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This was our barge ,but minus the cargo, that we sailed back from the north of Holland to Plymouth before we started the conversation

What is you total budget? A narrow boat is really only suited to the canals of E&W imho and you would be advised to stick to those waters, they are Category 4 essentially not "seagoing". A good second hand one is £40K to £100 K. I had a Kenneth Albinsson 30ft yacht, imho the only type suited to northern waters ie a "blue water" sailing boat, you could buy a good [top spec], like the Albin Ballad one built in the mid seventies for about "£22-25K, a not so "fit" one would be £12-14K and easily cost £10K to bring up to spec. To see how much work a boat involves, see Sail Life on youtube. He has an Albin Ballad, liveaboard, it will be for sale when his other boat is fitted out, it is taking about 5 years and he probably dare not look at his costs. He occasional pays for professional work. His tool budget alone must be well into four figures, several times over. In my eyes, this is a nice little Dutch Barge, a tjalk, suited to river estuaries, big rivers and probably dutch canals [out of my depth here] https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/barges-tjalk/587452. , £24K , ask for 10% cash discount and put 10K aside for the contingency fund. expect to fork out £3-5K in year one to make it habitable all year round, and £1-2/3K pa to keep it maintained. caveat emptor

Thank you so much, I don't mind delaying the dream. It's just hard saving up the money on a little disability pension 20 000 Nkr before tax, That is about 2000 pounds a month before tax. I'm considering taking on a loan, but boatloans have 6-7 % interest, so i'm not sure about that either. I don't own and pay a lot in rent. What is a good Budget for a good boat? Thank you for the advice, I will seek up the Dutch Barge Association. I'm not leaving you at all, You have all been so Nice and give good advice to a newbie

He didn't want you to see him reversing down the slipway at 30mph and then slamming on the brakes as the rear wheels touched the water, and the boat 'slid in'.

Best advice IMHO is DONT, DONT, DONT. Look for a complete good used tried and tested boat which can be bought for 90% of your maximum budget so you have a reserve for the inevitable issues/upgrades that are needed then you might be getting close to living a dream and not a nightmare .

Looking to transport a barge from North Holland (Sneek) to Ireland! Please note - I only want replies that I want to hear, anything questioning my intentions, or requesting further information will be treated with contempt. Please only answer the question and give me a list of freight companies - NOTHING ELSE. Thank you. Petisa

thanks, i used a hole cutter and cut out a circle from the plate and changed the plug, was incredible easy!! The hole cutter was superb and about a fiver on ebay.

The Llangollen is not boring at all. Lovely staircase locks at Grindley Brook and Welsh Frankton, pretty towns and villages: Wrenbury, Marbury,Whitchurch, Ellesmere, Chirk, Trevor, beautiful scenery around The Meres, The Mosses and on the run in to Llangollen, where you are entering some truly wild landscapes (by canal standards) including Dinas Bran. When you get to Llangollen itself there's loads of interest including the steam railway, horse drawn boat trips to horseshoe falls along with nice pubs and restaurants. And there are plenty of good pubs along the way if you look. Then there's the Chirk Aqueduct which is amazing in its own right, before you get to the big one which is nothing short of astonishing and an absolute must see. It gets busy, but for hire boaters that a good thing. You'll meet lots of other boaters and the banter at the locks is always good. To top it all, you get to plug in at Llangollen and give your batteries a good charge! The Llangollen is not boring at all. Lovely staircase locks at Grindley Brook and Welsh Frankton, pretty towns and villages: Wrenbury, Marbury,Whitchurch, Ellesmere, Chirk, Trevor, beautiful scenery around The Meres, The Mosses and on the run in to Llangollen, where you are entering some truly wild landscapes (by canal standards) including Dinas Bran. When you get to Llangollen itself there's loads of interest including the steam railway, horse drawn boat trips to horseshoe falls along with nice pubs and restaurants. And there are plenty of good pubs along the way if you look. Then there's the Chirk Aqueduct which is amazing in its own right, before you get to the big one which is nothing short of astonishing and an absolute must see. It gets busy, but for hire boaters that a good thing. You'll meet lots of other boaters and the banter at the locks is always good. To top it all, you get to plug in at Llangollen and give your batteries a good charge!

Completely untrue. For a start, 4 panels in series can be much higher than 100V as Alan has pointed out. It’s current that kills, not voltage and thanks to that nice Mr Ohm we can see that the higher the voltage the higher the current into a fixed load. 100mA will probably kill you and being DC you won’t be able to let go. The resistance of the human body varies between 1kr and 100kr dependant on which parts of the body and how wet they are. Taking the lower figure and a voltage of 100V we get: 100/1000, which happens to be exactly 100mA. Certainly enough to kill. Always.

exactly this you would have to be stark staring to do business with a firm that has no landline advertised , do they even have premises that have been in situ for many a year? have you managed to find reviews from other customers etc I would also ask the local trading standards about them. Once your money has gone its usually gone .

Actually, we will be reclaiming Carlisle [historic rights], Berwick [footballing rights] and all the poncy castles and estates gifted to the Landed Gentry by English Monarchies since 1703 [theft of property rights]. In order to prevent local Land Registry disputes all lands used by the border reivers and all black cattle thereon will be registered as Scottish with Scottish Crofting rights. PS, as one of The Entitled. I have gifted you one apostrophe in perpetuity.

True - cheaper that way too

In case the battery numbers have got confused, I’m suggesting that you remove the battery that’s now at 12.8V and replace it with the removed one that’s sitting at 13V.

Col... you’ve not finished I suggest you switch everything off and swap battery 1 with battery 4. I believe they’re now your two best batteries. As things stand you’re going to damage batt 3 with it charging at 15V. Don’t change any other wires around, just swap the batteries. If you really want to you could then wire batts 2 & 4 in parallel and put them on the 12V charger to see if they can recover, but that’s not urgent.

Surely no one would block you! You're far too huggable and lovely. Happy New Year x

Sam I am quite sure that you won't see this post - I'm also quite sure that you do like sidetracking humour (secretly), you just don't see as much of the kind that you like. Regardless, I wish you a very happy new year, I hope all the best for you and yours, and that you see good health until I can wish you the same next year. With much love and (my famous) hugs - Tumsh. PS I gave you a big love heart greenie cos I can. ?

so far the only casualty of ice on our boat has been the filter / strainer on the shower drain pump (which may have already been damaged before we bought the boat) our winterisation process (engine and alde heating are known to have correct mix of anti-freeze / possibly a little too rich) 1. run the taps until air comes out (especially the hot tap), the calorifier makes some wonderful glooping sounds (leave taps on) 2. turn pump off at power 3. flush the loo twice (leaves it's feed and the bowl empty) 4. put shower head on floor and turn shower taps on 5. take the drawer under the cooker out and remove strainer bowl from shower drain pump 6. curse because we now have a dirty strainer and no water to clean it with 7. place strainer and bowl on the draining board (so that we don't forget to put it back on next time we come to the boat) 8. replace batteries in alarm sensors (otherwise low batteries die in cold temps and set the alarm off in January) 9. isolate batteries 10. lock doors 11. turn gas off at bottle and lock locker lid 12. leave 13. return to boat because we have left the marina gate key in the cutlery drawer and can't get out 14. really leave. I will add that our boat is not hooked up to mains solar takes care of keeping the leisure bank topped up (bilge pump etc all run off the leisure bank) the starter battery is left alone, so far we have had no problems with not charging it over winter but are expecting it to fail at any time (it was originally fitted in 1998)

There was a time when this sort of information could be quite important to those travelling the canals but that era has gone. I'm left wondering whether the more importance one attaches to how quickly it can be done nowadays, the more one is missing the point of travelling by canal. Just a thought...

I believe some of the cyclists have managed it in about 10 minutes.