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About this blog

Complete novice buys a boat. Where's the on button?

Entries in this blog

Lifeboat

Check out my next door neighbour:         My first thought is "wow. that must be bloody hot in the summer", followed by "wow, it must be bloody dark too". I've not seen anyone coming or going in the last week, but if I do I'm going to have to ask them how it's going and report back. As far as I know when you buy these things they're full of seats and nothing much else. They are dirt cheap second hand though, I've seen em for 4k or so and I don't think you have to worry about the c
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And I'm back!

Well it's been a long time. I guess I must have been too busy enjoying myself to post about it. Something like that anyway     I've had the boat a year now and she remains a lovely lump. She's only broken down once since I last posted, and on my birthday no less. I was cruising down to keynsham with a group of friends all jolly and birthdaylike when steam starts sputtering out of the header tank. An hour of stop-start later and continual pouring of water down the hole and we made it t
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The stove has finally arrived!

When it looks like this outside you really want a stove:   So, meticulous planner that I am, I ordered one in plenty of time and before it started to snow. Last december in fact.   I opted for a 'boatman' stove, as made by Eddie from northern fabrications. He makes them to order and then delivers them by hand. They're cheap, small and well put together. They also look pretty cool. The only snag to my otherwise brilliant plan was that it was supposed to be here a month ago but due t
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Some bloke on the towpath just went mental at me

Some bloke outside started shouting at the boat so I popped my head out the front doors (in nothing but a dressing gown) to see what's up.   He's tripped over my mooring pin and aparently I'm a thoughtless bastard. Rage building he starts to steam at the ears, egged on by my initial response of "have you not got a torch?". He keeps the rant up despite me pointing out (1) it's clearly marked with a blue tie and (2) it's pretty dark and icy round here and should he really be traipsing down the t
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I must be getting good at this.

I just fixed my engine, all by myself.   It suddenly stopped working this morning. I'd had it on, turned it off and been unable to start it up again.   I dutifully checked that fuel was getting through (it was), checked the oil, checked the air filter and then bingo! I checked the fuses mounted on the engine. One of them was blown and as luck would have it I had a spare just lying around.   A pint of smugness all round is in order   Oh, and cheers for frigatecaptain for helping out
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Batteries for the clueless (FAQ part 1)

Given that I've learnt an awful lot form the kind folks at canal world, I thought I'd give something back. That something is a collection of articles detailing basic level information about a wide variety of narrowboat related topics. Now I could have picked something less contentious than batteries, lets say choice of toilet, but I thought I'd get it over and done with. These are simple guides for simple folks but I'd like them to be acurate in the main, so those that actually know about bat
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Some photos of bristol harbour

Lovely place bristol harbour. A bit pricey, but lovely nonetheless. I think I'm going to try for a winter mooring there next year.   Funky bridge near temple meads train station:   Loads of people rowing boats:   World war 2 landing barges that never left for france, with bristol castle in the background:   One of the many big old ships lining the harbour walls:   The impressive cranes:   And keynsham lock, on the trip back to Bath. That's the old cadbury's factory in th
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Shit creek

Well, river.   Me and the little one came back at the weekend to find this:     Urgh. I just spent an hour cleaning off one side and to add insult to injury one of the offending herons tried to shit on me when I left. Bastards.
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Broken down in Bristol

Something fun happened yesterday. Something rather fun indeed. The engine cut out on me as I was cruising about bristol harbour, about half way from either side. "That's a new one" I thought, before turning the engine back on. I got about another two seconds and it died again.   Shit.   Now what?   A frantic bout of two second bursts and tiller work had me pointing at the harbour walls again. A slow sedate drift later I bumped gently in between a massive cruise ship type thing and a n
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Rethinking the stove

Ok, I'm not the most decisive person in the world but this is getting ridiculous. I'm now looking at a bigger stove mounted more centrally in the boat.     Reasons for this are:   1) more heat from a bigger firebox 2) better distributed heat due to being centrally mounted 3) it's safer cos it's got a bigger flue and is designed with boats in mind 4) Nicer to look at 5) it has an oven! 6) could possibly be linked into the radiators at a later date if ness 7) better long term opti
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Getting the stove in

With winter drawing in it's time to get a stove installed. It's about the only thing my boat was missing when I bought it. The diesel central heating is all very well and good but there's nothing quite like a stove to keep you toasty warm.   Unfortunately, there's nowhere in the boat I can put it without ripping something else out. That, coupled with the fact I'm only going to be using it in the evenings to heat the saloon has led me to the a slightly curious solution to the problem. I'm g
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Talking bilge

So I thought I had a manual bilge pump. When I flicked the switch it would come on and when I flicked it back it'd go off. Pretty simple, right?   Well it managed to get stuck on all the time.   So, clever bod that I am I tried to check if the switch was broken and stuck on. A couple of hours of fun later (one of which I spent in the dark) I discover that no matter what I do, disconnected or not, it's always on.     At this point I'll explain a bit about boat electronics. You've got
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Walking the dào

I've finally picked a name for my boat, and it's only three letters long!   I'm calling her dào, which means 'path' or 'way' in chinese.   'The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack; Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back; Its even way is like a rugged track. Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise; Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes; And he has most whose lot the least supplies. Its firmest virtue seems but poor and low; Its solid truth seems change to undergo; It
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Blacking up and choosing names

The boat (I really need to decide on her name for good) is going in to be blacked tomorrow. For the non-boaty amongst us that means having the bottom scrubbed clean and coated in a couple of coats of thick tarry black paint. Really sticky thick black paint. It's a horrible job apparently, which is why it's nice to be able to hand it off to someone else. Next time I want to do it myself, so I can make sure the hull is tidied up properly and the paint is on nice and thick. Honest guv.   I r
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Now me sink's blocked

Well, was. It's all sorted now, thanks to a handy mate of mine.   The plunger didn't do it, and neither did the tried and tested "blow down the pipe" method. I didn't want to tip a pile of chemicals down there to melt it out as it goes directly into the cut. In the end it was the "get a big thin stick, go outside the boat and poke it up the hole" method the came up trumps and cleared the blockage. I've learned my lesson (no more coffee grinds down the sink), and I've learned that little bi
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How to tell your poo tank is full

I'd been wondering about this for a while. Is it full? How full is it? How do I tell?   Well now I can tell you.   When you flush it all seems well... for a minute. Then the rank foulness of the tank creeps back out and fills the bowl.   So there you go, that's how you tell if your poo tank is full. Luckily I'm just down the road from bath narrowboats where they'll pump it out. Unluckily they're closing at 4pm every day at the moment and I'm not going to finish until 5:30. Aren't to
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And I'm on!

Everything went a bit wrong at the weekend, but I'm fully on now and it's great.   Lift one fell though cos it was too late for the storage place (closed on sundays too - great). Lift two went wrong cos the guy who was going to drive has got swine flu, the poor bastard. Lift three went really really well and I thought I'd post a picture so you could see how I moved house.   With this:     The mysterious pink milkfloat of walcot. The grass really is greener on this side, or so the sig
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On the importance of having spare keys

So I lost my keys.   The ones that open the back door and open the front. The ones that operate swing bridges. But not the one that operates the engine, it's on a different key chain thankfully.   Last weekend I woke up and prepared myself for the trip to cornwall. It's a yearly thing that my dad insists should be just like it used to be. Which if he had his way would mean gas lamps, no running water and shared shower blocks. The most he can convince my nephews and I of is to abandon
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Moving aboard

Q: How do you decide what to keep and what to throw out? A: Well, I don't have much of an answer yet.   Last time I moved house I chucked out over 20 bin liners of crap and that was only a year ago. Crap that I'd accumulated over the years and hadn't even looked at for the three years I'd been at my previous place.   It's not enough.   I've got loads more crap to plow through. Things like books are easily dealt with. Just take em down the market and sell them. I've already read them s
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Home at last

Six days, ninety two locks and one hundred and seventy bridges since setting out from reading I'm back in my own neck of the woods again. And my word, it is crowded this end of the K&A. I guess I'm not helping on that front.   Yesterday was spent moving from Devizes down through Trowbridge and ending up in Bradford on Avon. I saw a couple of familiar boats along the way, boats that have been politely asked by BW to cruise a bit further than the 15 miles between Bath and BoA they normall
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Cunning plan for Caen hill

1. Convince my boss it would be a great team building exercise for everyone to come and help me put my boat through the 29 locks at devizes. 2. Pick a day when it's going to be sunny   1 worked out, 2 not so much. It pisssed down all day.   This is Caen hill. Well, some of it. It's the main flight of 16 locks in the middle. There's 6 or 7 before this and 5 or 6 after.   Here's us towards the start. Note the guy in the t-shirt. He turned up expecting it to be sunny, thanks for that
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Paint and polish

I've started polishing the outside of me boat with the lil ones help. Managed to get half way down one side before he dies of boredom and I had to find something else to do. He's scampering all over the boat like some crazed monkey. He's certainly got his sea legs working. I'm using this stuff from halfords called autoglym on some shiny boat owners recommendation. It's easy to put on and off, shines up a treat and he difference is amazing, One half looks like new paint, the other a sort of
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And relax

There are many reasons why I decided to buy a boat. One of them was the old classic 'to get a bit of peace and quiet', and I can tell you now that it worked. There's not a sound to be heard other than the occasional owl, gurgle from my fridge and my own movements. The little one is sound asleep after a long day's cruise and I'm sat here drinking my guiness on one of my comfy red recliners and typing this entry. Not into the browser, but into notepad. There's no signal here unless I'm on the
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Planning a journey

I've just been shown a fantastic tool:   http://www.waterexplorer.co.uk/gmaps/inter...vecanalmap.aspx   Based on google maps it allows you to pick a start and end point and calculate the distance and number of locks between the two points. Like this:     That's the journey I'll be doing at the weekend btw, split into two days to make it leisurely.   You can also add "points of interest" to the map, which are then available for other boaters to read.   It's a great companion to the
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Half way home

The boat's made it half way back to bath now. It took three days, 35 miles and 42 locks but it's been a lot of fun.   Kintbury turned out to be a nice place to stop, with a decent pub, nice scenery and very close to the train station. Bedwyn less so. The pub was ok I guess, but the train connections sucked if you wanted to go west. Most trains get there from london and instead of continuing down to wesbury they just... stop. Oh well, time for another pint while we wait   I've scuffed
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