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I have to say this is really disappointing and short sighted. Not just because it makes a mockery of the current morring reduction trial period but because of the further impact on the towapth. Back in 2016, the north side towpath was resurfaced from the city centre,, out towards Wolverhampton. At that time I was doing my post-grad thesis on 'towpath conflict' and how changes to the built environment could either increase or decrease it. I spoke at length with A*** M******* who was the project lead for Birmingham City Council and J*** H***** who was the project lead for CRT. As part of these meetings we discussed the towpath 'improvements' on the north side and I was told that the same would be done on the south side at some point. I expressed my concerns about this, my comments being along the lines of "now that one side is done, it has pushed many towpath users to the other, muddier side so they can get away from the cyclists. if you do the other side the dog walkers etc will have nowhere to go". Having 2 towpaths means that 2 different surfaces and approaches can be adopted and everyone can be catered for. It was like talking to a brick wall. Both of them simply couldn't conceive of a reason why a towpath shouldn't be tarmacked if there's money to do it. I was met with blank stares from both of them when I tried to explain the problem. In 2016, the money came from the DfT via a thing called the Cycle City Ambition Grant. I presume another pot of grant money has now been awarded and again CRT and BCC can't think of anything to do with it but to tarmac more towpath. I was told in 2016 that the towpaths were chosen because they were "quick wins". In case you were wondering, yes I found various postive correlations between 'improving' towpaths and various negative outcomes, including more accidents and injuries and towpath users being driven away. It's also worth mentioning that the works done on the towpaths are often in direct contravention of the Trust's own guidelines for towpath design, introduced in 2013 https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/original/6873.pdf?v=cafb81

We had a house by the Thames 86-96 so I was watching the boats all the time. When some family money fell in my lap aged 20 I started living on the narrow boat we had at end of garden then when we sold the house in 1996 more money so a bigger boat and did a lot of cruising about on the cut. These days due to entanglement with woman and having children I'm not free to be nomadic although it is my natural state. Such is life. Do have some good memories of fully aloof cruising about with the dog and my mum and her dogs on another boat. That was a funny way to spend your 20s ! I like boats.

I think the tide of opinion has turned on this as more information has come out regarding the OP's personal and financial circumstances. It's all very well taking a few calculated risks here and there but, to me, this is starting to look reckless. Selling a property for (probably) considerably less than it's worth then using the proceeds to buy a narrow boat for 3 people to live on even though they have no idea whether or not it's a life that they will enjoy in reality, not just in their dreams. If it goes wrong for one reason or another, as it does for many people who sell a property to buy a boat to live on, what then? I wouldn't dream of doing something like this but then I'm not a risk-taker. However, I would have thought that even a seasoned risk-taker would want to think very long and very hard before diving in at the deep end in these circumstances. There must surely be a way of improving quality of life without risking everything like this?

Yeahhhhhhh, I may have mentioned this before but I got volunteered into holding a horses head steady whilst a vet castrated a stallion, rather late in its life, no major problem tbh I'm not fazed by blood, but when the vet rather casually thew the first bollock over his shoulder to the dogs, even that wasn't much of a issue, it was the crunchy sound made by the dogs chewing that made me get a bit twitchy

Be careful of what you say on here, People don’t need to know your personal life and how your going to fund your boat or what benefits your claiming, but they could get wound up about it and become very judgmental and anti. Remember it’s a Public forum and anyone can view it. Please don’t go on about your Benefit claims, it could turn sour.

agree LadyG... and it will give me worth again.. it doesnt need to be every day, all day.. i can take my time with my families help. we are also members of english heritage so can find some houses, castles etc on our travels to visit.... also, regarding my post about skimming benefits.. i apologise.... my wife was reading the comments, read my replies and gave me a whack.... i must heed your warnings & do everything correctly... i am still sore about my wife loosing her job for "thinning reasons" or thats what the company said.... so again... i profusely apologise.. i have removed it.

Correction, in bad weather you remain moored up and visit the pub.

In bad weather one persoon drives the boat, and with the back doors shut and a brollie you can have a lot of weather protection. The other person goes inside the boat where it is warm and cosy and gets some jobs done. There is absolutely no point in standing outside in the rain watching somebody else drive the boat. 😀

I used to do same til one of my visitors lost the cushion in the cut somewhere on the Leeds Liverpool. He suffered from piles, and got his just reward.

We made a couple of cushions for the sides of our trad that sit on the roof between the hatch side and rail, means we can both be on the back when out and about. I say we, all i did was buy the foam and cut to shape and buy the vinyl for the covers, J did all the fancy sewing and adding zips.

I went to the inlands waterways festival in Wakefield 1992. Spent 3 days trudging in near knee deep mud. Absolutely smitten with the all the boat life. Several years on hire boat holidays, then finally boat ownership. Only regret is that we didn’t do it earlier.

Tied on the rail, like a Cowboys Horse outside the Saloon in the Wild West🤠

The thing to do, if you have a long hallway in your house is to cram everything you own in it, including your family, a toilet and a sink, a lawnmower and spend the week living in it. If you can achieve this, then you have passed the test.

You can also get two whales in a mini...... Up the M4. Damn, that joke doesn't work in text format

Same (well, similar) rubber band is used for docking their tails. They are at that age - you'd need a whole flock to get enough for a decent meal. Bit like the visitor to Madrid A man travels to Spain and goes to a restaurant near the bull ring for a late dinner. He orders the house special and he is brought a plate with potatoes, corn, and two large meaty objects. "What's this?" he asks? "The Matador Special, Senor," the waiter replies. "What meat is it?" the man asks. "Cojones," the waiter explains, "They, are the testicles of the bull who lost at the arena this afternoon." At first the man is disgusted; but being the adventurous type, he decides to try this local delicacy. To his amazement, it is quite delicious. In fact, it is so good that he decides to come back again the next night and order it again. This time, the waiter brings out the plate, but the meaty objects are much smaller. "What's this?" he asks the waiter. "The Matador Special, senor," the waiter replies. "No, no," the man objects, "I had the Matador Special yesterday and it was much bigger than this." "Senor," the waiter explains, "the bull does not always lose." Edit : wish if they are going to be merged they at least leave a gap, instead of the 1st line of the 2nd post being attached directly to the last line of the 1st post. I then have to come and edit and move the 2nd post down a couple of lines to split them up.

The Barney boats were well designed little craft. Nice trad stern, little single cylinder Sabb diesel under the step and an extra large hatch. One of the best little narrow boats ever made in my view.

I see you divide and rule! Howard

Flog the house, spend the money on beer, bacon and boating then worry about the rest later. That's what I did except never bought the house in the first place. My kids will get nothing from me other than rusty old boats and a large stash of gold buried in Oxfordshire at an undisclosed location.

Not everyone here realises that I have the body of a 30 year old. Like you, I keep it in the back cabin....

Look up and read "Deprivation of Assets" You are in the system, once your address changes, with Benefit claims pending, the question of where the capital from the house sale is, will be asked. Any mortgage repayment will be allowed for, wheres the rest? If it's not available to you, because of something you did, the capital will be considered as still being available to you, meaning any benefit claim will be reduced, untill it's considered the "capital" is used up. This will affect all persons named on the house Deeds. As advised, keep the house, rent it out through a Letting Agent, in general, expect 10 months rent per year, the other two will be eaten up in fees, routine maintance etc. A good agent will have a group of tradesmen that do work for them and their landlords. A byproduct of this is the tradesmen will do good work, for a fair price, to keep the steady work coming in. Equity Release, might work in the short term, but you will lose the built up value in the house, leaving nothing to pass on, but still have all the maintance costs. Bod

Looking at the weather forecast we might finally get a bit of rain And I can stay in pub. 👍 might have to stay for a week going by forecast

In three years I have only once worn my Ocean going oilskins, there is always more time for pottering than locking, places to visit, shops for shopping, coffee and cake at Betty's or canalside cafés, window shopping. Museums, art galleries, cinemas. Then there is gathering firewood, washing the boat, sanding the boat, painting the boat, it's a full time job!

They wedge in so not easy to dislodge, and have already survived the acid test of the BiL Although now you've made me tempt fate haven't you, you little tinker

That sounds very much like mine. Just measured it, the slide hatch is 5’ long giving a standing space of 4’2”. Its a great space for two, one steering and one sat up on the side. But 3 people and 2 dogs can manage. Its also handy for hopping down into when doing locks. In bad weather I pull the hatch as close to me as I can and stay dry from waist down. I wouldn’t fancy being on a cruiser stern in the rain.

I have just finished working on a PRM 120 gearbox, a very different animal to the PRM hydraulic boxes. These are the shafts inside the box: Back left is the input shaft with the input spline sticking down below the endplate. On the right is the output shaft, the drive flange slips onto the splines at the top. On the front left is the reverse idler shaft. The input shaft has a wheel that is permanently engaged with the output gear at the top, and another that is permanently engaged with the reverse idler and reverse output gear at the bottom At the heart of this box is this: On the left is a sleeve with a cone on each end, the cone having a friction coating on it. On the right is one of the output gears which has a matching conical bore in it. The cone clutch works inside the output gear like this: The cone at one end locks with the forward output gear, the one at the other works with the reverse output gear: This sleeve is moved from one cone to neutral to the other cone by a simple mechanism: All this mechanism does is move the clutch across until it starts to drag. The clutch is locked by an eight start spiral thread inside the sleeve: Once the cone starts to engage, it begins to turn the output shaft. This in turn puts some torque onto the spiral on the shaft, which tries to push the sleeve further down the shaft and more firmly into the cone. A nice piece of positive feedback So, we have an input shaft in constant mesh with the two output gears, one directly and one through the reverse idler. The double ended cone is slid from side to side to lock the output shaft to the appropriate output gear, and locks in place through the shaft spiral. Very neat. It took me a while to remember where I had seen a double ended clutch working on a spiral: Yes, it's the Glennifer RB2 reversing box. The PRM 120 must weigh about the same as the cone in that box This box was in very nice condition, except it didn't work. It looks like they are sensitive to having the Morse control properly adjusted. This one had worn all of the lining off one cone: Richard

Whatever type of stern you have on a narrow boat don't sit or stand inside the arc of the tiller when steering the boat. If the rudder is fouled it can, in unusual situations, turn the tiller bar into a lever which is capable of throwing someone in the water or pinning them against the stern rail. Some very nasty accidents have happened like this although I think most of them were when going astern which is obviously likely to whip the tiller round specially if you hit a low edge which is below the level of the stern fender. Not ideal.

I would suggest a FB group called benefits for boaters, highly recommended and moderated by people who actually know about this stuff

Just make the boat six foot longer and put the bed somewhere else. Under deck for storage of coal, charcoal, firewood, spiders, beer, wine and extra capacity fresh water tanks and beer. You could also stick a couple of compressor cool boxes under there and wind them down to -15 thereby providing a nice little deep freeze area.

Thats fine if you like sleeping in a coffin that you have to slide into - not for me.

Yeah, tie it (tightly!) onto the piles... 😉 (same basic idea as they used to use for castrating sheep IIRC...)

A boat that is suitably equipped (electrically, water etc etc) for a 7 month family cruise will be a very different boat to a '2 weeks holiday a year' boat, just ensure you buy a properly equipped liveaboard boat, and not a 'leisure boat', or, you will have lots of fun spending lots of money to make it comfortably usable.

Never mind that, how about THIS for taking 1970s chauvinism to a whole new level? Curious error in the text too. I think the right word would have been "consign", rather than "confine". Probably an error by the bloke's secretary...