TheBiscuits

Deadly serious. We always look forward to October, as nearly all the VMs empty over the last weekend in September. It's even better in November, as the VMs nearly all go to 14 days. March comes as a bit of a shock again though!

Don't forget the mobile ballast can be possessions not just concrete slabs. Moving a couple of big toolboxes forward made a lot of difference to my boat. Bags of coal forward, anchor and chain forward, heaviest things you own not stuffed under the bed... If you have an open plan saloon, consider adding something like a chest of drawers as far forward as you can. If you have lockers under seating, put heavy stuff in them. It's all weight in the right place!

Use the lock landing. It's for boats not anglers. The CRT Waterways Wanderer licence and the T&C's for club managed waters prohibit fishing within 25m of a lock, so they shouldn't be there.

True, but most of them miraculously disappear between October and April ...

You should always do this anyway on the Northern canals. You'll not get out of the Rufford flight if you don't! Many of the water level problems up here are caused by boaters not bothering to use all the paddles on the locks. Admittedly if one of the paddles is broken you can't do it, but all working paddles should be used.

I use big gloves ...

Try and start a new thread with a Thunderboat link in it in the VP and see what happens to it.

It's a lot less trouble since CRT added a floating pontoon lock landing - 3 or 4 years ago I think. Just get on the boat where the sign is and carry on.

Good thinking. I strongly approve of people thinking how to solve a problem with what they have to hand, even if it's a bit unconventional. A couple of "Shroppie Wheels" are much less effort though, especially if you intend to be on there regularly. They come in handy in all sorts of places too, not just on the Shroppie. @bizzard would probably have made a meccano jetty ...

Just skip past such comments!

Report the specific post on the previous page. It's still there ...

It looks quite like one of the Thames locks, but I can't place which one.

Fill the water tank! Seriously, all you need to do is move some ballast from the stern to the bow - doing it this way makes twice the difference to the trim compared to simply adding more ballast at the bow. How much you can get away with depends on heights of decks and drain holes above the waterline, and you don't want to raise the uxter plate (the flat bit directly above the propeller) out of the water. If the boat is trimmed more "nose down" it will make quite a difference to handling it, especially when you can't just compensate with more revs like on a high-performance cruiser. My boat behaves very differently with a nearly empty water tank than with a full one, and knowing the effect this has means I can choose how agile I want it to be depending on the canal or river I'm on. You can trivially experiment with this by putting a couple of big buckets/barrels in the welldeck and filling them with canal water to see what trim angle you want to try and achieve.

One is from the opening post of this thread, and the other was the post that prompted me to reply. I don't know if either of them are true or not and don't really care. I will repeat my advice: if you do want to set up a new boating/mooring business speak to the CRT business boating team. If you don't want to do this, why did you say you did? Oh, and speaking as a continuous cruiser of Irish descent, I think the NBTA are mostly chancers too.

One of those statements would be more coherent than using both of them. If you want to set up a leisure mooring, talk to Richard Delves in Leeds about your new business proposal. If you want to overstay somewhere, don't talk to him!

... and the bleedin' virus. We'd have worked you hard enough at Spring Bank Holiday to make up for your lack of moving the rest of the year!

Maybe it says more about your preferred saloon (lounge ) layout than standard narrowboat layout. A flue to port doesn't get knocked off by overgrown offside trees or bridge holes assuming you are on the correct side of the waterway when meeting an oncoming boat ...

Good thing you didn't ask online or the grumpies might have scared you off! My take on random boat-as-affordable-housing decisions is that some people get the bug hard and become some of the better boaters out there, and the ones that shouldn't have done it are gone within a year or so anyway...

We have the big folding (IWA?) one, and last year got the smaller Lockmaster "Principal Inland Navigations" one because it fits on a bulkhead on the boat. We also have the Chris Clegg Canal Time map for rough journey planning, and can recommend all of them.

Well if you get a 55 ft playing out boat you could convert Vox into a workshop and storage unit ...

I'd get a quote for a Beta 43 and the new steelwork (engine bearers, maybe propshaft) before deciding that it's unfixable! @RLWP is the go-to chap for Listers, or search online for Primrose Engineering if he doesn't spot this post.

If you give a bit more detail someone might be able to offer suggestions. I'm assuming you've checked the cooling system is OK?

I like that, nice boat. Don't be tempted to sit on the suicide seats whilst moving though. They're only for sitting on when moored.