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Agreed,it has always been a case of keeping a low profile when living aboard. This recent raft of live aboards insist upon standing up to be counted thereby spoiling things for those who 'play the game' Should a Boat be used primarily as a Residence with little or no intent of movement then a suitable mooring should be arranged prior to purchasing said Boat. CT

My last thread on "living afloat"! I've shied away from making a big deal of our decision to return to land but after a trawl though old threads I remember how I used to share stuff so, with glass of rum & coke in hand (probably influencing my decision!), I decided to share. We fell in love with boating in 1985 when we went on a hire holiday with friends (Clubline Cruisers hired on the Coventry arm). It was many years before we could afford it again but when we did we fell in love again - we hired in 2003, 2005 and 2007. In 2007 I was flying high in my career but developed a skin condition called hidradonitis suppurativa which is a progressive incurable condition which can eventually lead to permanent disability, so we decided to suck the most out of life while we could, chucked in our jobs, let out the house and bought our boat. Over 7 years we've travelled widely and had a fantastic time. I can never put into words how great it is to have met so many wonderful people - our circle of "proper" (as opposed to virtual) friends has increased beyond imagining and I'm hoping these people will be our friends for life. Alas the inevitable happened - my HS has progressed to the point where I can't lockwheel any more. Anyone who knows me will understand how devastating that has been - I was the lock queen, walking up to the lock and locking all the boats in front of us before our turn. Many times Dave & I have walked up or down flights before banters and locked boats up or down. It would have made perfect sense for me to then take over steering and let Dave do the locks. But. I don't like steering. I hate it. I did try - I did a course last year to try to get over it, but no - I can do it but I hate it. If I could lock wheel and steer, maybe. But just steering, no. Then Dave & I thought it'd be nice to get ourselves a van (not a caravan!) and explore on 4 wheels, get to places a bit quicker and get to more places. So we can still suck the joy out of life, just not on a boat any more. When things don't work out as you hope you need to spin the variables and find something else that works for you - we're very excited about the new chapter in our lives. So there you go, we've bought ourselves a house in Stoke where I have regular work and Dave's prettying Iona up for sale. We're enjoying the benefits of land living but there's a lot of sadness still there. In the future we're thinking a nice little tupperware that we can trailer on and off the canal - who knows? You might even see us joining the BCN Challenge on a rubber dinghy We'll certainly be keeping an eye out for banters, though we won't be able to bring our own accommodation with us. There's always Tawny Owl - we need to get first dibs with Millie as our persuader. Unkle Richard has a soft spot for Millie the fearsome wolf We've had an amazing time and been privileged to be part of a unique community - thank you for all those that have made it so pleasurable. I'm not leaving the forum - even though we're not boaters any more I still have loads of experience to share and of course the accounts to do. Hope that wasn't too personal - I do have a tendency to spill all late at night after a few rums

Folks, the solution has been staring us in the face. Simply transfer your wee into empty Coke bottles, leave them in plain sight on the roof, and go for a walk. By the time you get back, they're sure to have been removed by one of the 'piss takers' we read so much about on this forum.

defiantly not bad luck to change the ships name, its is done fairly often in the commercial world! The only bad luck is to be on the ship (as the crew) at the time as its a lot of work making sure all the paperwork and certificates are changed over, the new name painted on the ships side, lifebuoys, life boats etc etc. Its a lot of hard work trust me!

Thank you for all you're kind replies!!!! I've called a local mobile engineer out to take a look just to be on the safe side.I'll be watching his every move and asking as many questions as poss so to learn as much and maybe start to tackle some problems myself in future. I'll also politely point out the potential problems as stated, just to give him a head start I'll inform the post with progress later

On GU-type wide locks, your approach sounds fine. Just be aware that not all locks are the same: Nene locks, for instance have only gate paddles, and when filling the flow from the paddles bounces off the back of the lock and pushes the boat strongly forward. If there isn't a rope around a bollard, the boat will be smashed forcibly into the top gate. The advice to be cautious when moving to a new waterway is good. MP.

Why? And is it mandatory to be a member of the Overseeing Association?

Brilliant idea! And if you are running behind schedule you can fast forward and you won't get shouted at to slow down. Ken

The most important advice if going for the day is agree with your travelling partner that you will drive there - bad traffic, sleepy, any reason will do - and partner can drive back otherwise you will not get to sample a good selection of beers. Second point, after sampling beer, give partner credit card/cheque book if going near any interesting stands...............

Get there early. It's a small site, but gets a lot of visitors. Wellies and sun cream, both are normally considered a must! Remember this is an English bank holiday. Bod

I really cannot see the problem - where is all the 'new changes' about Council tax, eviction of liveaboards etc etc ? Where is the 'new change' stating that you cannot use the mooring as your primary residence - was it really there all the time ? Maybe a bit of scaremongering going on methinks.

haha! You remember then? I now have my own bolt cutters and they're BIGGER than yours. You may need to borrow them when you get stuck on the fabled sunken mattress of Ryder's Green.

paint them purple instead...?

Hopefully CRT will develop one to do the locks next

I had a similar problem when I bought the lifeboat. The next time I was off the coast I tied them to an equally problematical Halon fire extinguisher and chucked them overboard.

The problem with banning or controlling 'living aboard' is that it is a continuum rather than a black or white fact. When it suits me for example, I say I live on my boat. If that isn't what the person or organisation wants to hear, I give my house address. Most people can come up with a street address to nominate if pressed, in which case they just 'spend a lot of time on their boat', rather than living on it.

It included one of their routers, but I already had the Huawei mifi set up, so just use the sim.

Except for those who have to pass mile after mile of moored boats on tickover (unless the moorings are offline). Edited for smelling.

Can't say I've ever seen a composting loo that's as small as a porta potti. At least not other than a homemade bucket and sawdust one that requires very frequent emptying. The dry waste still takes 6 months to compost down, as I understand it and so needs to be stored or buried in a hole in the ground till that's done. So it's not without chores. I did a lot of research into them while having my bathroom refit this winter just gone. All of the ones on the market (I didn't want a bucket type) were way too bulky for my bathroom and needed vent pipes running and holes cut in the roof or hull, and so were not an adequate replacement for my old macerator ceramic bowl, normal sized loo. So I bought another new macerator, ceramic bowl, normal sized loo instead I like the idea of composting loos but want the tech to improve and design to significantly improve before I seriously consider it as an option. But that's just my choice. But if you're having a new boat built then your options are much wider - you can build the bathroom around the loo of you choice if you want to opt for a composting loo.

The emptying several days of pee into the hedges thing sounds great if you've never moored on a hot day where someone has done that. The whole towpath area stinks of pee. It's revolting. All the more delightful if you arrive on a colder day unaware it's been used as a latrine, and then the sun comes out a day later - it gagging. If more and more people opt for composting loos and do that, the canal system will smell like an innercity underpass. I'm all for composting loos, but the waste needs disposing of considerately.

We replaced a cassette with a composting loo. We would not have had a pumpout in the first place. We have a Separett separator which works well, and are firmly in the camp that "my body separates it, so there is no benefit in mixing it back together!" A gallon of urine is no big problem to dispose of, and we do so every day. We empty the "solids" every month whether we need to or not. 100 gallons of partially fermented mixed waste would be a nightmare, even if the magic pumpout takes it away. We also do not like "splashy fishes" so dry waste works fine. The solar panel sorts out the desiccator fan so we do not begrudge the electric to keep it running, We do not use a system that requires extra dry cover material to be added, so are not adding to the waste. We do rather startle our boaty friends by not wincing if they need to use the loo!

Incorrect use of words...not ticking over but trying to start, making the engine starting sound. Brilliantly clever sarcastic remark! Well done you

I have a Huawei mifi router, a 4G aerial from Solwise, and a 50Gb per month data sim from EE. In Agden in Cheshire all mobile signals are poor/non existent, I got a great signal with the mifi connected to the aerial. The 50Gb deal from EE was £27 per month in January, on a 2 year contract. I think it was a half price deal which appears now and then.

Hi Lizzy My four penny'th... As I'd been with EE for 2-and-a-half years, I was able to keep my smartphone and change the contract to £9.99/mth (I don't make a lot of calls, so 250 mins/mth and 250 MB / mth is fine for me - comes with unlimited texts). For t'internet, I got an Osprey Mi-Fi device from EE. It works great! In fact, I get faster internet access than I did in my cottage. I stuck it to a window for best reception (above a plug socket for ease of charging) and I get a min of 4 bars on 4G, usually 5 bars. I kicked off with 16GB/mth for just shy of £20 and I'm going to see how I go with that. I notice that I'd used almost all of this in 3 weeks, so I may need to up my contract. I'd streamed a few TV programs which may have used it up. And I've just signed up with Amazon Prime which gives me loads more streaming options, so I expect I'll exceed the 16GB. Admittedly, I've only been living aboard for 3 weeks and I'm parked in a marina in the middle of a built up area, so I can't say whether this will work well when out and about but it works really well where I am now...

Are these used to clip their wings?

We have just bought an unlocked Huawei E5776s wifi router, mainly because it has an aerial socket. We are feeding it with a 3 sim which has 12Gb for 12 months which suits us. So far ( and its early days) we have always got better reception than out phones manage without using the external aerial. If we find we struggle for signal strength we will get an aerial. Note if you get one of these they need a FULL size sim. Top Cat

Nothing to worry about,unless you have been using a leisure mooring as a residential one.And I am sure that as the C&Rt point out to moorers that you can not live on a leisure mooring nobody would be doing that would they ? And then start moaning when the muck hits the fan. 14skipper

My water tank lasts a month. My pump out tank lasts 3+ months. It all depends on the size you have installed. I've never used a composting loo so can't comment on them. I love the idea of them but they're very bulky and need a constant 12v draw, albeit a low one "Pump out" refers only to the waste storage and not the loo. There are vacuum, dump through and macerator loos that can use a pump out tank. Personally I prefer the macerator loo over dump through because the waste remains remote from the bowl and the local pump out boat or boat yard empties the tank for me once every few months. Easy. At £15 every three months, a well designed tank layout is cheaper and less time consuming than filling numerous cassettes with chemicals and having to carry them. People use the term "cassette toilet" to also mean more than one sort of loo: the porta potti and the fitted cassette toilet. The former is little more than a glorified bucket which fills in about two days and the top has to be detached from the base and put somewhere while you walk the bottom half to an Elsan point to pour the lumpy waste down a giant toilet. The latter is built in, often the cassettes have greater capacity but the emptying method is the same. I've used both types and like neither of them: too much faff, the need to store spare cassettes or worse: full ones, they often dribble when being transported or removed, plus having to get so up close and personal with one's waste isn't my idea of fun twice a week. Also I've yet to use one on anyone's boat that doesn't smell either of poo or chemicals. People get used to their own loo smelling and don't always realise how it smells to other people.

Illustrated of course by the fact that only a fool would ever conclude buying one is a Good Idea...

Balls, the army fire off hundreds of Shermully parachute flares all over the training areas, and they are not toys, they burn out long before they hit the ground. Just fire it you big Nancy !

Before hand any money over to a marine sparks ask them if they have passed the BMET exam and if they have and up to date copy of the BMEEA code of Practice If they yes to both question they should be ok If a no is given to either question carry on looking. Keith

Never realised this subject was so damned complicated! House wiring is a p of p compared to this - get the book, follow the wiring diagram, how to test if the socket is on the ring or on a spur, how to wire up a double pole switch, don't spur from a spur, red flag the live neutral, earth any socket with metal casing etc etc. No ambiguity, no if buts or maybes! Any search on google produces tens of thousands of hits on the subject of inverter bonding and grounding, almost all of which contain some element of 'with the exception of....' Still, some boat electrician somewhere will benefit from my trepidation!

Which generator are you looking at? I have two built-in diesel generators on my barge. One is a 1500rpm Lister LPW3 water cooled via skin tank (8kva @ 230v ac) the other is a HFL dc traveller - kubota eb200 diesel water cooled by raw water/heat exchanger (90a @ 12v dc) The DC generator is quieter probably because it has water cooled exhaust and has a far smaller power unit. The Lister isn't bad considering the size. You will get less agro with weed etc blocking the inlet if you use a skin tank but if it is a big unit run hard you may get overheating problems if the skin tank is not properly designed. Most quality units above about 5kw run at 1500rpm. Physically larger so maybe not really suitable for narrow boats but a 1500rpm generator is a nice thing to have You can get exhaust gas seperators for raw water cooled generators. They make them very quiet as even the splashing noise can be removed. "Hospital" silencers make a big difference on skin tank cooled marine engines but they might be too large for the type of generators we use on ditch barges Edit rearrange a bit to

Tim and Pru are right now having lunch in the Wharf Cafe/Bistro at Foulridge. We saw a hire boat come south through the tunnel last night and wind then reverse back to moorings above the locks. This morning a film crew arrived followed shortly by Tim and Pru. Eventually they departed to go through the tunnel, we were to move today, so in my wisdom thought we would leave it sometime to follow. We left it 45 minutes or more and set off. We didn't take long to catch them in the tunnel and stopped for what seemed like ages. Wasn't an issue. We eventually came out of the tunnel and they had already moored up. The crew were apologetic if they had kept us waiting, they hadn't really. I find it interesting how filming happens, but I don't want to be seen as star struck. Tim said hello and smiled, but I guess he's fed up of all that. He seemed pleased to see us. Wondering now if that's the end for today. It's started to rain now as well. Martyn

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I was trying to refer to the hull bond arm of the AC system. Obviously cocked my writing up there.