Leaderboard

Welcome to the forum. I know who you are 😀. You will get a lot of advice here but only some of it will be based on real boaty wisdom. Its a sort of game where you have to decide who to believe.😀

You could charge people a pony each way. @rusty69

And the boatyard has ripped you off as a result. I think it is in your best interest to move on to another boatyard as soon as possible, for a fresh start on the work that remains. You now have an overplated blacked hull. Do you have the engine in and working? If so you can move on. You have working gas cooking and stove heating. You can manage with water in containers if necessary. And a porta potti type toilet. Likewise electricity isn't absolutely essential except for starting the engine. If the batteries have not been used for years they will be useless. So as a minimum get a new starter battery and check it is being charged by the engine alternator and by the solar. Disconnect the leisure batteries. Then you should be able to move the boat to somewhere nearer home, even if it does feel a bit like camping on board.

CRT mention that the towpath is too narrow for horses to be used safely. There must be plenty of benefit claimants in the area, though? My suggestion is to make Universal Credit recipients perform the role of human tugs (three or four to a rope) for free haulage along the section of the canal in question. One day working on the tug team absolves you from needing to show a week of applying for jobs when you attend your JobCentre. The team spirit of hauling boats on a rope would be an excellent motivation for the jobless. To make it more fun, CRT would offer a free blue t-shirt to all participants with their logo and a choice of Happy to pull you off, Here's one I tugged earlier or Waterway to earn a living slogans. Repeat attendees would earn badges to pin on their shirts, with six levels of... etc. etc.

I now see you are planning to live aboard. It's worth having a good look at the many posts on the forum about buying a boat to live on. Many pros and cons but not for me to say as I don't liveaboard and wouldn't want to. Some people do want to, others do it out of necessity. I expect you'll be getting many replies on the subject before too much longer. Some of them will be saying things you don't want to hear. At that point some people get the hump and storm off never to be heard from again. Try to resist that, there is a lot to be gained by sticking around and hearing what peop!e with far more experience than me have to say.

3 options for moving the boat to a new area... 1. DIY 2. Hire a professional (insured) boatmover to do it for you. 3. Have it craned out and taken by road. In terms of "pilot" licenses etc, there are no requirements. Thousands of people hire narrowboats with no previous experience and get perhaps an hours tuition a d then they're on their own. Have you tried hiring? It's a good idea to do so before buying anyway. A weekend or midweek hire out of season is probably money well spent.

I keep chickens (on land not boat) one day swmbo arrived home not with 4 new pullets as instructed but 'even better' 4 ducklings.... The man said there no trouble she said... in fairness they were similar to the chickens .....but they are dirty bastards.... think projectile duck shit.... all up the sides of the coop/house..... They loved ripping up my lawn and scratching every plant out. Some people love duck eggs personally I hated them, they are fine in cakes but no good boiled scrambled or fried for me. One night they all disappeared must have been a fox.... So get a chicken don't go anywhere near dirty bastard ducks....

The funds you speak of are the ones which used to come from the tax payer. You know, all those members of the non boating public who also enjoyed, and still enjoy what the waterways offer. In my opinion, the tax payer should still partially fund maintenance of the system. Particularly as C&RT have placed the wishes of the general public over boaters in recent years. In a way the public are contributing via the 'charity' revenue initiatives, but shouldn't our national heritage still be partially supported through taxation? (rather than pick on fat boats and those without a home mooring)

This is actually a perfect example of why a wiki would be a good thing. Wikis are supposed to present facts and eliminate opinion. There would be one page for each toilet type and all the *facts* about each presented - nothing preferred over the other, people can read all the pages in question and make their own decisions. The same thing happens now (I imagine) reading through the forum but the information is extremely diluted and full of snarkiness, arguing, and opinion-based language.

So I bought a canal boat. A 60foot, 1994, trad' narrow boat. I'd not bought a boat before. The brochure gave the appearance that the boat was in great shape. The survey I had done revealed a somewhat grittier picture, but I'd fallen in love and, on the strength of advice from the boat broker that the work that needed doing would cost me around £13-16k, I negotiated a stiff price reduction and went ahead with the purchase. There was some serious mis-selling involved, which I will be looking to take action over. I took the boat to a nearby boatyard and was given a series of very reasonable figures for the various bits of work that needed doing that were beyond my skillset. However, things have become nightmarish. They've already had £18,000 off me (because the hull needed completely replating instead of patching and apparently the steel cost £17k.) Everything they look at costs way more than originally stated or wasn't mentioned but "needs doing". New engine mounts. New propellor. I was told that a gasket set would cost a few hundred quid. That's now changed to £1800. I asked for a complete engine service and was told £380. THat's changed to "thousands if we go ahead with it, or put it back unserviced and take your chances". I'm looking at a final bill of around £30k+ for what amounts to hull replated with a single sheet of steel, and blacked, new anodes, engine mounts, a new propellor, the engine removed, cleaned, oil sump gasket replaced and engine replaced, a hatch into the diesel tank because "there's no other way of cleaning it out", and water tank cleaned and painted, and that's it. This makes the final cost of the boat north of £60k and the toilet still doesn't work and the inverter also doesn't work, despite both showing up as working in the survey I had done. I'm on the verge of nervous collapse, if not actual bankruptcy over this. Do these costs seem unusually high to anyone? (They do to me.) (This is not in London, or anywhere near London.) I told them there was a strict budget involved but that has been ignored. I stand to lose somewhere around £50k on this as it stands. I have no idea what to do or where to turn.

You're gonna have to get off and do a lock eventually!

Boating life is never simple....

No, What are you sayin? Sorry, OP, just ignore us, we are a pair of fools. Well, he is. Ignore everything he says, and you'll be fine.

A friend went to the school PTA where they met their son's maths teacher (he was about 6 IIRC) who said he was doing very well, especially with arithmetic, but that it was strange that he could spot numbers which added up to 15 or 31 really quickly... 🙂

Restoration is sexy - volunteers aplenty, fund raising, grants and all the rest. Brass bands and fireworks for every mile. Then, hand it over to the CRT, hardly any boats visit the wonderful restored side arm to Crumpton Nowhere and ..... routine maintenance, managing all the whinging of various users, trying to prise money out of government and others is absolutely necessary, expensive and distinctly unsexy. CRT should refuse to connect or take over any new restorations unless an adequate, perpetual maintenance fund has also been established.

I thought it was a scale model of the now closed Rugby Radio Station at Hillmorton.

I looked for a boat before looking for a mooring. The broker I bought through was based in a marina and that marina and another one very nearby, and in the same group, both had moorings. I'm still there nearly 8 years later. It's a lot fuller than it was back then but there do always seem to be vacancies. I suggest looking for a boat and enquiring about a marina mooring at the same time. You can always look for another mooring elsewhere at a later date if that's what you want.

Very true. I've never met anyone, leisure or CCer, who spoke in derogatory terms of other boater's choices. I think the crunch will come hardest for the non-liveaboard CCers as they've got houses to run as well as boats to pretend to cruise on. Those are the ones who will either get moorings or sell up.

Out in the real world away from here (the forum) there’s a much more mellow experience. I think anyone spending most of their time boating would agree? I’ve not had a face to face experience of any resentment from other ‘types’ of boaters. The odd issues at locks but that’s a different story. Generally we swop experiences and lots wish they were out all year too. Undoubtably there are some who perceive, relish and try to create a divide but I personally don’t feel it’s like that out there on the cut.

The UK waterways are one of the last microcosms of a world everyone would like to live in. One where everyone waves at eachother and tries to get on. It would be a shame to see it disappear due to a few p takers and our obsession with 'progress' and 'control'.

I suspect that CART have two reasons for proposing a CC surcharge -- one is simply to raise more money (which they desperately need), the second is that they know that so many CMers are flouting the CC rules (which CART have singularly failed to enforce -- and have no prospect of doing so) and are screwing up canal access for the more law-abiding boaters that they want to try and use pricing to get them to find and pay for a home mooring. The first one is really the government's fault, the second one is partly down to CART failing to get a grip on CMers (who are in the end the culprits) -- but having got to where we are today, it's difficult to see how else CART can try and fix this particular problem... 😞 The really sad consequence is that the boaters who will suffer as a result through no fault of their own are the genuine CCers for who the category was intended when it was introduced... 😞

I've been on Linux forums on and off for over 20 years. But it's been a while since I was this much of a noob.

This has the wrong idea of what a wiki is about. A wiki is there to record information, not act like Solomon and legislate a single perfect solution. In this case it would list the various alternative solutions and the merits and disadvantages of each, despite pumpout being the only civilised solution.

I use the term "CCer", but I'm not obsessed with it, and I don't think of it as a negative term or an insult. And I certainly don't blame CCers for problems for the condition of the canals. And much as I don't think other boaters are to blame for the lack of maintenance and investment in the canals, I don't think CRT can be blamed for the long term underfunding of the canals. Yes we can debate individual policies and decisions, but ultimately they don't have enough money so they need to raise more. Increasing the license fees is an obvious way to get more money, and looking at the way those fees are calculated makes sense. The principal of taking account of the boats use has also been established with business licences, why shouldn't boats that use the system more pay more (eg hire boats). I know there will be winners and losers from any change, and no system will be perfect. You say we should "use it or lose it" we should also realise the system needs financial support, and engage with CRT in trying to make that happen.

Well, that shows a degree naivety. That steel should be over 4mm thick and is very unlikely to be a single sheet. Have a read of this: https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/topic/115097-josephine-diy-replating-and-full-fitout-of-a-70s-hancock-and-lane-narrowboat/page/5/#comment-2898680 You say "re-plated", but the original estimate might be for local over plating, there is a difference. You have not given any idea of time elapsed, so are you aware that the cost of steel has been rising for some time. Expecting a hull re-plate for £1000 labour I think should have rung alarm bells, although I acknowledge you did not know enough to recognise this. Guessing at a labour rate of £50 an hour means it would pay for 20 hours labour. If the sump gasket was leaking, then on the majority of boats the engine will need to be lifted out. It would be faster to do that (less labour time) than trying to do it with the engine in place. Once it is out, cleaning the oily mess on the hull and engine is, in my view, simply best practice. Likewise: On the majority of narrowboats that is absolutely true, however I can't see why it needed cleaning out (lack of info), i may well do if it was suffering from bug, but there is nothing in your post to indicate it was. Likewise, why did the propeller need changing? If you agreed to having it done AFTER the boat was refloated after the re-plating there will be dry dock/slipping/crane fees on top of prop cost and labour. Please talk to Citizens Advice BEFORE taking any legal action and try to get a free half hour with a lawyer, because I suspect that you may not have strong enough grounds for success.

If only 10% of boaters claim to CC, I doubt whether even a huge increase in their fees will bring much extra income to CRT, though what it might well do is persuade the pseudo-CCers to get a mooring (should there be any available in their area). That's a bit like penalising two-bedroom households for having a spare room when there are no one bed flats available - pointless without providing the required facilities. If CRT did provide the moorings it might make sense but is probably too much to hope for.

I did pick bog choice as a slightly ridiculous example. Let's be honest cassette is the only real choice

The conservationists needn't worry CaRT will have frittered the £14 million on blue signs, more managers & bonuses before the canal opens...