DeanS

Walking along the towpath this morning..merrily chatting to boaters....I walk past one with that wonderful..chug chug chug chug sound. So I say to him....I love the sound of your engine. "Thank you" he says. "Is it a Lister?" I ask? "No, it's a Gartner" he said. I don't think he was impressed with me.

I'd never pay in advance without seeing what you're buying or who you're buying from. I won the bid, sent a text message to the seller... phoned him in the morning. caught a 1hr bus to the boat. spent most of the day on the boat with him Paid £20. Checked he received it. Went with his dad to fetch 4 solar panels from his home. Paid the rest. Cruised off with the boat. I had to ask another boater who was an ebay pro how to bid. He taught me the secret to winning a bid. It worked...but it was very nerve wracking.

I bet you haven't read this one... the new CRT Guidelines for Boaters without a Home Mooring.....

Being stuck on a sandbank in the middle of the River Aire (I think it is), at 4pm on a Friday, with kids on board...and the fear of the bottom of the boat being stuck by vacuum to the mud beneath while the river levels rise (this sinking a boat), and with father in law on next bridge wondering how he'll get back on board before nightfall or sleep in the bushes....is.... not... an emergency. as I found out. My son Googled the procedure for unsticking a boat by swaying it from side to side, which eventually worked, with me revving the Lister engine madly in reverse.

Hi. Which is the larger generator. 4.8 Kva or 3700Watt my brain can't think and someone I know is asking me....

I'm happy. Paid with bank transfer after first doing a £20 test (which he refunded me in diesel) Spent most of the day with seller. Had also spoken with father seperately. Photographed seller. Photographed father and car reg. Seller knew the boat inside and out, down to the smallest detail. (him and father had refitted it to a certain standard). A lot of extras. No issues with the engine besides smoking, but I'm not intending much cruising with it. Fun to cruise a short boat though compared to a widebeam. Loved it. Boat not perfect, but in the clear Bridgewater canal waters, the hull condition was clear to visually inspect. I've seen a lot worse still floating. If it needs some hull work in future, I'm ok with it. My choices were limited and this boat saves me a lot of fitting work I didn't really have time for...ceilings and most walls done.All steel. (most in that price range have been wooden boats) My first boat I bought, was the first boat I ever looked at....also no survey...was lucky...the back story of this boat is that it was built by a private engineer...who then passed away...his family pulled it out the water...eventually a charity asked if they could sell it to get funds for the charity, and the new owner purchased it....stripped it, did it up, and then decided to move on... Whether or not it was a mistake or not, is too late...I made the decision and went for it. So far, it's still floating, and I'm quite happy Thanks for everyones comments. ps...a lot of boaters in that area seemed to know him...as well as the CRT enforcement officer, who didn't believe I was actually going to be moving the boat that same day....took a lot of convincing, as he'd seen it on that stretch before:)

Thanks all. My plan is...go and see the boat. Checkout the owner as far as possible. Click the link in the ebay email which leads to PayPal I think. Make the payment. Expect the owner to get an email saying it's gone through. Take the boat. sound ok? Failing which..an Internet payment which will leave a trail.

I won an Ebay bid this evening for a boat...priced over £10000...... What's the normal process of actually making payment. My plan is to phone the seller in the morning, make a visit to the boat, carrying a briefcase full of cash. but doe's Ebay expect payment some other way.... shall I make payment via Internet banking....? I made the decision on the purchase through the information provided in the ebay listing. I'll be checking those facts in person, ....would like to make the payment, start the boat, and cruise off. thx.

I'd suggest watching a few boats going through some locks (both directions/up and down) before you take the boat out.... Here is a few things to be sure of: Going downhill...make sure the stern of the boat is forward of the cill....as you can get into real trouble if your rudder/skeg gets caught while a lock is emptying. Going downhill...make sure the bow of the boat can't get caught on anything sliding down the front gates and get hung up. Going uphill, ...make sure the bow fender of the boat can't get caught on the front gate..which will force the bow down while the stern is rising. Going uphill....before you open the upstream gates and leave the lock, make sure the upper pound has enough water in it to ensure the boat doesn't get caught on the lock exit. When operating locks, beware of well meaning people trying to help you...especially if they are trying to rush you in a lock. Some folk don't respect who is in charge of the lock and whip open the paddles before the person steering the boat is happy for them to do so. Be very careful of tying the boat centre line to a bollard to secure the boat while it is going to be moving upwards. The rope will pull the boat over sideways. Be very careful of putting a rope around a lock bollard...even if you think you'll loosen it manually as the boat rises. Wear non slip shoes. Watch out for projecting stones on the side walls of locks that can hook the boat. Keep side fenders up when going through locks. The gates can rip them off, and they can cause the boat to jam. (especially if sharing with another boat). Get the hire base to show you how to clear the weed hatch if you get a rope or sofa tangled around the prop. Have a great time ))))

Went to Sainsburies. 8.7% last week. Lloyds wanted to charge us 29% interest. (and that's after paying them back without a hiccup a previous loan at 11% over the past 5 yrs). Unimpressed with them is an understatement...I was expecting the red carpet....

I'm on the lookout for a 2nd boat...probably about 35ft....round the £10 000 mark...and have seen a few....some in the Birmingham area... If I was to buy a boat in that area, and needed to pay someone to bring it back to Manchester for me...in the next month or so, does anyone have any idea of how long that should take, and how much I should pay someone to do it? Just trying to figure out if I am going to have to buy local in my area, or can afford to look a little further......obviously whatever I have to pay to move the boat, comes out of the budget I would have to fix up the boat...so trying to do my sums wisely. If you have advice on this, if you could estimate the fuel cost as well, that would be handy:) THANKS:) D

To those of you who offered genuinely friendly answers to my genuinely friendly question...THANKS. I'm happily convinced.

I should have mentioned earlier, that the boat in question will never move out of the marina, so wouldn't suffer the same effects as a boat which hits things. The purpose of the thread isn't too be sarky at all ...but after working with plasterboard quite a bit, I'm impressed by it's simplicity...but understand why it wouldn't be best in a moving boat..or a wet boat...

Good points. It would absorb water if there was water to absorb..which there shouldn't be. (just like in a house.) Weight...interesting comment that....I wouldn't have thought it would be that much more. I mean some people have granite worktops, which weigh a lot more. On the strength side of things...they use it in a nursery school I work in, and 40 kids haven't damaged any walls yet....and if a wall has a hole, a bit of plaster...and paint, and it's perfect again.......

Greetings all. I've been working a lot with plasterboard on land, and was wondering if anyone uses it inside of a boat. The normal is to fit 9mm ply to walls, and maybe 18mm for bulkheads...but is plasterboard an option, if there's no way of it getting wet. (which there shouldn't be). And would an option for insulation, be to use that pink stuff that normally goes in ceilings. I have access to about 10 rolls of the stuff. Pros... Quick and easy to cut and build with. Easy to paint over. Modern interior finish. Easy to mount elec boxes and switches. Cheaper than ply. Ceiling would remain ply 4mm. Thinking of fitting it over existing old walling if I buy an old second hand boat. tin helmet on.

My widebeam scraped the entire Leeds Liverpool in both directions 2yrs back, making it possible for narrowboats to use it for the past 24mths.....

In a tribute to her today, some very true words...."she will never know how many peoples lives have been made better through her efforts"... very sad.

This is not strictly true. As in all canals around the country, there are only certain hotspots where some boats may have overstayed....by years.........namely Castlefield basin. Many of those boats have now been offered winter moorings, running into permanent moorings. All the CRT boats that didn't want to overstay, have moved up into New Islington marina at the top of the Rochdale 9...so the BCC has lost out on their cash (they are now paying NI fees. Basically all that's happened is someone on the BCC decided they didn't want liveaboards on that canal, and chased them away...me included. I now have no need for the BCC....it would only be used to get to Wigan to get my boat blacked.....which is a huge pity...I think a lot of the canal side businesses will struggle without CRT boats.....I frequented shops in all the small towns along it, bought gas, fuel, etc at the chandleries....ate in all the restaurants....but I'm not going to pay £160 a month to cruise up and down it........

Yes, but you can take a left at Wigan, go to Leeds, down through Huddersfield and come back to Manchester on the Ashton.....unless you're a wide beam

Unfortunately, the canal businesses on the Bridgewater have lost about £1000 of business/year from me due to the enforcement. Not a lot, but it all adds up I'm sure. If you want some "real" boating...mooring in out the way places...far from the noise of the city...going up the Rochdale is awesome...

Thanks all... The 100 bulbs are for a land building. The guy has free elec at night, and wants to capture it by charging batteries, and then during the day, use the stored power to keep indoor lights on for 12hours...

Hi all. 100 LED lamps. 3Watts each. 240V I work that out needing approx 1-2Amps ...to supply them all... but how much current is drawn from the 12V batteries. Will it be... 300Watts divided by 12V = roughly..25Amps........and over 12 hours....300Amps.... So would you really need to have 6 batteries recharged daily with a 30Amp charger...charging for 10hours each night.....to cope. Is this right, or have I made some terrible error?

Haven't read all the posts, but....if you leave your marina...and travel almost 50 locks to a beautiful spot......where there is only 1 elsan point and 2 water points..(one on each side of a hill), and have no real reason to travel 50 locks back to your marina simply to "reset the clock" ...then it makes complete sense to me, that you would cruise between those 2 water points every 2 weeks, to empty your toilet at least. You're forced to not travel further away, since (being a marina moorer) you do actually have a local job in an area, so catch the train back on a daily basis. So in my mind, practical issues such as this, are paramount when it comes to answering the question..."how far/how often must a marina boat travel when out their marina". The alternative is for a marina boat to remain in their marina and never leave. Those are the only 2 practical solutions. ;-) ETA.....I did get an enforcement letter.... ETA.....I also got a phone called months later(when back in my marina...asking if I had moved yet)

Yep...I'm on that one....a bit of a story...their letter said to phone them before the 5th May to tell them what plan you wanted to move onto...otherwise you would go onto a 1Gig plan......so I phoned on the 4th, and they said...sorry...we need 48hrs notice.... So I explained that's not what the letter said, and I didn't want 1Gig.....so the guy said they'd leave me the 1Gig for May, but do a special deal and give me the unlimited phone+30Gig tethering...since it was their mistake, and he would speak to their billing dept.....and from June, I would be on the upgraded one permanently. Day2. No internet. (You have used your allowance.) Phoned...spoke to them...They said I should reboot the phone or wait 24hrs. Day 3 No internet (You have used your allowance). Phoned ...they said...sorry..we have activated the 30Gigs now....wait 24hrs... Day4....same... day5....same....spoke to a guy...very apologetic...said the 30Gig from day1 had never been added...I should wait 24hrs... Day 6.....after 36hrs...it kicked in. I've installed a little bandwidth monitor on my PC...called BitMeter....and I found that the autoplay setting on Facebook will eat up bandwidth....so I switched that off....and then realised that just be leaving Facebook sitting open in my browser tabs (not actually in it looking at anything) will see the bandwidth meter clocking up...so now I click the red x and close Facebook when not in use...and I've used 300Megs since last night...obviously YouTube vids etc will eat a lot.....but 30Gigs is better than what they were offering