blackrose

Yes two forms of heating and a bed. 🤔 But if you're not in a marina you might get away without the bed. Other items like a kitchen sink and a toilet obviously aren't essential depending on whether or not you're in a marina.🥴

Apart from your dilemma about the boat itself, I'm afraid I can't help thinking that this may be another issue for anyone on a limited budget who's contemplating living on a boat. There will always be things to repair on the boat as well as regular maintenance and if you're not hands on or practically inclined and don't know anyone who can help who is, then it will end up costing a lot of money to get people in.

I'm a bit confused. Presumably they've been sitting in that position since the disaster and were always visible at low tide. It's just the drone footage that's new?

Yes it's not really anything to do with the light source itself (LED, halogen, etc) but simply about the tunnel light not being properly aligned. A bright halogen tunnel lamp can be just as blinding if it's pointed straight into your eyes.

Or is that another one of those canal boaters myths, like how steel quality was better in the old days? Surely battery technology and QC in manufacture would only have improved? Assuming we're talking about decent batteries. If we're talking about cheap batteries then I might agree.

Yes, from memory my T1275s were similar

3mm bulge across the short ends? Are you sure that's just happened and wasn't there originally? 3mm is a pretty small difference to determine by eye or have you actually measured a bulge which wasn't there before? How old are they? I'd send Trojan an email and see what they think. Have a look on their website for contact details. It might save you throwing away good batteries

It's all a bit vague. What sort of heating system(s) does the boat have. A dead alternator and faulty heating system don't make a dud boat. What else is wrong with it? You'll really have to volunteer some more information if you want any help. At the moment your communication skills seem like your biggest impediment.

I'm a bit late to the discussion but what would you like them to do exactly? It's very easy to criticise but what's your idea instead of these posters?

I live aboard but I'm often away for several days at a time or sometimes a couple of weeks. In winter I isolate the water tank, switch off the water pump and open a couple of taps. I leave an electric oil filled radiator on set at 6C on the minimum power setting. If you do this ideally you have one with a thermostat so that it only comes on when the ambient temperature drops. Most of them do have thermostats. I also isolate the gas bottles in the locker. My mains charger stays on. Been doing this for over 15 years without a problem.

This topic has been done to death so many times on this forum but it just keeps coming back around, year after year. I guess narrow boaters love discussing stern types. Perhaps someone should pin a few of these threads up so we don't have to start from scratch every time.

I don't think it really makes much difference whether you prep the hull any further, use vactan or just slap a few coats of bitumen on by itself. Unless you use a better paint system you'll have to do it all again in a few years time. As soon as you start to see rust on the waterline you've got about a year to get the boat out again. So if you use bitumen don't worry too much about the standard of the prep or the coatings. As long as you keep doing it regularly it will be fine.

To answer one of the OP's questions: If you book a survey the vendor will know you're a serious prospective purchaser and so should take the boat off the market once you've got your survey booked - or at least put other prospective buyers on hold until your survey is complete. You need agreement about that from the vendor of course.

So you want to switch the battery charger part of your combi off at night too? How odd. My separate charger just stays switched on while on shore power. Most people don't switch them off at night. If the batteries are only a few % down in the morning is it good for them to be cycled from that high SoC every day? Ideally I thought it's better if they're less than 95% charged before they're charged up again.

Depends on the length of the hose. Or it wouldn't take that much imagination or inginuity to fit an outlet on both sides of the boat connected to the gulper via an L-port valve so that only one could be used

If you want to empty your grey water into a hedge rather than the waterway then you could just do it by connecting a hose to the skin fitting and just pumping it out with a whale gulper instead of fitting a grey water tank - at least while moored. For a boat in this country the best way to get rid of grey water is a whale gulper 220. All the rest of these ideas are giving yourself more hassle. Ok we're polluting the waterways but the canals are sewers anyway and there's a lot worse that goes into them than a bit of soapy water. Rivers flush themselves clean.

If you're not enjoying it anymore perhaps after 25 years it's time to consider taking up a different hobby that won't irritate you so much and you'll find more pleasant? After 22 years I can see the waterways are a lot more crowded, but then the whole country is a lot more crowded so that's to be expected. Yes I see the odd idiot but my experience is really not as bad as the picture you're painting. I think we see what we want to see. If one constantly looks for negative things than that's exactly what we'll find. At the end of the day if we don't like something that we've been doing for many years and we're not finding it as pleasurable anymore then the option is to stop doing it and do something else.

Also bear in mind that a lot of people commenting on widebeams have very little or absolutely no first hand experience of them. I've been living on a bog standard 57 x12ft Liverpool Boats NB-style widebeam for the past 15 years. I've also punched Thames on red board from Laleham to Reading in 2 days by myself. Been up and down the tidal Thames between teddington and limehouse a couple of times including going downstream & the difficult turn into limehouse. Been all the way from Reading to Bristol on the K&A without a problem, done parts of the river Severn. Crossed the Bristol channel from from Bristol via portishead to sharpness, the warks Avon, etc, etc. I've moved my widebeam more than most narrowboaters that I know. My boat may seem unwieldy to the inexperienced but I can assure you it isn't. It steers and swims very well and that was also the opinion of one of the Gloucester pilots and also the opinion an active and respected forum member who's steered it on a couple of occasions. Unwieldy is all relative anyway. A 60ft narrowboat may seem unwieldy compared to a 20ft grp cruiser. So bear in mind that some narrow boaters like to put down widebeams even though most don't really know what they're talking about.

If you bought a new sailaway and had it fitted professionally it would probably end up costing more than had the shell builder had it fitted professionally in the first place.

Don't you ever feel like venturing out away from the canals to some more dynamic and interesting waterways? I know it's a canal forum but I'm always amazed at the number of boaters who don't seem to have any experience of navigating rivers. At least that's the impression many give by limiting everything they say to canals. For me, the most enjoyable boating I've done is dealing with tides and currents.

I did it by having the prop repitched ostensibly to give me more engine revs as it was overpitched previously. However, as well as giving me more power the repitch has allowed me to go a bit slower in gear at idle, which is often very handy when you're following someone who's travelling far too slowly! 🥴 But seriously it is handy to be able to pass moored boats without being shouted at or approach locks and moorings tentatively.

Best to ask your GP for a list of psychiatrists in your area. 😋

Perhaps the OP could pick up an abandoned boat for next to nothing? I've seen a few half sunk (and fully sunken) boats on my travels, but how does one distinguish an abandoned boat from one that's just not been maintained. It might look abandoned but we all have different levels of what we deem fit for purpose and it could be someone's pride and joy. I've seen people on some right piles of crap that I'd only consider fit for scrap, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.