Tony1

Great news old fruit, I am a fully experienced helmsman with 5 weeks experience driving a 23ft GRP on the GU, and I am available to take the job. I only charge £300 per day, but I will have to live aboard the vessel for the 12 months of the contract. And as the skipper I will require the master bedroom. A word of warning though- I run a tight ship, and I'll have no backchat from the midshipmen. Tally ho.

Not wanting to divulge any commercial secrets of course, but how much do you charge for intercourse with a person of the female persuasion? I'm about to start a new career as a waterways gigolo, so I need to get my pricing structure right. For normal sex I'm planning to offer the standard 3 minute session at £200, but also a deluxe 5 minute service at £500. No funny business, mind. Or they can pay me off by working 10 locks.

You can heat the water to the whatever temp is needed - I used the example of a strip wash but there would be several other uses for it. If personal washing it will probably be maybe 60 degrees, but even that depends on how the user wants to wash. Many boaters use their SF stove to cook and to heat water on a daily basis, whilst the stove is in use. The distance they carry their pan or pot from the SF stove to the kitchen worktop depends on the boat layout. In my case it is about 10 or 12ft. In other boats it will be longer, some will be shorter. But I do agree that carrying a 10 litre pot full of water (even at 60-70 degrees) is fairly risky, even over 10 feet. When I thought of this idea, I envisioned the pot being about 70% full at most. I would never cook or boil on a boat with a pan or pot that is anywhere close to full. But even 7 litres of hot water is a significant volume, and I agree that it would have to be carried very carefully. I've tried it using two pans of smaller volume, but if I were to try using my pot idea, I think it might be better to use two smaller pots instead of one big one. The carrying risk doesnt bother me personally, in fact I run greater risks on rainy days when lifting my 27kg ebike from the stern onto the bank. My problem is that I moor using fat yacht fenders to minimise the impact of bumping against the banks in windy conditions, but that method also allows the boat to bob around a bit when other boats pass by. So in my case, the risk that bothers me most (and one that I hadn't considered before you raised the issue of risks) is that a passing boat boat could cause enough movement to shift a tall cooking pot in some way. Its not often that a boat goes past that fast in winter, but it does happen, and a tall pot of hot water on the stove seems like a potential accident waiting to happen. I'll have to give the idea some more thought.

Tbh, I say nearly boiling but on the times I've tried it, I seldom wait that long. Most times its about 60 degrees, which is plenty hot enough to wash. I think the risk of carrying a 10 litre pot of hot water from the stove to the sink (about 10-15 feet?) is not nearly as great as the risks I already run by working locks in wet or icy conditions. Boaters carry pots and pans of very hot food from their stoves to their worktops on a daily basis during winter. Personally, I'm not convinced there is a significant safety issue. In winter I leave the stove ticking over during the night, so there is no need to use the CH in the morning. And if have the SF stove on anyway, I'm not going to waste a litre of diesel (and get the boat too hot) by running the CH at the same time.

1. I specifically mentioned his pointless calls to the DVSA to illustrate that your earlier suggestion of calling them will probably not yield any benefit. 2. I disagree. When you fill in the DVSA address update form on their website, there is no mention of correspondence addresses, and there is no facility allowing you to enter this extra information. In fact, it makes it clear that it is referring to a home address. You are then linked to that address by at least one official body, and I believe debt collection agencies can gain access to any addresses that you are personally linked to (I will provide a couple of examples below). And I also believe that local councils and other bodies might assume that you are residing there for some unspecified time. Experiences do seem to vary, but at least one member on this forum who tried using a single friend's address said there had to be some lengthy phone calls and correspondence with a local council, to explain that the boater who was using the 'home' address did not live there, and thereby reinstate the correct council tax rate. People trying to help boaters or van dwellers should not have to go through this sort of uncertainty and hassle. 3. I feel you are missing my point. Over half a million UK people are forced to use somebody else's address for the DVSA, and I think for some other official bodies. It is irrelevant that the majority of those half million people can find a friend or family member who will allow them the use of their address. What matters, in my view anyway, is that half a million people should not have to go through this charade, and state an address on a DVSA website which does not reflect reality. (And that they should potentially cause complications for the person whose address they are using.) 4. Obviously this is a matter of opinion, and I can appreciate that you are taking what you believe is a pragmatic viewpoint. But here's the thing - adapting our official systems to deal with 'address-less' people does not require any major effort from government. As I said above, it is possible and feasible for official bodies to deal with people who have no fixed address, as is evidenced by the Traveller community. The systems already exist, and those systems allow Travellers to have driving licenses, receive healthcare, and be contacted by the police if needed. It is all in place. There is no need for these half a million people to accept this unsatisfactory and untruthful workaround, which can also cause major delays to them receiving news of a serious legal issue. This is an aside, but my own view is that society has already given these people a raw deal, in forcing them to live in vehicles or boats because housing is not affordable on a low wage. For society to also force these people into co-opting a family member to support a lie is just adding insult to injury. Also, having a physical address where a warrant or other other legal document can be served is not as helpful to the police as it might appear. My previous DVSA physical address was the residence of a 90 year old man who struggled to read or understand complex documents, and I had zero confidence that any legal issue would reach me in good time, unless and until a police officer or bailiff knocked on his door asking for me - at which point he would have called me - which the official bodies could do anyway (and also email). Me having to use his address could have wasted hours of police and court time, and cost me many hundreds of pounds, because I was not able to respond to official correspondence quickly enough. A few years ago I missed paying a £2 bridge toll, and because of complications regarding my home address (with DVSA and other bodies), the next I heard of the matter was a phone call from a bailiff who had just knocked at the door of my ex partner 200 miles away, demanding £430 and threatening to seize property. There can be all manner of individual circumstances that cause difficulties when using somebody else's address, and I personally believe the quickest and most effective contact routes (even for official bodies and police) are the ones used by most businesses - email and phone.

Apologies if I'm repeating stuff, I dont have time to read all the replies made so far. You need different solutions at different times of year. For example, I get enough solar energy from my 1.4kw of panels to heat a tank of water above washing temp between mid-march and mid-Sept. It can vary of course. If you moor under trees or on heavily overcast days you might not get enough solar to heat the water. But most days you will, and certainly between April and Aug, if you have 1 to 1.5 kw of panels. So that's the summer hot water taken care of. In the marginal months, where you use diesel CH to give you the odd blast of heat on a chilly morning or evening, you can use the CH to heat the water if its set up that way on your boat. In the colder months (say Nov-Feb), I've had to run my engine to charge the batteries, and that heats the water anyway. But it does add a lot of running hours to the engine. So next winter I'm thinking of getting a generator instead to do the battery charging. If I do that I'll need an alternative to the heat provided by the engine running every day. In the cold months the SF stove is on most of the time, so my thinking is that I could use a tall stock pot to heat water for washing. like this one from Argos: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8355238?istCompanyId=a74d8886-5df9-4baa-b776-166b3bf9111c&istFeedId=c290d9a9-b5d6-423c-841d-2a559621874c&istItemId=ixwliqmit&istBid=t&utm_custom6=PLA&deeplink=true&&cmpid=GS001&_$ja=tsid:59157|acid:898-274-0554|cid:20247640952|agid:|tid:|crid:|nw:x|rnd:7453860963325015905|dvc:c|adp:|mt:|loc:9222618&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20247640952&utm_term=8355238&utm_content=shopping&utm_custom1=&utm_custom2=898-274-0554&GPDP=true&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19663889715&gbraid=0AAAAAD9II9kQNv3gc0411rOdThE2GGn8Q&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt8zABhDKARIsAHXuD7Yd3dAjF7gRuxX9upDbP6YGWZPSaXPdNGA9vr60kT4mk40JBSZ7VDAaAopeEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds It will (very slowly) heat 10 litres close to boiling, and that can be diluted about 50/50 with cold water - and that's enough to get a very good strip wash. I'm thinking of doing this myself next winter, and I'll only ever use the pot for body washing water, and never for cooking. As an alternative, one chap I met recently uses a 3500 watt MXR genny with the charge running into his shoreline socket, and that gives enough electricity to heat his water up to maybe 60 degrees in about an hour. But if you dont want to run the engine every day, the SF stove seems the most cost effective, as it is usually on anyway in winter.

My boating friend did call the DVSA a couple of times in the way you've suggested, and he spent a long time on the phone, and the result of his efforts was that he was told again that he had to have a valid postal address. It seems there is no wiggle room. And whilst I agree that there will be little or no actual correspondence from DVSA, that does not provide any sort of solace or solution for those who are forced to find a friend of family member and ask to use their address. Telling the person its all going to be fine and it wont affect their council tax rate might help, but they will be thinking 'what if you are wrong?' Either way it could be an awkward conversation, and my point is not about how infrequently DVSA will send letters, but that they are forcing you to have that difficult conversation with a third party, who might have what appear to be some very justifiable reservations. For example: Its very unlikely, but the person 'giving' you their address might worry that you could run into debt trouble. If you do, debt collection agencies will be aware that you are linked to their address, and your friend might be concerned that if things go very wrong for you, they might one day see bailiffs knocking on their door asking to speak to you. On the final point, it is not a tiny minority of people who are affected. As I said above, there are now more than half a million UK people living in vehicles and with no home address, as well as a few thousand boaters. Most of those half million will be able to find a helpful friend of family member, but my point is that they should not have to do that. The reality of these people NOT having a postal address ought to recognised, and not fudged - just as it is recognised for the Traveller community. It is clearly possible for DVSA, the NHS, and other bodies to handle this 'no fixed abode' situation, as proven by the Travellers. My question is- why cant vehicle dwellers and liveaboard boaters be given the same status?

In my view it is not good enough that DVSA are willing to accept the address of a friend, relative or even a work premises. There are plenty of people living on boats and in vehicles who simply do not have access to such an address, full stop. DVSA are forcing many people (including several hundred thousand vehicle dwellers) to have awkward conversations where they must prevail upon the uncertain goodwill of a friend or relative (assuming they have such a person in their life, which many do not). I'm retired, but there is zero chance that my employer would have allowed me to use their official premises for my DVSA correspondence. I am lucky enough that my daughter was kind enough to allow me to use her address, but my point is that these sorts of informal fudges and workarounds are not good enough. DVSA and other official bodies should be able to make contact with a driver via email. Insisting on a a postal address is in my view an unreasonable position. And given that the cost of housing in this country means that thousands more people are being forced to live in vehicles every year, DVSA are putting an increasing number of people in this awkward position - especially given that there are warnings of punishment if a driver does not keep the address on their license up to date. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I am starting to conclude that governments of all types (and their official bodies) are very much opposed to people living without a postal address in this country. But for DVSA to demand a postal address is effectively to deny reality, for many thousands of boat and vehicle dwellers in the UK.

I feel you might be conflating several issues that are better considered individually. Personally, I want to tell DVSA that I dont have a permanent address, because that is the reality. It is DVSA who make it impossible for me to reflect that reality on my driver's license. It is not enough for them that I exist as far the NHS are concerned, or that I have a bank account and various other 'official' records to prove who I am. DVSA insist on a physical address, even though I dont have one. They are effectively forcing me to lie, and I am trying to find a way to avoid lying. And I think that is a very different thing from a non-moving CCer who constantly tells CRT that they have engine failures. I honestly dont want to be offensive in saying this, but it should be said - I think your comparison of the two issues is ill-considered, and rather lazy. To be fair, we are all of us prone to getting angry about aspects of life in general, but I think this is an example of the sort of hasty, judgemental, and ill-considered thinking that is simply going to deepen the chasm that now exists between the two halves of our society.

I dont have any more details, it was not a prolonged conversation and other things were going on with our other cruising buddy at the same time. Sadly the chap is no longer cruising with me, so I'm not going to attempt to dig for more details without a very good reason. The issue was not that Expost failed to forward any mail- in fact he was very positive and complimentary about them up to that point. I'm not sure there were any postal reminders about his tax that failed to reach him- not that he mentioned anyway. The issue was (if memory serves) that when he contacted DVSA to get his car tax updated and paid for (and pay a small fine), and in order to get the car released from the compound where it has being held. they took that opportunity to raise an objection to him using a mailing address provided by Expost. I dont know know to what extent he fought this issue, if any. My guess is that he prioritised getting his car back asap. As I recall, he gave them his daughter's address for any future correspondence, and I think that address would appear on his driving license, which would have had to be updated soon afterwards. I have watched a couple of videos by van dwellers who have had exactly the same issue in the last year or two. There is a petition objecting to this policy of the DVSA, but sadly it will get nowhere. I dont know where this leaves people who cannot use someone else's address, in terms of having a valid current address on their divers license. There has to be some way around it, but I've no idea what it is.

I spent 6 months on the Llangollen in summer 2021, and 5 months during the winter of 22/23, and I much preferred the winter visit. In winter it retains its beauty, but it gains a sense of peace that is mostly absent between April and October. It is probably my favourite canal so far, but if you are not keen on the summer crowds, I'm not sure its your ideal choice (I remember you asking about which were the quieter canals in summer, and the Llangollen is definitely one of the busiest.) Admittedly my visit in the summer of 2021 was after the lockdowns and everyone seemed to go crazy once they were set free, so it seemed like every hire boat was out cruising, and lots of normal boats were whizzing up and down all day long. At Bettisfield I passed a woman whose front mooring chain had just been snapped by the force of a hire boat passing by at full speed. In that summer 2021 it was the busiest canal I've ever seen (to be fair I've only lived aboard for 5 years), and I seemed to be meeting oncoming boats at every bridge hole. The hire boaters there can be a bit crazy as many are steering a boat for the first time, and some are under time time pressure to make their planned destinations. I recall one stag party near Chirk passing me at 10am and going flat out, with every man jack of them swigging on high-strength lager, but all of them in great humour and having a ball. But on the plus side (and it is a big plus) the hire boaters are usually in a holiday mood, some have children all over their boats and at the locks which is great to see on the waterways- and everyone seems to be having a good time, which makes a lovely change. I got to Trevor basin in July of 2021, and I gave up on reaching Llangollen. I'd set off before 8am for the final stretch across the famous aqueduct, but within 10 minutes there were three boats following me, and at Trevor there were two boats coming through the bridge towards me, and another boat trying to get out of the basin. I am admittedly a bit of a recluse, and I have a fairly low opinion of the human species in general. And that feeling, together with being fed up of the stifling heat of that summer, and with the frustration of boats coming from all directions by 8am- just got too much for me, and I gave up at Trevor and turned back, resolving to come back and try again in winter. On the way back I got stuck in a queue of at least 15 boats at New Marton locks (although to be fair, the misery was relieved by lovely families of hire boaters and their kids milling around). The winter visit was a different animal altogether -it was a great experience, albeit a bloody cold one.

There is a snag Mrs M, which is that I am carrying a considerable volume of excess blubber since the pandemic lockdowns. Clearly they put some experimental drug into the covid vaccine that caused my terrible addiction to pies and beer. And curry. By all means send the scripts to my agent, but I may need some time to shift what I call my 'covid backside', before shooting starts.

Just to be clear Mrs M, I have been abducted several times, although only once by aliens. The problem you have (when you are as young and handsome as myself) is that every alien who passes the bloody planet tries the old abduction/probe routine. Call me old fashioned, but I think- can you at least buy me a drink first? Fair point Mike, and I hope the OP is paying attention. DO NOT GET DISTRACTED AT LOCKS!!! I was going down the first lock into to the basin at Ellesmere Port boat museum, and I was massively distracted by half a dozen people behind me on the grass, all dressed in 1920s period costumes (with straw boater hats), standing around a shallow-draft punting vessel of some sort, with an ornate fabric shade. It was literally like a scene from a PG Wodehouse novel. Now I'm used to seeing the English canal cosplayers out and about when its sunny, with their neckerchiefs and waistcoats, and their rather variable temperaments. But this was a different animal altogether. I opened the lower paddle to start the boat going down, and then I got talking to one of the period-clad boaters - and it turned out they were Dutch waterways enthusiasts who had come over to row their shallow skiff thing along the Shroppie and through Chester. For a few seconds I forgot all about my own boat, until one of the museum staff shouted at me to push my stern away from the cill. Left to my own devices, it is quite possible I would have had a major drama in that lock, but luckily for me the volunteer on duty was switched on, and was watching my boat. Every so often at locks, some things will appear that are genuinely unusual and very distracting, but the golden rule is - dont let any of those things distract you.

In all honesty it sounds as if in your mind, you've built up locks to be a big deal. But when you start boating yourself, you'll realise that two or three locks are no problem at all (and I'm a card-carrying lazy bugger). In my view the most dangerous time for a boat in a lock is when you are going down. In fact the only thing you need to keep in your mind when going down through a lock, is to make sure your boat stern is clear of the cill marker line, which is at the back of the lock. And that's it - just stay away from that cill line at the back of the lock when going down, and you'll have no problems. Unless the aliens land (again) and abduct you, whilst mind controlling the elderly lock volunteers to drill holes in your boat. To be fair, the second part of that scenario hasn't happened to me.

Strictly speaking, the plank is there so that you can force rebellious shipmates to walk off it, if they drink too much grog. Arrr.

OP, you mention in the first post that you dont want the batteries to stay at such high SoC for so much of the time. Apologies if this has been answered already (I haven't read all the posts), but the way I do it is to set the bulk and absorption charging voltages to lower values. The defaults seem to be about 14.4v, and thats fine in Nov to Jan, as they never get full from solar anyway. But once you get into March and beyond, if you use 14.4v as your charging voltage the batteries are going to be filled every day, and they wont have a chance to discharge even to 60% (based on your power usage). One way to solve this would be set up a Frankenstein's laboratory situation, where you use electricity to reanimate dead ferrets (I always tend to a have a few lying around, so you're welcome to use those). Couple of legal snags with that plan, to be fair. So the simpler method would be to lower your charging voltage. If you fiddle around you'll be able to find a level of charging voltage (typical 13.8v or 13.9v) at which the MPPTs will go into float when the batteries are about 80% full. If you also set the float voltage to about 12.5v, that will ensure that the batteries dont take any more charge from the MPPTs for the rest of that day, and it will give the batteries a chance to discharge a bit. If you do fancy going down the ferret route, PM me for quantities and delivery details.

On the contrary sir, I think it is highly dubitable. And I dont even know what that means.

Well I dont want to come across like a waterways version of Sherlock Holmes here (my dear Watson), but I recall reading the OP was looking at some boats in Aqueduct marina. And as we know, they've been considering cruising up to Ellesmere Port. So my assumption was that OP was somewhere in the Middlewich/Nantwich/Anderton area. It is impossible for the OP to have gone up heartbreak hill, as they would have posted about it here. And when you have eliminated the impossible, you are left with Middlewich.

Brian makes a very good point- to get onto the Macclesfield, you'd have to go up through almost 30 locks, mostly on heartbreak hill. That living nightmare will leave you a quivering, sobbing wreck. A shell of a human being, broken in body and spirit, and needing long painful therapy sessions to cure your lock PTSD. I still wake up screaming some nights, shouting gibberish about the bywash (but to be fair, I shout gibberish during the daylight hours too). Don't put yourself through that hell, son. Just leave it until climate change turns Cheshire into a lake, and you can just cruise straight over to Macclesfield.

You're right, I'm mis-remembering how long the rope was paid out. I was actually able to reach down and grab the centre line before the boat had passed fully under the footbridge.

The trick the local boater showed me worked really well, and I dont think OP will have too much difficulty with it. You simply hang onto the end of the centre line and let the boat carry on under the footbridge, paying out the centre line as it goes, until it's about a boat length or two away. By the time it gets that far, simple geometry means that the centre line will have been raised to within a few inches of the footbridge, so you dont even need to lay flat- you can grab the centre line just by kneeling down.

If only I'd known I needed a monkey at Beeston. I slaughtered the last of my monkeys at Barbridge due to starvation. Poor Colin. He was a fine seaman, if a rather chewy one. Given that the average age of our members is 107, I don't see any point describing a manoeuvre that involves either one of the words 'leap' or 'flying'. To be fair, we do get the odd young upstart of about 80 years old on here, usually banging on about the latest Rogers and Hammerstein tunes. I daresay one of those young daredevils would probably have a go at your flying leap.

Congrats on your research - I only realised there was no ladder when the boat was in the lock and ready to descend! If there is anyone about, you can ask for assistance - and in summer there will usually be someone. But of you want to tackle it alone, I know of two methods: The first one I figured out myself. On the approach to Chester you are going down, and I found the easiest thing was to open the gates and pull the boat out with the centre line. Once it is moving out of the lock, you then lay face down on the footbridge. As the boat passes underneath the footbridge below you, you can pass the end of the centre line under the footbridge, from your right hand into your left hand. Or swing it back and forth until you can grab it. It feels a tad sketchy, but it is do-able. Once you have hold of the centre line in your left hand, you can stand up and walk down the slope to the lock landing, pulling the boat with you. The second method was shown to me by a local boater. You let the boat move out of the lock (or in, it works both ways). As the boat passes under footbridge, you let the centre line pay out as the boat moves further away from you. When the boat gets a certain distance away from the footbridge, the centre line rises in height until it is within a foot or so of the footbridge, It gets close enough that you can easily grab it with your left hand. The trick is keep hold of the end of the centre line with your right hand as it runs under the bridge. Once you can reach down a grab the centre line on the left side of the footbridge, you can then let go of the end of it (from your right hand), and let it fall and pass under the bridge. I've probably made it sound more difficult than it really is, and on the approach to summer there will be plenty of boats passing each day, so you can always ask for help from one of them. But its worth learning how to to do it solo, in case you ever pass through there late on a winter afternoon when there's no-one about to help.

You need to rethink your duck policy. Have you seen the way these things procreate? Its absolutely outrageous. The over enthusiastic males almost drown the females during the act itself. It's as if all the chaps have a drowning fetish, but for some reason the females keep coming back for more. I guess all the girl ducks like a bad guy.