manxmike

I rather think you've just answered your own question!

Are we getting back to the good old days of floating garden sheds? There used to be loads of old hulls with interesting upperworks.

Here on the Isle of Man, during TT and MGP, we have a total ban on drones within a 1000 metres of the race course and as far as the Southern 100 is concerned since it is within 3 miles of the airport they are completely banned. Imagine a drone dropping out of the sky into the path of a bike doing over 180mph .....

My brother is an electrician, has been for years and is very successful and SAFE! However - he claims he does not understand 12 volt systems, they are a total mystery to him. I have re-wired quite a few 12 volt systems, using a formula to determine the thickness of wire I should use. Sadly I still regard Amps, Volts and other esoteric measurements as black magic. The bikes I have re-wired have all worked perfectly, the 240 volt systems I have meddled with still work well. Do I need to know what the difference between all the buzz words (see what I did there?) as I am unlikely to do any more electrical work on anything other than my motorhome (12 volt) or my Royal Enfield (12 volt)? I doubt it. I'm sure my brother understands all that stuff - he probably needs to.

Totally agree, with the proviso that there are risk takers and there are idiots. Most risk takers will have at least thought about the danger they are facing, and will be doing it for a better reason than to make themselves look good in front of their like-minded idiot followers (most of whom are probably waiting for him to go that one little step too far). Sadly, at my age, my chances of influencing the gene pool one way or the other are long gone. I have to admit to doing various things in my yoof which could be considered dangerous, some of which (riding motorbikes) I still do. I somehow doubt this chap will ever be looked upon as a historical figure, possibly as an object lesson in the effects of Darwinism.

Excellent, a biggerer and betterer alternator, one that takes more engine power to spin it up (possibly at higher revs) to charge more batteries. That sounds like a great green initiative, burn more fuel and create more pollution - oops, sorry, am I being negative?

I wonder if the gene pool would have been better off if he had indeed taken a 100 foot fall. Almost a shame someone wasn't coming the other way.

To be honest I don't think it matters if the canal is frozen or not, some people will object to a moving boat whatever. I fondly remember moving past a moored boat when the side hatch opened, a child poked his head out and gave me a foul mouthful, basically objecting to my speed (tickover). His parents were sitting on the bank taking in the summer sun and I complimented them on the education they had given their son in the use of english. Last I heard was them shouting at the lad.

Here on the Isle of Man we are limited to Manx Telecom or Sure. When in the UK I use EE, I did try "3", but in order to register my phone I had to jump backwards through a burning bucket with no trousers on, having offered to give my life savings to the wierdo on the "3" help-line. "Don't worry" he said "the phone will automatically connect after three hours and after you have turned your phone off for exactly 30 minutes three times" - have you noticed the repeats of the figure three yet? After ten hours, another four calls to the (un)help(ful) line I carefully installed the sim card in the nearest bin and reverted to EE. EE promptly sent me a message welcoming me back and telling me I still had £X credit on the card - now that's service!

There's an old adage - measure twice and cut once. If you're actually going to manufacture items at home, then take them to the boat for fitting I think it should be measure a dozen times and prepare to cut and re-cut when it still doesn't fit through the rear door or the bow doors. I re-fitted a fair amount of my boat whilst cruising. I also manufactured a variety of items using recycled materials - pallets can be a great source of useful timber. My daughter has just built a double bed for her house out of pallets - it looks great and apparently is really comfy. My idea was to keep the boat useable whilst doing things to it. I did re-fit a boat for a friend in under a week - stripping most of the interior, then re-fitting it. All done on an in-line mooring with no mains power and hand tools. It was in summer, I started when the sun came up and stopped when it got dark, sometimes I even stopped to eat! To be fair I was a lot younger then (and fitter). Simply keep in mind that it should be fun, if it isn't, then don't bother starting.

If a seller is in that much of a hurry to "take the money and run" then I would be very worried why he/she/they are in such a hurry to get rid, possibly they actually do have a fairly good idea of the condition of the hull ..........

Maybe you should come back to visit your ancestral homeland at some point, I'd love to meet up for a pint. There are two variations of the name "Neale" by the way, yours and "Kneale" which I rather think is a derivation of the Gaelic for "son of Neale" which would have been MacNeale originally, but mac would now be replaced by a K. Lots of variations of Manx surnames as they were usually written by the Parish Clerk who often had a very slim grasp of spelling.

To be fair, I loved the boat. Liverpool hulls had a bad reputation according to some, but I had very few problems. I was lucky and bought her at the bottom of the market some years ago when most were getting rid of narrow boats. The engine was a Lister sr2, more than adequate for canals. The upperworks got painted by me with tekaloid and I got the hull blacked with new anodes. My kids and grandkids probably got more use than I did. I miss the boat, I have a motorhome now, but the canals are still in my blood. Boats are now too expensive for me, given I live on the Isle of Man. I am looking at a share on a boat though, less outlay and availability for a few weeks a year. Even swmbo is in favour👍

I sold my boat when the hull had got down to 3mm in places. Overplating was quoted (three different firms) at between £10,000 and £15,000. This was about six or seven years ago. It would not have added anywhere near that to the value of the boat, which is why I reduced the sale price, was totally honest with the buyer, and breathed a sigh of relief that my grandkids hadn't been on board when it eventually sank. Not that I am aware if it sank or not, but I wasn't prepared to take the risk that it would and I couldn't afford that sort of money on a 40 year old Liverpool built hull - built to a budget and with a permanent list to port despite moving ballast around!

If there is significant pitting on a four year old boat then you have to ask what metal the hull is made of - somehow I doubt there will be much in the way of rust, lifting around the anodes would be normal and not really a worry. My boat lasted about 40 years before there was any real hull degradation and it had never been two part epoxy coated, just blacked once in a blue moon!

You could always fit an ejection seat to escape the weir, or maybe the rocket from one of NASAs failed moon shot attempts so the boat can be saved as well as the Captain. You have to wonder if one extra outboard would be enough - if it fails to start then the second (or third or fourth) spare outboard could be lifted into position. By which time of course the boat has gone over the weir and everybody on board has drowned, the cooker (which was on) has set fire to the boat, the gas cylinder explodes destroying the nearby cottage, killing the occupants. Ooops, I think I may be drifting a bit - maybe I need a spare engine ..........

I wonder why the boat would have to go to Hull for a survey. Are there no dry docks that could take a widebeam nearer? Using an Estate Agent to sell a boat seems a really strange idea to me. This all seems a bit worrying, especially given the amount of money that will be changing hands.

Looks pretty much like the colours made by Tractoil (used to be Tekaloid) John Deere Green and Massey Ferguson red. The advantage of these are they can be applied by brush or roller, dry quickly and without brush marks.

The bolts holding my Lister to the mounting blocks vibrated loose (vibration - from a Lister - never!) Thankfully I noticed it before more than two of them had dropped out. I replaced all of them with brand new stainless steel bolts with nylock nuts. The mounting brackets were on great big lumps of wood, so I needed 6 inch bolts. When I had the engine looked over by someone who used to work on "proper" engines he approved saying that the engine had been fitted by someone who knew what they were doing. I found out that the wood was actually pitch pine which is one of the most remarkable types of timber - used for stage floors in older theatres and for rubbing strakes in harbours, it "heals" and can last for over a century under water.

We had walkie talkies, I thought it might be handy to ask for a cup of coffee, sadly the steel hull blocked the signals so I had to resort to bellowing through the doorway. Regarding dropping mobile phones into the cut, I make sure I have a PAYG sim in a really old mobile phone - the phone costs next to nothing, the sim might have £5 or £10 on it, but that can be transferred. When I was looking to buy my boat I travelled up and down the country looking at a wide variety of boats in an interesting variety of places. I usually travelled by motorbike, which could be problematic in the winter, but which was always fun. Sometimes, when I found something I quite liked the look of I would bring my other half, she had a better eye than me for niggles and potential problems and would veto my daydream style hopes. Eventually we did find the boat we both loved and bought it. Always bear in mind, however, that work on a narrow boat is never completed, the next job will need to be done, but maybe not until tomorrow.

My boat had been wired by someone who had a very vague idea of 12 volt wiring. I rather think he/she had acquired a lot of brown wire and had knitted it into the strangest loom I have ever seen. I can't help wondering if some of your problem might be caused by the wiring on your boat creating oddities for the batteries. I am no expert, just years of playing with the wiring harnesses on older british motorbikes and discovering the problems that can be caused by using the wrong thickness wire, incorrect connections and strange fuses. I was going to re-wire, but I sold the boat before I got round to it.

I binned my Facebook account a couple of years ago because I was getting some really nasty messages. Every time I posted something I was getting "trolled". After about a year I restarted a facebook account, adopted a thicker skin and started laughing at some of the more repulsive responses I received to my innocent (?) posts. It may not have stopped the idiots, but I took a different viewpoint of them, often responding in a somewhat sarcastic manner. Hopefully I haven't carried that over to this forum, and sometimes I manage to offer useful comments. I am by no means an "expert", but I do have many years of canal experience, often in older (not classic) boats with older (again, not classic) engines. I respond from my own experiences, which I believe, is what most of the "older" members on here do. Maybe a section titled "Newbies Questions" might help?

Could always be done by the system used for some tunnels - 9 to 10 one way, 10.30 to 11.30 t'other and so on. As far as locks on the Llangollen are concerned, don't worry, there are plenty of lift bridges which are almost as much fun(?) and can be even more awkward.

I have been looking into this possibility for myself, searching on line and speaking to people already holding shares, the prices I quoted are fairly similar to what I have found. OK, if I were to go for a new build with a butler, kitchen staff, hot and cold running chambermaids (I wish) then I would expect to pay a lot more. There seem to be quite a number of shares available in quite a few boats at the moment, maybe the "boom" is coming to an end and prices are becoming more realistic? However, I would be happy with a slightly older boat and the costs are pretty much as I said. Given that the OP rather likes the look of an older boat these charges are what he might find. Horses for courses - you get what you pay for!