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Which is exactly why he's posting here, being very honest and trying to find as much as possible from folks who know. Commendable in my view, far more than those that watch a few UTube vlogs and dive in without researching first. To the OP we bought and moved aboard a narrowboat after a few holidays. I was starry eyed looking forward to this idyllic life basking in the sunshine while waving and smiling at passing boats. Yes, it was a shock when we found out the realities of living off grid (we continuously cruised during the summer and worked during the winter). This forum was an incredibly valuable resource, for particularly when it came to electricity. We bought a boat with a teeny weeny inverter. Naively we thought switching that on after a day's cruising would mean we could watch a bit of telly and charge our phones up. Our inverter very quickly shrieked, I asked advice on the forum an was given spot on advice about conserving leccy and making sure the leads from the inverter were appropriate. Sorry, waffling 😊 The point being to the that no matter how much research you do, and we walked the towpaths chatting to boaters (well worth doing, but set aside a lot of time, boaters have a propensity to talk for England!) there will be situations that bite you on the bum because you had no idea that'd happen. In our case we got on with it and, with a lot of help and advice from friends made on this forum, we figured it out. It can be bloody difficult sometimes, especially when the canal freezes and you find yourself in the middle of nowhere with no car! Our first winter aboard was 2010 - when we got through that we knew we could do it. You're going the right way about it, go for it, you'll always wonder how it might have worked out if you don't. Hey you've been gifted a boat, we spent every penny we had and borrowed to the hilt to buy a very cheap boat. It's the best thing we ever did in our lives. We hoped to carry on until old age but unfortunately my ill health ended our dream. How special that we experienced it while we could. Good luck x

Didn't you say all that yesterday?

My advice is to not make it too quiet. Its a good indication of when you have a leak.

I know someone who was chugging down the G&S when he saw a Ural with sidecar veer off the towpath into the canal. As it happens his boat has a small crane on it so managed to pull it all out too. Reckon that takes some beating...😀

Mrs Midnight is the world's leading expert at steering under willows and bridges and knocking chimneys and coolie caps into the cut. One or two were retrieved but several manged to swim for cover and remain submerged. Her unbeaten world record is 4 folding chairs.

It should just take someone to call C&RT and say "I'm trying to apply for a CC licence but cannot find the form - can you tell me where it is ?" And when told, there is no separate form & just use the 'Pleasure Boat Licence form' you can say "but your terms and conditions say there is a CC licence, and then you go onto say All boats must have the right type of licence for the planned use of the boat, & you use your statutory powers to remove boats from the waterways that are not correctly licenced. How do I get correctly licenced ? They do repeatedly make themselves look stupid !

If you look at the simple statistic of property price v earnings you will find that the current situation has not happened in the last 100 years. The last time it was 8:1 was in about 1905. Before that it was even higher. It is impossible and pointless to predict the future but the trend is suggesting a return to pre Victorian times in this regard. In those days there was no state support. Now there is. One wonders going forward how it will deal with this problem. Graph https://www.schroders.com/en-gb/uk/individual/insights/what-174-years-of-data-tell-us-about-house-price-affordability-in-the-uk/ It is basically wrong for people to own more than one land based property. Legislation should be enacted to ensure this does not continue. It won't be because people in a position of influence all have loads of properties and do good money out of it. It is still wrong.

After this unbeatable gem, all the others posts somehow seem superfluous.

Rod here. Me and Penny want to do the Lancaster canal in late September but are confused about the Ribble link and in particular Savick brook. Penny assures me it'll be fine, with plenty of water. She tells me the first cut is the deepest, though she does have misgivings about the half tide barrier and stormy waters. Mrs Rod wants to park at Penny Street basin, whilst I am attracted to the Lune aqueduct. All we need is a friend to lend a guiding hand. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Anyway, I don't want to talk about it. Thanks for all the help. You're in my heart. X

no I think there are a few incorrect things there. I was not saying you can’t simply bond NE at the inverter - you can provided the mains terminals are floating relative to earth and/or dc negative. My point was simply that it didn’t matter which terminal you bonded, whichever one you bonded would become the N, the other one the L. You say breakers won’t work without an NE bond but let’s be clear, an overload breaker will still work, it is just an RCD that won’t. The other thing to bear in mind is that some devices such as the travelpower and some inverters have a centre tapped earth bond, such that each terminal has 115v on it, they are in antiphase so the total voltage between them is 230. But the centre tapped earth means that an RCD will still trip at its fault current of 30mA or whatever. I can’t see why Renology said what they did, perhaps they are confused! Of course the NE bond has to occur before (inverter side of) the RCD for it to be effective. Or maybe their inverter’s output is somehow tie to earth or dc negative anyway, in which case an RCD will still work. As to equipment which “could potentially kill” you (pun intended, presumably!), lots of things can do this. A kitchen knife, a bicycle, a narrowboat propellor etc etc etc. What one has to look at is the probability of this happening and in the case of a mains supply that is not protected by an effective RCD, I’d say it’s pretty low. I have lived in 4 houses in my life, plus a couple of rentals when I was a student. None had RCDs on the mains rings, and in my present house still doesn’t. Nobody died yet!

I think CRT are absolutely right to to emphasise their rôle in this. If they don't persuade Government to renew their grant at current real value levels then the first people who will suffer will be boaters. Running a linear environmental park is a damn site cheaper than facilitating a 2000 mile navigation system for 35,000 boats.

Would you be able to add to this list? It might help future mobile fitters-out.

I'm not a socialist ! I could participate in this scheme if I wanted to and the woman will have the option of buying her council flat at half price shortly but neither of those things will happen. This is because we both have some morals and completely disagree with these models. Fine to make money no problem but making money out of basic non negotiable needs? No thanks. You are in danger of making unfounded judgements against people whose circumstances you are not privy to. Be careful doing this. To suggest someone is only against the BTL profits because they are not receiving any is either a joke or just being gratuitously offensive. I expect and hope it was the former !

With careful manipulation of the valves on the bottles it should be possible to bypass any locks on the system... 😂

Most memorable one on river thames hurtling along with another boat. The plan was the sober one on our boat to jump off at the bridge for a car shuffle. Realised keys for the ( company car) were with the owner on the other boat. Quick 10 /4 on the CB radio and the keys were found. It was at this point that the effects of lunchtime drinking took control and an attempt was made to exchange the keys by air despatch between the boats. Somewhere between henley and marlow are the keys for a charcoal grey peugeot 1.9 gti.

I lived on the boat on a farm at at Croughton just outside Chester many years ago. The moorings are still there, not sure if people are still allowed to live on. I am unconvinced you are actually serious about all this. How big is the boat you've acquired? If it's just you, it doesn't matter much. If it's you, partner and kids it becomes rather important. What's the engine? Is there solar? Heating? It doesn't seem as if you know any of this. And a boat is a money pit. Unless you're an engineer, maintenance will cost you three times what you envisage, and it comes in walloping big lumps, like about ten grand when the water starts coming in through an old hull, or a couple of thousand to fix the gearbox. The other thing that strikes me as odd is how little research you've done. You'll get some info here, but the crucial stuff is to read and digest the stuff CRT supplies. The licencing rules, safety exam rules, insurance etc, and you seem to know nothing of any of these.

You've not been to the Ulverston Canal then?

1) My Wife 2) All sense of dignity