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I have often done it this summer in France. It's just fantastic. I'm not a nudist in any other way, but going along I just felt the urge to be naked, I have no idea why, My wife took a picture. If I get 10 greenies I will post it.

Those kind of reports (eg xx increases risk by y%) are extremely unhelpful without context and often little more use than adding to the researcher's citation list but little to the corpus of useful knowledge. The missing component is the baseline frequency. If the risk without is 1 in a million, increasing it by 18% is unlikely to make most people think it worth changing life style. If however, it starts as 1 in 10 chance then an 18% increase is significant and worth heeding. One day proper statistics will be a fundamental requirement for all sicentists. (Someone once did an analysis of the statistics quoted in academic papers and found that a very, very high proportion were invalid, which is not the same as saying that their conclusion was wrong. Just not justified by the cited evidence)

I have decided to have a compost loo in my boat when I buy one. I have yet to see a second hand boat that has one so I will have one put in but which one to have. I know there has been several threads on here about compost loos in general but I would be interested to hear from people who have them. What are the pros and cons of the different makes , eg original cost, ease of use, running cost, frequency of emptying, efficiency etc. Polite notice: compost loo threads often get hijacked by the " it's not legal to dump compost in the hedges" brigade, fascinating as this is could you go and play with your fluffy bunnies please.

I managed to drop my only car key in the cut this morning. Being one of those posh german cars, the replacement cost is in the region of an eye watering £400!! Fishing about with a magnet failed to retrieve it but dredging the silty bottom with a borrowed landing net managed to catch it after about half an hour, along with a goodly number of fat fresh water mussels. Amazingly the key still worked and when I took it apart there was no sign of water penetration. It's clearly my lucky day so I've bought a lottery ticket........but is eating the mussels pushing my luck too far?

I think we all have the measure of him, what what? Orft down the village pub to abuse one of the serving gals. Toodle pip.

Makes perfect sense to me and I suspect everybody else.Phil

The rare two legged spider, known as a Bi-der

Yes a real nice guy . Well it means BW where crap at management and CRT are having to sort out their mess . And you obviously are part of the problem who have got away with not following common sense (too many boats) because of this lots of newbies are thinking we can do that and flooding London with residential boats.

My boat has loads of the blighters. Inside and outside. I too have a major phobia I've started fumigating the place in Spring and Autumn and that's made a massive difference to how many come inside. Or at least how many I see inside - it might be a tarantula elephant graveyard behind the fit out now. I also bought fly screens so I can open the windows without the swines coming in. The good housekeeping suggestion would probably also help. My problem is I won't go anywhere near any sign of a spider having set up home so I probably perpetuate the problem.

Depending on your age and physical condition you may also get a few aches and pains after spending time jammed into odd spaces trying to get at things. The occasional bruised or scraped knuckle is possible along with the vow that you will never ever do it again. I have just serviced our engine and suffered all these and have vowed once more never to do it again. However, in 250 hours running time I shall no doubt be back in there doing it again when all the above will occur

It might be prudent (nay- essential) if the deposit was held by a third party "in escrow"; just in case the seller disappeared with the boat and your deposit.....

Bear with me as I'm very new to this, but surely you should notice that something was going wrong long before the boat got to that angle and just close the paddles?

I'd suggest a 10% deposit (seems 'normal' on most things). You'd need a contract, and ensure that there is some reference to the condition/contents of the boat at the time of paying the deposit (photos etc) as it is possible the seller could 'gut' the boat he day before hand over. You'd still be getting the boat named "ABC", on mooring "XYZ" but it would not be the same as the "boat" you had bought. What would happen in the event of it sinking, exploding, catching fire etc ? make sure in such circumstances you get your money refunded. Think of all the worst possible scenarios and make sure you have them covered.

You have a WA postcode as your location so I guess you might live in Warrington, if so all the local canals won't be a problem Bridgewater, L&L, T&M and the Lancaster can all take a boat of that size, however, if you want a "go anywhere" boat then there are locks where even 6 feet 10 is tight. I'd like to know why this boat has spread and what's been done to stop it keep happening even more, as the other guys have said, check it has been measured correctly, find out why it has spread and if there is a reason and it's been fixed then allow for the fact it will have a limited appeal on the wider network and hence a lower value, I have no idea what an insurance company might say but generally if you don't tick all the boxes as "normal" insurance can be an issue and they might apply special terms. You can PM the details of the boat if you don't want to put them on here to anyone who's opinion you might seek, but generally the odds of someone on here trying to steal your "spread" boat are so remote I'd go public, post them and get so input from those in the know. All boats have a history there might be a previous owner on here with something to tell or someone who's had a survey done on it already and is still running away, your call but I hear the distant sounds of alarm bells on the width thing. K

Your shower (or wetroom) floor will be well below the outside water level, so, you will need a pump to take it from your drain-point (plughole-showertray) up and out of the boat.

Ah, the 'community' - a word often used to give pseudo-credibility to a random group of people who allegedly share a common goal, usually one that goes against the established norm to the inconvenience of others. It's all about the mechanics of boat movements - if there's eventually no accessible moorings because your young vibrant 'community' are nose to tail for mile after mile how are people who actually want to cruise supposed to manage?

I agree with mark99. Bourdon gauges are fairly simplistic in their operation. Open the back up and gently see if the quadrant moves. They can stick on the spindle gear. If there's anything come adrift inside it will be very obvious http://www.marshallinstruments.com/faqs/detail.cfm?id=22

I agree (!!) with what everyone else has said...don't live on a boat if you want cheap housing. Cheers Gareth