Bee

I can understand the reluctance to try and start old engines - I would not know how to try and start some ancient lump that needed blowlamping, cartridges or starting with petrol but in that case the broker should get in touch with the owner. I'm not keen on brokers anyway, in my opinion they don't do much and are responsible for putting up boat prices by operating virtual cartels. As for non refundable deposits - stuff that.

Water tanks, Our tank is about 200litres, not much by modern standards but we manage to make it do a week or so, if things get critical there is always bottled water. On a small boat it is difficult to fit a bigger tank, the UK canal system is well served with water points and running out of water is unlikely unless you are iced in or trapped because of unexpected stoppages or breakdowns. It is always possible on a narrowboat to fit a roof tank - they used to be pretty much standard on Wyvern Shipping boats.

To be honest I would not be very happy with it. About 5 pics up from the bottom there looks to be a slight weep from the seam that joins the bottom to the side. I would also expect to see some numbers chalked on the side as well by the surveyor indicating the thickness. To my eye it looks as though a good clout from a hammer on to a centre punch could go through some of those pits. Also unless there is something odd going on I can see no reason why the bottom plate should be any different. I am surprised that a boat from 2007 is showing such pitting and also that it appears that it was pitted last time it was docked and painted and a few years younger. If all steel boats had this sort of life expectancy then I reckon plywood could see a resurgence in popularity. Sorry to be a doom merchant but hopefully the next boat will be better. Good Luck.

The hull of Bee is painted in Jotumastic to a few inches above the waterline, to make a nice neat job of it the hull above the waterline is painted in bitumastic. The bitumastic has flaked off the jotul and it now looks awful so I guess that painting over Jotul means making sure that it is given a good roughening so ordinary paint has a decent key.

The prop has to work hard to stop the boat, if you are doing, say, 3mph the prop is having to go against a flow of at least 3 mph and possibly more as the water accelerates along the swim. One of my old boats used to go and stop quite well but if I engaged reverse from approx 3mph it would smoke black until the boat lost its speed and then it would go backwards. There is a lot of variables and stuff in props / boats / hull shape. When Bee enters a lock she is already in reverse on tickover as the boat goes through the gates ( unless we have to tie on the RHS and then its all ropes flying everywhere and panic as she will not lie alongside a right hand wall - prop walk)

Looking at your photo you have not got any room to get a bigger dia. prop and it looks as though your prop is about the right size anyway (not very scientific I know) If you had a 2:1 ratio gearbox that would make a big difference, you would get about 20 - 30% more rpm at the prop for the same engine speed. (no I haven't worked that out, it just feels about right)

When you engage reverse does the shaft actually rotate? If it only slowly rotates then gradually picks up speed then its a gearbox problem. If it takes a little while for the boat to respond when spinning normally then they do indeed all do that, its asking a lot for a prop to actually grab enough water to stop 10 tons or more of boat

Fuel polishing is just filtering, nothing wrong with that but the real problem is the layer of water at the bottom of the tank compete with rust, bacterial sludge and general muck, that layer of water is seldom sharply defined, it goes through a dull orange colour through to proper diesel over another inch or two and cleaning it is really difficult. You really need to pump the best fuel out into a plastic barrel then get an arm into the tank, clean it and put the good fuel back. Its mucky, difficult and needs a removable plate on the tank to get into it. quite honestly a removable stainless steel tank is a better bet than the usual integral tank in the counter. There is much about narrow boats that could be improved. (our boat is not much better but at least I can remove a plate every spring, shine a torch into it and check the whole horrible thing)

This is a boring answer but it works in wide locks. Narrow ones are different. One line from the bow to a bollard controlled by the crew. One line from the stern to a bollard controlled by the steerer. Leave the centreline alone, the boat will surge to and fro unless you keep it Really Tight. The boat will surge unless it is roped to the land in some way. Single handed? Just take it really steady.

I have 2 of these or similar cheap things that were a waste of money, 2 cheap electric ones that sort of worked briefly and one of those gizmos that run of an electric drill that will 'empty a fish pond in a couple of minutes'. The last one wouldn't suck more than a teaspoonfull of diesel from my fuel tank. I now have a cheap 12v electric one from E Bay that is mostly used by thieves to empty your diesel tank and I use it to suck water out of the fuel tank if any should collect in a corner, I should think it would be ok with warm oil.

The firmest foam we could find came from a supplier on an industrial estate - so more choice and info. than just a retail outlet. Its a blue high density stuff 3" thick and OK but it is not so great if the bed/seat base is slats of 2" x 1" spaced 2" apart. You need wider slats or less gap or thicker foam but you can end up with a 'Princess and the pea' situation with seat cushions a foot thick.

Yeah, black is not a good sign. To get it running take the filter off, fill it full with clean fuel, screw it back on, try to start the engine, If no luck try again but loosen a pipe to an injector and see if anything comes out, it really ought to. If it does fire up then run it for a good 10 minutes and check for leaks around everything you have touched. After that you can drain the fuel tank, clean it and refill with nice new fuel ........

Well it seems to be entirely the fault of the continuous cruiser. If only they moved every two days / weekend / 10 days / fortnight or whatever then licence and mooring fees would be a lot less. It is simply untrue. Who, then, do we blame for NHS waiting lists for example? a few years ago everybody was jumping up and down over mythical foreigners coming to Britain on holiday and getting their broken hips etc fixed on the NHS, all nonsense but a lot of people were convinced. Why is my library short of everything? people bringing books back late? Hardly makes a measurable difference. Potholes - Foreign lorries 'cos everybody knows they're overloaded. The reason that the UK canals are almost certainly the most expensive to use in the world is the same reason that HS2 will not be done. Partly Brexit, partly covid, partly Tory dogma that taxing people is wicked and spending enough on the assets and services that the country needs, water, sewage, health, social housing, welfare and much much more has to be paid for by the user. Canals are right down the bottom of that list but somehow its the fault of sections of the boat owning people. You can certainly fool most of the people most of the time.

I used to work with a Gordon Bennett. Grumpy old git, no sense of humour at all, daren't tease him about his name.

Woolhampton!!!! I've got a dent from going out of that place. But seriously there is not a lot that you can do, you can point the boat into the current but on canals there is not enough room to do that very effectively. if you have a bow thruster that will help a lot but all you can do is watch for water entering the canal and steer into it a bit, you might just end up where you wanted to be or you might not. Those slab sides on a narrow boat really catch the current.

I agree with the above. After seeing more than enough rust over the years I think a properly dry bilge is a Very Good Thing, that join between the bottom and the side and a few centimetres up the side can be vulnerable to damp and rust. Surveyors will test for thickness all over the side plating and look for pits but there can be bad things happening inside the hull too.

That is unusual and probably not best practice but nobody is going to tip a load of coal straight into it from the bank and then bash it through locks and bridgeholes so I would imagine it is well strong enough for 'leisure' purposes. Plenty of old wooden joey boats had knees but no bottom framing and the wooden knees were not especially strong and they survived a hard life , steel is tough stuff and the basic box shape of a narrowboat should prevent any flexing of the side to bottom joint.

Crows are clever creatures, we have seen them taking tiny fish off the various bits of angle iron on the back of lock gates in France as the emptying lock strands them. Otters are the most likely crayfish killers, crayfish are not very common on our part of the Severn but they are sometimes left like the one in the photo on the bank and the dog rolls in the wreckage. They smell absolutely awful.