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LOL - actually I think you'll find you are the one who has misunderstood the op on this occassion. They simply asked what set up other power hungry boaters have, I answered the question asked; not by telling them how they should live and what electrical appliances they should or should not have on their boat, but rather what we have and the power supply needed to run it. I didn't in anyway mean to imply our set up is how everyone else should have theirs, it just works for us and how we like to live. & yes, you are correct; I should have stated that we've only been living & cruising on our boat for 4 years now and are still very much considered complete novices by the boating clique that have been doing it for 40+ years. I've often meant to ask just how long does one need to be cruising/living on a boat before one is no longer considered a novice? Yes we could all stand out in the rain for our bathing needs, or lite a fire pit on the tow path for our cooking needs; we could even get a couple of large stones and beat our dirty cloths on them using canal water to wash them, personally I'd prefer a few "home comforts" in "my home" Maybe if more folks stopped judging/assuming how others live, or should live, it would be a wee bit nicer place LOL - & to add insult to injury...we have a Pump Out & LOVE it

Boatlessness is really just a symptom of wider problems. We need to get tough on the causes of boatlessness if we are truly to help its victims. ...more moorings available would be a good start.

Buy another one 'up norf', spend a couple of months heading South, painting the interior white as you go. When you get somewhere near the M25put an advert on Apollo Duck with a price twice what you paid - it'll sell within a couple of days and you'll have the cash just in time to get your boat back.

Your new initiative of not offending anyone is Commendable Tim.most certainly a bold and brave step. I have installed a few TP'S on Winnebago's in the past so I do have experience of them.I also have 'Mates'.

Its a bit like living in a village, if your not born there you are always a new commer

Bettie you have got the op wrong. He is talking about using/living on a BOAT not a bungalow!! With all that unnecessary electrical equipment that is all designed for mains electric useage by people attached to the national grid. For what its worth we have 4 110 ah leisure batteries and 160 watts of solar. The solar helps in the summer as it probably just about runs the fridge and in the winter its utterly useless. A typical uk winter being September to june we do the washing etc through the best bit of kit available to man, that being a travelpower and it probably cost less for one of those than your battery bank alone!! with the solar thingies. In short if anyone reading this post wants to live on a boat IT IS NOT a bungalow you DO NOT need all the crap people in bungalows need but for the occasional big power useage buy a travel power or if you have space a stand alone genie both items will prove CHEAPER in the long run and vastly better to use. But who am I to know. Get you facts from Bloggers and vloggers 99 percent of whom have only been living aboard for about ten minutes but feel the need to tell everybody how to do it . The best ones are the ones who tell us its never a problem living aboard in the winter then you find they are so new to it that they havnt yet even done a cold winter. Last cold winter we had was 2010/11 when we were solid frozen in for 7/8 weks so less than 7 winters aboard you still have a shock to come Just sayin like...................

Nah, you're thinking of the Irish proverb, "A man with an empty glass can't see beyond the bar"...

As for whether it's overpriced I think you have to compare boats available on the market at the time concerned. To be sure you need to view the boats concerned in the flesh but here's something by way of comparison. http://www.abcboatsales.com/boat-sales/amelia-rose/

Pass the time listening to music, I recommend; "heaven knows I'm miserable now" "I only want to be with you" "it might as well rain until September" Meanwhile, I'll get me coat.

Torpedoes at the ready?

Yes, it is a great shame. Shameful even, there are few enough turning places as it is so I think CRT should make it a condition of allowing a new marina that boaters are allowed to turn there. If that happens to run the risk of damage to the marina entrance then should be a cost of doing business. If they build the entrance big enough the risk should be reduced. I can be a bit thick at times so I might simply assume that no turning means you must not go into the marina just to turn. Nothing wrong with turning in the canal in front of the entrance though.

That's what I was worried about!

A smartgauge

That's a shame. I'm surprised you couldn't afford a proper engine

I hardly ever go to the home page so it does not annoy me. Why not create a shortcut to 'unread content' like this http://canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/discover/unread/ I go to 'unread content since my last visit' and this is set to exclude the virtual pub. http://canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/discover/261/

Wise words from Arthur above. Der OP, the thing is, CRT concentrate their resources on the piss takers. Top priority are boats without a home mooring but never move, then on to those who overstay, then those whose range is less than 20 miles. All the focus is on boats without a home mooring. The other type of piss taker is the boat with a really cheap on line mooring up north which is never used, while the boat cruises a very small area down south. If you use your boat as you describe I doubt CRT will see you as a piss taker, they will see you as someone who actually uses your boat. Even if they notice you and decide to do something about it, they will probably just write to you and ask you to use your home mooring a bit more. And this will probably take them a couple of years to get around to doing but I doubt they ever will. There are much bigger boundary-pushers around for them to focus their resources on.

Personally, I don't think you'll find a definitive answer here. The letter of the law says one thing, CRT says another, and you will possibly find yourself hassled by CRT's enforcement brigade (or whatever they're called this week) or even in court if you rely on the former while fairly obviously being aware that you are bending the spirit of the rules. So it really comes down to whether you're up for the fight, which, as the law is rarely on the side of an individual as opposed to large important organisations, you might well lose - thus dropping a load of other people who try to live on the fuzzy edges into the mire with you... Anything that CRT has ever said about "range" or "place" is just a guideline and has no legal validity, so you can't rely on that either, it's just advice, and they can change that any time they like. as, of course, they have. But while your marina may not be residential, they may be happy for you to spend a night a fortnight on your boat there, in which case you haven't a problem, because each time you go back to the marina (presumably for at least a day rather than just turning round and exiting again) the clock gets reset. That would be safer than having a home mooring oop north you never visit at all. In the end, it comes down to whether you want to pick a fight with CRT or not. Some do, and some win. Some don't. Some ought to have done and still don't - right, wrong, fairness and legality don't have a lot to do with it, mostly it comes down to who has the most money and appetite for the fight.

When you say historical are you referring to ex working boats? if yes it was designed to do a job of work not look pretty, but having evolved over some 200 years the under water shape is/was more efficient than most modern built leisure boats found on the canals in regards to swims & generally moving through water & creating wash some modern boats both wide & narrow are built to maximize interior space & end up not giving a lot of thought to efficiently passing through water etc.

I dont like widebeam narrowboats . I think they are ugly . Proper dutch barges etc are things of beauty though . How anyone can look at at a WBNB and think it attractive is beyond me . It may have more space and a poncey bathroom and kitchen but to me , it has no " soul " because its been built as a cottage that floats , rather than a boat thats been fitted out nicely & thoughtfully . Accomodation first & boat second . BUT , though i detest the boat itself i would find it difficult to instantly dislike the owner on that basis . They may well be a tit but theres plenty of those narrowboats too . I appreciate they have more space etc , but its only worth having if you " need " lots of stuff . Id rather go without as most of it probably isn t needed . My small and inferior NB requires me to be thoughtful about posessions , about space , about functionality , about power usage , & all this adds to my completely loving living on a boat , as opposed to being an annoyance i must tolerate due to lack of space , and though i could own a small attractive dutch barge - a WBNB i could never own .as theyre (IMO) soulless boxes that float , not a " boat " . Just idle thoughts ...

You may like cameron diaz and i may like lucy lou.....taste is personal and i dont find them ugly....they just look like wide narrowboats.......narrowboats are no lookers IMHO yes historical but not a thing of design beauty. Abomination is a bit harsh tho.....imagine calling another mans wife an abomination because she is not your cup of tea.......you wouldnt do that.

Hmmmm.... When I offered to make one for you, I was going to do it like the one on the right.

The locks are operated mostly by volunteers but the passage has to be booked by SC and notice has to be given. The bascule bridge at Applecross street is usually (I understand) operated by SC but as Iain says, they do training courses for boaters who are then allowed to open the bridge all by themselves :-). The problem is that it needs two people to open it! haggis

Fat narrowboats are an abomination, Fugly beyond belief. If you want the space, as I once did, get a decent barge rather than some hybrid that does nothing well.

Lets try to keep this civil please, this is a discussion about something we are all passionate about boats Yes we have a lot of different opinions, I have seen at least on the 12 mile we walked of the TMC for the last year and the 6 Miles of travel on the canal we managed the following. As many tatty looking NB as GRP, As many sunken NB as GRP and by that I mean none. I have seen the damage a NB can and does do to locks/bridges with an inexperienced pilot. Lets be honest here if I hit something on the canal's unless its a kayak or person I am going to come worse off but that is only to a degree, at the speeds we travel and the flexibility of a good GRP hull the odd knock is not going to do much harm. As a GRP pilot I will never enter a lock before a NB the physics are just too damn unfortunate. Will any of that stop me enjoying Kathleen and going everywhere on canals ? in a boat that for 36 years has proven it can go on canals and more ? no I think of it like this to a lesser extent on a bike or as a cyclist you travel roads filled with huge fast boxes of metal traveling at speeds that could end you in a second you have little or no real protection only your situational awareness and ability to keep you safe, going by the mentality of some in this thread a cyclist or Biker would never leave there home, take that to the nth degree and as a pedestrian you walk down a path less than 2 ft from cars going so fast if the hit you its game over, should we all stay in doors ? I will be careful, I will be aware and hopefully I will learn.

Well that's good to know. So is there any chance you could quit worrying you've bought the wrong boat, get that engine fixed, go out and do donuts to your hearts content and leave us in peace to painfully struggle round junctions in our rusting steel boats? JP

...but all the GPR boats I am seeing are looking extremely tatty. Our GPR sailing boat was bought by us new. We had here for 5 years. We lovingly protected her from all sorts of potential damage. You just cant do that on the canals. We loved our GRP boat on the sea. I firmly believe a GRP boat on the canals is a bad idea. The laminate may hold up over many years but not if you are going in an out of wide locks with steel boats. What are you going to say when you motor into your first lock on the GU and then you are followed in by a steel NB who clouts your back end. It happens all the time.

True but that was just populist pseudo-doc rushed out as hot (no pun intended) news. A proper documentary would take months to research and prepare. This is why I tend not to watch panorama much, if it's a reactive doc. However the Beeb do a lot of other good stuff. It's not perfect, but when you look at what eg the Americans have to put up with, it's bloody fantastic!

NO, NO, NO. A scratch on a GRP hull will cause a tear of the gel coat and therefore expose the glass fibre laminate underneath. Water will therefore have access to the glass mat and water will wick into the laminate causing damage. Scratches must be repaired. With Steel, at the next lift out, you can just monitor corrosion and get it welded. GRP is FAR, FAR less forgiving. Trust me, I'm a Doctor (with 10 year developing GRP). We lived aboard a 40ft Sailing Yacht sailing it from Scotland to Greece over 3 years so know all about how GRP hulls work. We have recently bought a solid, steel, heavy, long, wont sink, narrowboat. We have just completed our first month aboard doing the GU, the Staford, the Birmingham and Fazely, the Coventry and Oxford canal, and there is NO WAY I would try and do this in a GRP boat. The locks, bridges, other narrowings, are just not wide enough to traverse without contact. Yes, you can get 100% contact free, but just one bump and you will need to check the hull for damage. Just one lock approached at the wrong angle would see an impact on the front that could cause load of micro-cracks which will weaken the hull. On our recent trip round the Warwickshire ring, I did not see one grp boat going in the opposite direction. It would be very interesting to share a lock on the GU with a plastic boat. If I had a GRP boat I would never go in a lock with a steel narrow boat. I am not sure where your comment on osmosis comes from. All GRP will suffer from it to greater or lesser degrees. It is caused initially by poor lay up techniques introducing air voids in the laminate, which water is then driven into by osmotic pressure. The speed it will be driven into will be a function of the water transmission through the gell coat or laminate. Some gel coats are worse than others (I spent 4 years developing gel coats for one the UK's polyester manufactures many years ago). Osmosis is not something you should worry about as it is unlikely to sink a boat made over 10 years ago when the laminate thickness was usually good. Far worse is the effect of a cracked gel coat which then allows water directly into the laminate. Water will wick up the glass fibres and reduce the strength of the fibre to resin bond weakening the structure. This is not osmosis. To be honest, most grp hulls were so overenginered that they will never sink anyway - just look at the much reduced thickness's now.....but would you like to be in a lock with me. No, GRP hulls for oceans and rivers......Steel narrowboats for the canals.

Yes where can I find this? I want to be outraged!

We have 4 x 250w panels, & 8 x T150's + starter and BT batteries. (the T150's are 12 not 24) We are power hungry though, washer, fridge, freezer, lg screen tv and all the other electronic gagets that most folks have, although we don't use a hair dryer. I've limited myself to only having 4 electrical kitchen appliances...bread maker (in case we get froze in & I like homemade bread), slow cooker (which in hinesight I hardly ever use...we use the wood/coal stove as a slow cooker in the winter months), my food processer (I do a fair amount of cooking/baking), and of course my coffee machine Heating is via the wood/coal stove and on occassion we turn on the central heating, but this is not a daily occurance just when it gets close to being proper cold not that it shoud make any difference other then roof space, but we are a 10.10 WB & yes we still need to run the engine daily in the winter months, but the solar saves a heck of a diesel in the summer months Hope this helps

The girlie button discussions always makes me think why so called "traditional" boaters shun them yet they have an engine instead of a horse, a toilet instead of a bucket, they usually have heating throughout the boat, a TV or two, inverters, fridges & freezers, not to mention ovens, hobs and microwave ovens and mobile phones and internet. Yet a girlie button is a complete no no.

I have just had a similar conversation with another boater and feel that as a whole boaters are very friendly people and most get on just fine, wide or narrow.

Because we British like to moan. Keith