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VAT is certainly something that should be considered, although it does have an engine and is a potentially a 'mobile' boat I don't know anything about Dutch regulations on VAT relief on 'houseboats' and how it would compare to the UK rules. Worse case scenario is that you may have to budget for paying a 20% (of purchase price) VAT charge, if it was (for example) VAT exempt / Zero rated in the Netherlands but does not meet the UK requirements. You should take professional advice on the subject, but for a start, registering with the Dutch Barge forum and asking all the questions might find someone who has 'done it already'. Just as an aside - where are you planning to moor it ? You will need somewhere to rent a mooring - if you are looking in London then you could well be looking at a cost of £15,000 per annum. Depending on which waterway you have your mooring you will also need to have a Boat Safety Scheme (BSSC) certificate which is a safety check similar to a car MOT test. You will also need to have a boat licence which will be around £1000 per year (again depending on which waterway you are keeping it on) You will also need insurance but that cost will depend on how much the House boat and contents are insured for. It may be worth checking how it has previously been 'connected' to the land. In the Netherlands many boats are 'plumbed' into the shore facilities for water, gas, toilet, telephone etc. Here you will have to fill your water tank with a hose pipe, go and empty the toilet tank every couple of weeks (depending on tank size) and will have to fetch and carry gas cylinders. It may well be fitted out with things like electric heating, but in the UK you will (probably) only have a 16 amp supply, so for example you cannot use (say) a washing, if you have a 2kw electric kettle switched on. House boats are not houses and do not have 'unlimited' supply of water, gas, electricity, toilet. You will need to adapt your lifestyle to suit. It is a great life when you know what to expect, but for newbies it can be a huge culture shock, and many don't last more than their 1st Winter. Before committing your hard earned money, go and sit and talk to a few boaters, or House-Boaters in the area you plan to live. * Edit to add - you will not be welcome if you try and visit anyone at the moment. Post some more details of your plans and intentions on this forum and you'll get some honest answers / suggestions. They may not be the ones you want to hear but they will be (probably) better than you'll get looking at You Tube videos. Good luck.

@tree monkeyshared this before me so I will credit his newsfeed for making me smile with this one: @tree monkey

Made my think of a giant knight's move - two forward and one across.

Bring back the 1930's Keynesian measures, post-Covid, and have press gangs re-building the system - especially completing some of the more feasible restorations.

I just like having a tacho. Probably more useful than having a water can on the roof and slightly more interesting to watch?

Hi Madi, Digging back in the memory banks it was about £6,000 to £6,500, not including craning at either end. Craning was done by Newark Marina in the UK and Jo Parfitt's yard (as was) now Simon Evans' at Migennes. Obviously prices would have risen in the intervening 9 years. I didn't consider that too bad for two men, a truck, an escort van, a Channel crossing and no guarantee of a return load considering that they cannot use the French motorways due to the size/shape of the load and the motorway toll booth size constraints. Sold the boat in 2017 so no idea of current pricing as I am now a bit out of touch with French boating although I still have some contacts over there. Roger

I’ve designed in provision for a digital battery temperature probe and an analogue input for current sensing and a real-time clock, as “insurance” in case the CANBUS thing didn’t work. But there is no point in adding additional sensors when the equipment measuring battery temperature, current, SoC, voltage, time and date etc is already there and capable of transmitting that data. So in the short term I won’t now be developing the redundant sensors, but could perhaps in the future. It also occurred to me that battery charging with Alternator was just one facet of it - the Combi will charge the batteries Either from shore power or from travelpower when we’re cruising, and the system should ideally be able to control them too. Which it will. I think more interesting for other boaters will be the programmable alternator voltage regulator, which is phase 2 of this project. The intention is for it to have rs232 (serial) input from the BMS part, plus alternator temperature sensing, so it can adjust the alternator voltage as required, to avoid cooking the alternator or over charging the batteries.