the internet. As we have to turn the engine off at 8pm this severely limits the time I can spend on it in the evening, which is the time of day suitable as we're either boating or hiking / exploring in the daytime. To make matters worse we have a WinTV dongle instead of a television. Consequently we can't watch TV after 8pm, and when we do watch it we can't hear very much as the engine drowns out the laptop speakers! But hey ho - we just need to save up for new batteries.
We're moored just below Skipton on the Leeds & Liverpool at the moment - and the countryside is absolutely gorgeous up here. We had a glorious sunny day yesterday, but today is rainy & dismal. Days like yesterday in October are a real bonus.
We started our journey on 21st June just below Milton Keynes. We stormed (in narrowboat terms!) up to Adlington in ten days as we needed to get there for my dad's 70th birthday. Since then we've ambled up the Leeds and Liverpool, stopping when a place takes our interest for however long it takes to explore all the sights. We've managed to meet up with a few forum members along the way as well. We also met up with Malcolm Bullock, who bought Iona as a shell and fitted her out. He's going to copy some pictures of her when she was new for us which is really exciting.
Pretty soon we're going to have to turn back towards Manchester as we're planning to winter in that area. I'm hoping to get a bit of contract work - if it works out a 6 month accountancy contract would set us up for the next year (and maybe pay for new batteries!)
Dave's off exploring at the moment, when he gets back we're going to post another entry with details of the water tank which is now finished and working (yippee) as a few people have expressed an interest. He's currently working on the next thing on the to do list which is new cupboards - Iona definitely wasn't designed as a liveaboard and is woefully lacking in storage space. He's been stymied by the weather today though, he needs to do a lot of the woodworking outside and it's raining. He looked heartbroken when he wandered off to explore the area we're moored in 
Ange
My first ever blog - I mean first ever!
Posted by Ange, Jul 24 2009, 12:29 AM
OK - I've steered clear of this for long enough - afraid of an unknown medium probably. Hey ho here goes - my first ever ever blog (and maybe no one will ever read it - I feel slightly presumptious to think that anyone will - but then it'll be a diary entry for me to look back on - not so bad)
We've been living aboard full time since 21st June and everyone wants to know how it's going. It's always too complex to answer. It's difficult to explain the complexities of life aboard a less than ideally equipped boat without sounding like I made a mistake. I'll explain the less than ideal areas in our life but first I must stress - I definitely haven't made a mistake - my eyes were wide open and I knew what I was getting into - definitely no regrets.
Our main problem at the moment is lack of water tank. We bought Iona from a broker near Manchester, had a very good survery during which he did tell us that he had no way of vouching for the water tank. We picked her up on my birthday (oh my god what a wonderful birthday present that was!) and spent two weeks moving her to the Coventry area where my brother could keep an eye on her while we winded up our land based lives. We did notice that the water tank did need refilling more than we expected but put that down to the amount of cleaning that was happening (she'd sat neglected for some months at the brokerage). When we we'd found a safe place to leave her for a fortnight and taken our belongings off, Dave must have had a hunch that something wasn't right and checked the back cabin under the bed. He found the back of the boat, almost up to the floor, was full of water. Our stainless steel water tank had steadily dripped all the water we'd poured into it into the back of the boat - I shudder to think what would have happened if Dave hadn't have looked - would she have sunk? Two or three hours of back breaking bailing out followed while the kitchen tap was on to empty the tank.
So - to fix the problem? Well - Dave couldn't detect where the leak was coming from so opted for the radical solution of taking out the stainless steel water tank and replacing it with a flexible tank (apparantly stainless steel tanks are suscepible to some sort of metal fatigue - they keep moving till they split) Dave crawled under the well deck with his scuba gear rigged up to catch air from the outside and set upon the water tank with his angle grinder - I was sat in the boat feeling like the most useless person on earth watching the sparks in that confined environment so scared that Dave would do himself an injury.
Tis done now though - the steel water tank is no more, the flexible tank is bought (if you want more details ask Dave). I have no clue really what needs to happen next, only that we brought some very heavy lumps of steel from Ashford to Bolton to use to provide some sort of reinforcement for our flexible tank.
At the moment we have an aqua roll that we fill up and two large drums that the pipe that feeds the taps takes its water from. Sorry - that is so rubbish - if Dave was here he could tell you the volume of the drums under the well deck. I know they run dry very often.
We don't have hot water either - the kettle provides that. I can't remember why that doesn't work either - I think it may be something to do with stuff being under water when the tank flooded - but maybe I'm thinking of why the shower doesn't work (strip washes at the sink after boiling the kettle!).
The fridge doesn't work either - we're moored near mum & dad at the moment and mum keeps giving us the blue frozen things in a cool bag - they're stopping our milk from going off.
And our batteries are shot to pieces, we need to get new ones. I can only plug things in when the engine is running.
That all sounds incredibly negative - but I am happy - I look out of my window and see a couple of swans with 6 cygnets go by and it just makes my day. When we move the boat just the routines of tying and untying ropes, working locks, talking to strangers, it's just another world. Old boys come up to us and talk about their memories of the old working boats - dog walkers stop and chat.
I need to learn more about the stuff that I keep laying on Dave's doorstep - it's not fair on him to leave him with it all. While I was writing this I understood my gap in knowledge - must be remedied.
Lots of thinking & learning to be done
Ange
xx
(Never done a blog - does one normally sign off?)
Wow - did my first blog without talking about toilets - must do better next time!
on My first ever blog - I mean first ever!