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Hi everyone, new and old :) Just wanted to pop in and say hello, Emma and I got married this weekend and were having a boating mini-moon. We've hired hector and we are going from falls Bridge to crick and back. We are currently moored South of Hillmorton locks for the night and will be going through Braunston tomorrow. So if any of you see a couple on a small boat with a tug deck and a just married sign on the rear fender please stop us and say hello! Happy Easter everyone x

No we are not experienced boaters at all yet, which is why I'm asking silly questions. Trying to figure out which kind of boat to live on, & where. Before we get any kind of boat on any kind of water we'll make sure we know a good deal about what we're doing. We are living in Ireland until next year when we move to the UK, which is home for me - my mother lives in Surrey. Also, at the moment anyway, dealing with a small budget, & being handy handy people we're tending towards the idea of a boat that might need some work doing, interior-wise anyway. I do like the idea of going a bit coastal, as long as we knew what we were doing We are both pretty sensible.

Are we sure it’s closing?? I thought it was just an Easter sale....I was in there on Sunday and there wasn’t any talk of it closing...don’t want unfounded rumours starting!

A typical narrowboat uses 1.25 - 1.5 litres of diesel an hour, so hard to beat on economy, although that old Mercedes motor is about 40 horse so shouldn't be a gas guzzler. The Broom might be a nice choice for the Norfolk Broads or some wider rivers, but if you really want to explore the canal network you either need a narrowboat or a narrow beam cruiser. You'll be restricted by beam on canals with the Broom as has already been said, but also by air draught at approaching 2 meters. There are many low priced narrow beam cruisers to choose from. However, if you intend to be aboard all year, I'd strongly recommend something well insulated with a solid fuel stove. Before you splash out, I'd also suggest you hire a boat and see how you get on.

The various arguments discussions regarding this point generally suggest securing the warp to the upstream end of the boat and having the anchor close to the steering position.

Are you absolutely sure you know how to and are able to look after them properly and keep them fully charges as much as possible, plus do you have the equipment to equalise them now and again. If any answer is no then ponder on the fact that you can wreck expensive batteries just a\s fast as cheap ones. Personally I feel fair quality dual purpose ones treated as consumables probably give the best cost-benefit ratio for most people. Others differ.

And pulleys can be swapped from one alternator to another. The more difficult is ensuring that the mounting is compatible and the pulley ends up in line with the other pulleys in the system. Things can be done with washers to stack it out. Jen If it spins backwards it takes electric out of the battery and makes the engine go faster, which takes more electric till the batteries are flat. (Not really) ?

I think the BSS recorded one death like that last year

Congratulations. When is the next photo of the month competition, by the way?

Think it was more like a MC freaky Friday but for longer....and with more useful stuff!

I haven't (yet) had that, but I did wonder last week whether my lack of help as a single hander upset a crewed boat who blanked me when they passed - which is the only time I've so far experienced another boater appear to deliberately ignore me. The thing is, my standard practice as a single hander is not to tie up at all - I like to be quick and efficient in the locks and the way to do that is to ignore the lock landings and use the throats of the locks to hold the boat instead whilst working the lock (when the boat isn't in the lock) - I've now got confident enough that I don't even use ropes at all in narrow locks. So approaching a lock which was in use by a crewed boat with the boat already in the lock I didn't feel I could contribute much and stayed on my boat holding it in position waiting in the cut rather than tying up at the LL (as I don't use LLs). I also found it a bit irritating how slow they were, with the crew tickling the paddles up (when they had somebody on the boat driving it and I didn't find it a problem whacking the paddles up in that lock when I used it single handed), but then they're allowed to use the lock how they want when their boat is in it - rather more irritating was the ponderously slow lowering of paddles when the gate was open with the boat still in the lock - the boat remaining in the lock until the crew had finished (if they couldn't use the vacant lock landing to pick the crew up when they'd finished given they were clearly in no hurry, I'd much rather they just left the paddles for me to put down rather quicker myself!) I'm now wondering if that was also deliberate to make some sort of point to the single hander who preferred to stay on his boat... FWIW I do help other boaters operate locks if I feel it will help and they want the assistance, even when (as usual) I am single handing.

Just to add....the flyer said 25% reduction on everything from 19th April till 21st April. So you are too late if you missed it!

Depends what you mean by "fancy". The m4 aqua can be had for about £25 refurbished. It isn't a great phone but it is 4g and does the job. I'm also not sure what you mean by "tended to" as mine has sat on charge with the hot-spot switched on "untended" for over 2 months now. Should I be watering it or something?

Pick a side and do a link in both the top and bottom chain. If it fouls going up or tries to hang up going down, the weak link will open out and the chain that side will part. The other side will hang on to your fender so you don't lose it. Personally, I just have a button so I only have it secured by upper chains hence it can ride up if it needs to. The chains are also short and attachment to the boat is by rope which is a weak link in itself. I prefer that solution as it's easier to replace the rope than a chain link. Your upper chain points are too close together for that solution though, but you can always use a bit of rope to replace the failed link if you need to.

Certainly the 110Ahr battery that was installed as a starter on my boat lasted ten years before it died, so it couldn't have been completely unsuited to the task! Jen

Thank you dear Tumshie! It is absolutely true that we're starting from the beginning so apologies everyone for the stupid questions. But we will live on a boat next year someway somehow!

Though many of them (and their many variants) can be seen around the coast. There is one here in Weymouth at the moment on the visitor moorings. Easily solved by going on a RYA motor boat course. We all started somewhere.

Although I agree that this is not a good canal boat, a draft of 32" is not the big issue, and I speak here as someone who has lived on a boat that draws about 31" for 10 years and traveled extensively, though I confess today was a bit of a bummer, and tomorrow is probably gonna be worse. ................Dave i

Well it's not a good one - it could be one of quite a few wrinklies on here...

Whatever the 2m temps, the sun is still the same strength at this time of year and will continue to get stronger, even on a cloudy day I'm sure there will still be a decent amount going in.

We're still here!! Sorry we have been so quiet. We were hibernating for the winter. Absolutely we are still loving every second of life aboard. The way we went about it was too much by the head and not the heart for a lot of people, but for us it really worked out well. We ended up with a fantastic bote, for a price that we knew was terrific, and we sailed away in confidence even though neither of us had ever driven a boat before. She ticked pretty much all of our boxes, but of course there had to be one or two things we overlooked! Honestly I think making a list of your needs and wants is still a great idea, and I'd do it again - the point of them was not to list dealbreakers, but rather things that counted for and against each boat we looked at. It's a big decision and there are tons of factors. There are the must haves, the nice to haves, the whatevers and the definitely nots. To be fair to the forum, the advice everyone gave makes so much more sense in retrospect. One piece of advice that we received time and again was to go out and look at boats. We looked at over 50 that were for sale before we bought ours. Still not totally sure what it means that the boat found us. We found her on Facebook, I don't think she was even looking for us . But when we saw her... we knew instantly that she was the one! (Partly thanks to the spreadsheet, of course...) @Fly Navy have you found your boat yet? Happy to offer more tips from our buying experience, if you have any specific questions. We might have a different perspective as boaters less than a year in. In the end we settled for an ex-hire boat, and I would encourage new boaters to do the same. We got a Black Prince. Absolutely fantastic boat. She's got the typical BP bumper on the front and rear, has very generous sacrificial chines, and is built like a tank besides, in 10/8/6mm steel. These features are designed for hirers - and are all really helpful considering for the first few weeks you are going to have exactly as much experience as a hirer. You're also likely to get a relatively new boat for relatively low cost. Beta engine. Yes, ours is awesome. Silencer. No. Don't think so anyway. Why? Seems pointless. Epoxied hull. I also wanted this but changed my mind - the expense isn't justified IMO and I don't want to worry about my epoxy with every bump. I actually want her out of the water every couple of years to get a good look at her bottom, so blacking is the way for me. Cruiser stern. Actually we originally wanted a trad for more internal space. So glad we got a cruiser. Ours is 65' so there is plenty of space anyway. It also makes the engine and weed hatch really easy and convenient to get at. I might consider a trad in future if I ever go for a shorter boat, but I would really miss that back deck. Reverse layout. I can see pros and cons. We have a walk through bedroom, I originally wanted a cross bed for the extra width. Forum advised against the cross bed and now we're very comfortable on our small double. I really enjoy being able to get out of both ends of our bote. Cassette toilet. Agreed - wouldn't have it any other way. I could always tell which boats for sale had a pump out. By the smell. Besides they take up a lot of space. Emptying the cassette is much less disgusting than I'd expected, as long as you aren't stingy with the Elsan blue. Double glazed. This was also on my list, but it's rare so something you'd have to install it, probably. Black Princes like ours have a double glazed bow door, and I really can tell the difference in noise insulation. For that reason I'd love double glazing everywhere one day. Heat insulation, it turns out after having cruised through a winter, doesn't really matter that much. All it means is that you'd save on coal - and considering you're willing to burn diesel to stay warm, heating costs doesn't seem to be a concern for you. Refleks stove. Too expensive to run. I can see the convenience and lack of coal dust being nice though. Maybe I'll consider that for our second stove at the stern end of the cabin. I do like the redundancy, in case we run out of coal someday while frozen in. Our Morsø Squirrel in the saloon right near the bow goes all night and heats two thirds of the boat with minimal fuel and we love it. (Side note: After trying a lot of different fuel brands, we're Excel devotees). Bow thruster. Yes - the missus and her barge pole. Unless you mean the expensive unnecessary extra-moving-part kind, in which case, begone heathen. Cratch. Nah. If your boat is big enough, you'll want the outside space. And the cratch covers I've seen tend to end up looking tatty. Convector fans. People either swear by them or think they are quackery. We don't have one, so I think they are quackery, naturally. Victron inverter/charger. Nope. We run everything off 12V and a single 110Ah leisure battery. So far, so great. We don't have a washing machine yet though, and it has been winter so our fridge is not an issue. And the wife is increasingly dissatisfied with her 12V hair dryer Christmas pressie. So, we'll get one of these once we have the money for this and a washing machine. Calorifier. OH YES. Hot water in 15 mins with the engine running. And I really like the redundancy of having the calorifier and Ebersplutter. I'm even considering adding a second stove with a back boiler, I love redundancy so much. LED lighting. There are other kinds?? (This is easy to change if the boat doesn't have it). Gas galley. Has to be. PV panels. Not yet. The most important part here - how many watts? We've been living without PV for several months as we try to determine how much we'll need. Walk thru bathroom, no bath, shower only. Yes. This was our criteria too. So much more space. Ex-hire boats don't usually have this, so we were extremely fortunate that the previous owner had redone the bathroom. Ebersplutter/Webasto. Yes. As I said, I like the redundancy. However we exclusively use our engine for hot water - since we don't have PV and it has been winter anyway, we need to run the engine for electricity anyway - so the hot water is for free. The Eber is going to be a boon once we have PV though, I think. 4 plus 1 battery bank. double alternators. split charge relay. Only the split charge. See the electrical posts on this forum. You need to be doing a proper electrical audit before you can confidently say you need all this gear. We do 100% fine on the one batt. Lots of other people are horrified to learn this. Really depends on your usage. LPG changeover valve. No. And I don't want one. Although when it was a hire boat it had one. Changing a pigtail over is almost as fast and you do it once every 2 months. What I would rather have is a low pressure hose with a regulator that screws directly into the bottle. Less pipe under high pressure = less chance of leakage.

Hi All My wife and I are the operators of Floating Holidays, I guess until now the Macclesfield canals' best kept secret. To answer a few questions we are fully compliant with CRT licence for holiday boats and hire boat Bss certified. We have permanent moorings nearby which are purely for our storage of the boats when not on hire (which certainly aren't sub leased out at all and never will be) The CRT requested that we conduct handovers to customers on the visitor moorings by bridge 15 when we started operating to minimise any disruption to permanent moorers. This is also a handy location as there are two winding holes either side of those moorings for demonstrating boat navigation to customers. We are only on those moorings temporarily whilst prepping and handing over boats, this week the whole fleet had been with customers and therefore you may have spotted a couple boats there all at once. Hope that answers any questions but anything else just let us know. Paul

The owner's insurance would normally cover that, given it is not a business transaction.

£6.76 of pennies, £12.23 of epoxy,£6.22 of wood,£0.88 of glue. The look on your face when the table leg snaps.................priceless!