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If we took that approach to the whole forum, there'd only be half a dozen posts left!

Me too! It may not be true but it is the perception of people working in council offices who don't own boats. And you put me in mind of that old maxim by Felix Dennis:"if it floats, flys or **cks, its better to rent than to buy".

The problem is that many narrow boat owners actualy think a narrowboat is a " Boat "

I don't think it's exactly that. Tunnels are mostly pretty straight, so knowledge doesn't really come into it there. How many of the people here talking of bright headlights use a torch when they're walking in the dark? Not many, I suspect - your eyes quickly become acclimatised. Admittedly a tunnel is rather darker so some form of light is useful - for boats coming the other way to see you too. But that only requires something really dim, and your eyes quickly get acclimatised to that in the same way. It's just this modern way of too much reliance on gizmos, so the thought that they are unnecessary in most cases never gets considered. My own problem with tunnels is my eyes tend to get fixed on the light at the end as I get near to it, and i have to close them and shake my head to "unfix" my eyes and let them relax again. Steering, particularly in any form of narrow passage, is mostly about peripheral vision rather than staring rigidly ahead. Tam

If you navigate whilst the river is in ‘do not’ and all goes well then no problem, however if you got into problems eg ‘engine failures’ and ended up going over a weir I struggle to see how you would convince the insurance company you made the correct call in proceeding on you journey. It’s a bit like doing your own gas, no one will question your competence until something goes badly wrong.

That's what he intends. Summer cruise =stop outside pub for 7 months, then back to marina

You can save a tremendous amount of money by shopping cheap, like at Aldi. Foraging around for food, like berries, damsons, plums, stinging nettles for soup, cumfry, figs, hazel nuts, scrumping for apples ect, all of which is good roughage and will keep you regular and healthy. Avoid horrid unhealthy greasy expensive fry ups and steaks which can bung you up, go easy on the chips. Boiling the bark of willow trees to ward off reumatism-aspirin, soot from your chimney to brush your teeth with fluoride. Homemade candles made by casting old chip fat and string in toilet roll tubes for lighting. All good Ray Mears stuff. The only trouble with him is he must carry an awful amount of gear around, for whatever he gets up to he always produces some different implement for the task in hand, like ''just break it up with your 16lb sledge hammer from out of your knapsack''. A bit like that old Jack Hargreaves fellow on the telly,''After you've turned it up on your 10'' centre lathe, tranfer to your Sentinel milling machine to tidy it up and then just weld the bits together with your Oxy-acteylene plant. While thats cooling down you might as well mow the lawn with your John Deere sit on gang mower taking care to avoid rocks around your rock crushing plant which you have bought to make a rockery.

I pay £3,300 a year for my non residential mooring on the K&A. I live on the boat and no-one bothers me. If you happen to be the 'demandy' type and 'know your rights' then you will probably attract the attention of all manner of authority and the battles will ensue. But if you understand what is meant by the terms 'keeping you head down', 'living under the radar' and 'not rocking the boat' you will have no trouble whatsoever living on a leisure mooring. Thousands do with no probelms at all. Forgot to say, the first decision to make is if you want to live in a marina, or out on the cut on an 'on-line' mooring. Very different lifestyles. Mine is on-line. Much nicer

Totally different products, but yes, absolutely. The one issue i have with LS-X, being an occasional plumber, not a regular one, is that once a tube is opened, you can never predict how long it is likely to stay usable for after that. However well you re-cap them, the product will just cure in the tube, and become unusable. (Not uncommon for any silicone based sealant, of course). Hence if I'm going to the boat, knowing I'm doing a job where it might be useful, I invariably spend another five and a half quid for a tube to take up as a precautionary measure, in case the last used one, still on the boat, is no use.

Not in my case - I have too many of 'em! And you know different rich people than me. The rich man's play things around here all wear high heels.

You have a very big boat, and its far tidier than ours.

Ah, I sort of envisaged a narrow boat, in that case you have space for a big hearth. As for a 125mm thick hearth that is a mighty slab of concrete, the only way to do that would be to cut a hole in the floor and sit the hearth a couple of inches below the floor level, this is not a bad idea if you were to have a back boiler as you could get a bit more precious 'rise' so the system could thermosyphon. But if the stove is on legs as in the picture I really can't see the need for that thickness. There will be others on here with a better knowledge of rules etc. You will need to bolt it down somehow as well.

Thanks for that Info nothing of that nature in my boating days 1958/1972 some times in the flood you would get through Derwent mouth & Sawley flood lock & Bert the Sawley lockkeeper wouldn't let you through from Sawley cut onto the bit of the Trent down to Trent lock/Cranfleet cut /River Soar

Be handy if the bathtub sinks

It also depends on the boat, some twin engined sea going boats with experienced skippers will have no problem at all, they have the power and the instruments to keep safe. Narrowboats unfortunately do not.

And how much does your travelpower cost brand new?

When I went to Russia, USSR then, we were followed about by Jack booted soldiers with rifles. Had standard 8 movie film taken out of my camera at the docks and thrown overboard. My 3 wi-fi dongle cost £10 per month for 20 Gorillabites on contract. Works lovely abroad, on Canvey Island.

I think that singles was anything that would pass through a 1" square grating, doubles through a 2" grating. When I was operating a Lancashire boiler with screw stokers what we wanted was dingles. Yes you guessed 1 1/2". Tim

So, you saw the light then?

I'm not sure this is true is it? My alternators have been quite happy supplying a 1200w vacuum cleaner and 450w sander continuously for a couple of hours via inverter - say 150a allowing for inverter loses. This was with current into/out of batteries hovering around 0a with engine running about 1500rpm, and no sign of alternators overheating. Not sure what the difference is between that usage or charging lithium batteries?

About a year ago,mor so, several of the boats at our club fitted billion watt spots and I followed the crowd. Lit up the canal ahead like it was daylight! However, a couple of months ago I recognised that I was blinding onlookers, both boats and towpath users, so I ditched the spotlight and replaced it with a normal car 55w fog light.

And importantly are still delivering full capacity or thereabouts. How many users could say the same about lead acid after 700 cycles? This is basically what I'm planing to do later on this year - probably October time so they're installed in time for winter (If I have enough money!) As he explains in the link, the high voltage and low voltage cut should be a last resort. If it gets to that stage you've already had a failure of the charging system - the chance of 2 simultaneous failures should be quite slim in a well designed system. There's a lot of heated discussion on this in the long thread that smileypete posted a link to earlier, including the risk of it failing short circuit and wrecking the cells. There's quite a lot of experience of people using these successfully in the states for several years, and finally appears to be more consensus on safe operating voltages. The manufactures have revised the safe charging voltages down since first released following real world experience, but all appear more in agreement now. Tom Although probably not at prices affordable to boaters..... Most users seem to report good accuracy with AH counting SOC gauges on these batteries.

Sorry but you are the one that's wrong. Having just retired from being a mechanic most of my working life and replacing core plugs in engine blocks, pushed out as a result of freezing, I can assure you of that. I also have first hand experience of the sand casting process (I.e. I've done it) and I'm afraid you are confusing two entirely different things. Hope this helps...

I can tolerate most annoyances on the canal: people hogging water points; widebeams moored on bends; ditherers in locks; boats moving at a snail's pace who won't move over and steerers who don't realise a deep drafted boat needs a bit more room etc. However, I do admit to yelling at idiots in tunnels with their billion watt searchlights.

I came to Shardlow yesterday to drop in to the Trent. There are two traffic lights here one for the Soar and one for the Trent. Both lights are at red and a large board says DO NOT PROCEED. I went further down to have a look at the lock and its well into the red. I know this stretch well and I have no problem here at this depth and used to do it on red at this level however as an older more boring person than previously no way would I do it again till its in the yellow where it says PROCEED with caution. I would guess that as a holder of three different boatmasters licences and well experienced that would go against my using the boat in these conditions as I would suggest the powers that be would think I was reckless rather than just unluckly like an inexperienced boater and therefore I reckon I wouldnt get a penny if my boat was lost. Therefore I am staying at the pub mooring.

No they were accessed by a subway that ran under the canal......... (...... oh, OK, not really!)

I had one fitted in 2005 at my old house. Don't know how long they had been in production before that. Gave me 9 years of trouble free service before I moved to our present house.

And best left alone.

Hmmm don't really know. I think they were around back in 2002 when I re-qualified as a gas bod, but a pretty new model then.

Your great great granddaughter?!!!?

Are you sure? Have you done enough research to allow you to make an informed decision? Moorings - say £1000 to £15,000+ a year with the latter being for true residential but in some Thames marinas it could be £7000. License - 50 ft boat about £700 a year and more if you want to get off the K&A to other CaRT waters Batteries - as a newby allow one set a year or more until you get to grips with charging etc, say £400 to £500 for not quiet teh cheapest (4 or 5 battery bank) and its easy to destroy them in weeks at first. Keeping batteries charged requires fuel so say 20 hours a week minimum at 1 litre per hour, that's probably over £20 a wek but you will get hot water for that as well in most boats. Solid fuel for winter warmth, say 2 bags a week for 20 weeks or more at about £10 a bag, £200 (you wont find sufficient "free" wood in most cases. Insurance £140 a year for fully comp plus whatever extra for your possessions. Regular blacking & hull/anode inspection on a 50 ft boat say £600 ever two to three years unless you spend £1000s on zinc spraying and two pack system but it will still have to come out every 5 years or so for inspection. Repainting - say £5000 or more every 10 years or so. Gas for Cooking - I use about three 19Kg cylinders a year but that includes some heating BUT mine is not a livaboard boat. That is 3 x about £45 = £135 a year and may well be more. Spare parts repairs and maintenance - I do my own but if you cant I could easily see it averaging £1500 a year or more. Unless the boat is younger than 20 years (up to 30 for some companies) budget about £1000 every four or five years for a hull inspection & report unless you only insure third party (insurance is compulsory). Boat Safety Inspection every four years say between £140 & £200. Fuel for cruising???? When the CaRT water points are out of action I had to pay a marina in Newbury £5 just to fill with water. Toilet pump outs @ £15 plus a pop unless you ensure you have a cassette type toilet. Say once a month so that a minimum of £180 a year. And so the list goes on. Others may be able to give you the exact figure for their own livaboard boating.

Could try Tattenhall Marina, they normally have space.

VEGAN sausage Please tell me why weird diets have to have " Pretend " meat dishes in them such as " Veggie sausage " " Veggie burgers " etc etc? Those of us who eat a healthy balanced diet as taught for years dont have any pretend stuff......just wonderin like

In case anyone else wants to know as it is now peak boating season. Lights are both on red at Shardlow and Derwent mouth lock is well into red. It is deffo passable at this level and have done it many times HOWEVER as I get older and more boring I will remain at the pub mooring to drink beer and watch rugby a little later as if owt went wrong after I have passed the large letters saying DO NOT PROCEED would my insurers pay out especialy to someone with my experience? I dont think so. Not my fault the pubs open

A bit like the SmartGauge saga - you only hear about the ones you hear about.

Unlikely, as Staffordshire and Derbyshire Oatcakes (& the Northumbrian and other places versions) have been around since before wheat became common in this country. But facts never got in the way of a good tale