Marjorie
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Posts posted by Marjorie
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I found this: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66757&hl=%2Bbirmingham+%2Bmooring#entry1315489
and this: http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66353&hl=+birmingham%20+mooring
Ignore me, I should have checked first.
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If you are doing a recce, we are at Hockley Port ( though out cruising off and on till late July) and have been for over 10 yrs- happy to chat if you are in the are when we are
That would be excellent, thank you
Marjorie,
I suggest you do a search on here about mooring in Birmingham. Whilst there might be a lot of canals there aren't that many places suitable to moor and be within cycling distance of the JQ. Hockley Port would be very suitable as would The Old Engine Arm, plus Oozels St Loop. I can't think of anywhere else, but others may be able to help more.
That's a good idea, that for some reason didn't occur to me. Doing it now (well, once the coffee's done).
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HA! I've taken note of the silver ballast from the top o the thread. Hope it's sterling. Much easier to work with... (edit: I meant that as a reply to MtB, but I can't work my phone properly)
Shame. Was toying with the possibility of breaking in to yours to see the safety disco in action.We leave a spare set of keys, and alarm codes at the Marina office for similar reasons.
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I know it's not at all the same as living on the cut, but on our Marina you're encouraged *not* to lock doors, so someone can get onto your boat quickly if they spot you listing/ sinking/ burning/ something else terrible. Takes a bit of getting used to, that's for sure.
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Presumably you realise that the stretch of canal to the south east of the jewellery quarter, up to the rail lines, is a flight of 13 closely spaced locks? After the railways is a pound down to the next junction but is a popular hang-out for drunks so not my idea of a good place to moor.
The mainline area to the southwest is a mixture of visitor moorings and areas "in the middle of no-where" so the suggestion of the soho loop / Hockley Port is the best one, but it is not really in the jewellery quarter (which is quite small).
I didn't know any of that (I've never actually been there) - literally only thought of it as an option this afternoon, when I happened to be chatting to someone about Hatton Garden and the Birmingham JQ - so thanks
(I didn't think to look at a sensible canal map as a start, rather than Google maps, which knows precious little about waterways). We'll go do a proper reccie in a couple of weeks, but as you say, I'm more interested in the possibility of a commute to the Quarter rather than necessarily being within spitting distance (I take it it's not as congested as the canals in London, despite being a city?). I've got my bike, as well as my feet... Although no sense of the scale f things north of the Watford Gap... -
Just check the markings on them -
The ones marked HT (heat treated) are safe to use/burn
The ones marked MB contain Methane Bromide which is thought to be a carcinogenic substance.
It is a pesticide and has been banned under the 'Montreal Protocol' except for the single application in pre-shipment of wooden logs and pallets.
As well as its toxicity, Methyl Bromide is 60 times more destructive to ozone on an atom-per-atom basis than the chlorine from CFCs.
Well, I never knew that. Pallet checking on tomorrow's to do list...
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Thanks - on the places to visit list
My geography is dreadful, I don't know my way around Birmingham at all (but there's always time to learn!).
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Hiya
Some of you know I'm a jeweller already, I have been trying to think of (practical) ways to keep working if I move onto a narrowboat. Pretty sure we'll go for the CC option, and I wondered what people's experience of the stretch of canal around Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter are - I'm thinking I could perhaps rent a bench there, and conveniently be slap bang in the middle of a canal-rich bit of the country.
Before I get told off for asking questions and not doing the legwork, we're going up there in a couple of weeks to look at a boat, but I wondered what your experiences were of the quality of cruising, services, spots to moor, how busy it is...
Here's a link to a map of where the Jewellery Quarter is in relation to the canals: https://goo.gl/maps/I5Rr8
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I think a pallet would keep you warm for a couple of hours.
MtB
(If I'm right that's 12 a day you''l need!)
They make fab kindling though, if you can be arsed to chop 'em up (we don't bother taking the nails out, they just drop through the grate).
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One of my absolute favourite things, that I didn't know until we were on the boat and got a stove, is that you can use ash on a bit of damp newspaper to clean the glass in the stove door with almost no effort. I like that you can clean the thing with the muck it creates. Astoundingly easily pleased, me.
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I found that going out into Google and searching there usually finds me a pertinent thread or two that I couldn't find by using the internal search function.
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Problem is, who is going to write/collate all this info? Team effort? People will disagree on different things!
Quick plug for Tony Jones's Liveaboard Guide, which is essential reading for newbies who don't know where to start.
Yep, that's a good book.
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I'm a newbie, so I know you're not really asking me, but maybe this is useful:
It's not massively easy to find relevant things using the search function on here, I've found (maybe there's some knack to it that I haven't cracked) - but some of you oldies (in experience, not years) have somehow found links to previous threads for me that didn't come up when I thought I was putting relevant words into the search. I don't think anyone who is asking a question that has been asked before would mind a steer in the direction of a previous similar thread or two - I certainly don't.
The thing about a lot of the 'standard' questions is that it depends on your frame of reference (of course) - for me, living on a boat is WAY cheaper than living in a house, but that's because my house was in London with a considerable mortgage. I also spend a fair amount less on energy (although more on maintenance, and now I have a car which I didn't before, so that make it different again). Maybe sometimes, because you've answered the same question a gazillion times, you get a bit shorthand about it, and then when newbies respond they sound like what they are saying is "I only want to hear you if you confirm what I already think", but what they mean is "Let me give you a bit more information about me specifically so you know where I'm coming from". I can see why that would be annoying - again, a prod in the direction of a similar thread, or even a hint as to a good phrase to search for might work (it would for me).
Whichever way, you are all clearly kind, helpful people, which makes it especially unpleasant to feel the sharp end of your frustration, or to feel like you've overstepped a mark you didn't realise was there.
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As possibly the only person on this forim that has actually done this journey in an inland craft (barge) I will add my twopennth.
Firstly you do not want to be seaward side of the Crouch estury in a NB unless you know what you are doing and the boat is well prepared.
Secondly you will need a weather window when you have at least 4 days of winds less than force 2-3 and calm sea
state.
Journey is as follows:
Day/tide 1
Leave Bow Locks as soon as they open about 2hrs before HTLB
Pass the barrier at or just before HTLB
I will miss the navigation notes for the rest of this tide but you should arrive at Sherness just before LTS you then need to go to the concrete lighter at Queenborough which you will have to book with the Yot Club.
Day/tide 2
Leave the lighter about an hour or so after LWS past Sheerness straight cross the estury to the north side follow the buoys along the coast until you reach the turn for Havengore (you will need to book passage with the firing range so you don't get shelled) follow the withies in. When through the bridge you have two choices either to anchor just inside the entrance to the Roach or proceed to Essex Marina on the Crouch ad ask for a visitor berth until the next low tide.
Day/tide 3
Leave at low tide and proceed slowly up the Crouch to Battlesbridge you will run out of water but as the tide is on the way in you will soon lift off.
Did you know that very few boats ever leave Battlesbridge once they are there.......
Oh and finally Essex Marina have a 70ton travel lift, you could get lifted out elsewhere and lifted back in there, that would be the sensible thing to do if you are not very exprienced.
I've been boating over 45 years and would still think twice about tackling it in a NB.
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Should we have a pinned page of advice - the usual stuff we work into those kinds of threads like 'have you been on a canal boat?'?
Or am I just a grumpy old git and need to learn to ignore stuff and let other people answer them
Richard
Both
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I'm very competent, and great in a crisis, just not strong.
I hear ya. Same here. Mostly, I've always found there's someone close who is wiling to help, if you don't mind asking.
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Welcome to the forum, Bohomon.
For me the primary reason for living on a boat is that I love being on or in the water. Boating, sailing, rowing, paddling, swimming on canal, river, estuary, lake or sea and I cannot afford both my ideal, isolated cottage, and a boat.
Living in an isolated cottage is similar to living on a canal boat; my cottage flooded but never sank, had mains electricity except for a week or so in 1987 and the occasional 'outage' due to fallen trees taking out the local, low-level power lines and, once, the failure of the substation with sparks visible a mile from our hillside home.
If you love the canals, their heritage and history, then being frozen-in for a month (yes, even on the K&A), or negotiating three inches of mud or snow on the towpath (you will need gas, water, food, fuel (wood/coal) and diesel, lots of it in winter) will not deter you or your six-year-old.
Moving on at least every fourteen days (Continuous Cruising) even if it is blowing a gale, pouring cats and dogs and/or freezing cold is part of the challenge. If you hire a boat for a week, you press on despite the cold and the rain but, eventually, as an owner you may come to resent the BW/CRT insistance that you 'move on' despite the danger or impossibility, e.g. high flow through a narrow bridge or thick (>1"), unbreakable ice.
Single-handing your boat with minimal help from your daughter (hold a rope etc.) will become easy if you are determined to learn how to handle a boat. Mooring in adverse winds can be a challenge and requires forward planning - at a popular mooring spot friendly boaters will often offer to take your mooring lines - learn how to throw a line and teach your daughter how to throw and catch a rope. Teach her to control the boat; imagine, you have leapt ashore, rope in hand, only to realise that you have left the gear engaged - "Sophie, put the engine in neutral" will save the day.
Of course, your daughter will be a good swimmer and wear a bouyancy aid when the boat is moving. If you are not confident in the water, you may also need to wear a life-jacket even though you can stand up, head above water, in most UK canals. Both of my children have fallen in!
1) Boat moored, clumbsy 8-year old, sitting on gunwale eating ice-cream, 'suddenly' in water, standing up with damp ice-cream, ha-ha, a hot shower and a replacement ice-cream.
2) Boat under weigh, agile 14 year-old moving forward along the gunwale ready to leave from the bow to operate the lock. Her friend 'suddenly' opens a window and sticks her head out - 14 year old in centre of canal. This is the time that the man-overboard drill is essential.
Aside from some swing bridges on the K&A which are/were hard to move and one difficult powered bridge I see no reason that you could not learn to travel single-handed.
I am not recommending it but I know of people who 'cruise' the long pound, 15 miles, Devizes to Wootton Rivers, maybe a few locks further east.
They ferry their children to excellent village schools but admit that life on the cut with children can be demanding.
I accord with Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons, 1930) "If not duffers, will not drown. If duffers, best drowned."
Good luck, Alan
For what it's worth: I don't live on a narrowboat, but do live on a boat. I don't have children, but several of my neighbours do, of varying ages. All of us manage our boats and our lifestyles in slightly different ways, and it's all basically fine. OP, you sound self sufficient, and adaptable - those are the best ingredients for a life afloat I think (and a sound hull and well serviced engine, thinking about it). If you fancy the K&A, do it. If you don't like it, move. From your other thread - give scavenging for wood a try. If it doesn't work out, go buy coal. Listen to the people on these forums with bags of experience (although not always quite as much patience!), but make your own decisions. It's not like there's only one way to skin a cat. Above all: don't panic, and don't overthink things (I'm not particularly good at following my own advice).
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Some river and tidal marinas have a boat washing and valeting service - does yours?
I'm curious to know what they charge
Richard
I don't think we do actually - well, not advertised, but I'm sure they'd do it if asked. Generally here, if you see a boat being cleaned, it's up and out of the water and being prepped for repainting.
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It was the excited puppy option in the OP that sold me
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*eeep!* If you do it the river route, I'd love to know how you go. We live in that bit of estuary just by Rochester on your map there (not on a narrowboat though, a converted lighter), and we get WEATHER (obviously you're not going to attempt anything in adverse conditions though). Some of our neighbours have moved larger boats up and out (a couple of converted tugs and a lighter that I can think of), always crewed with a professional crew, and each time successfully.
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Is it a presawash you got? They are awesome, Ive been looking for one for a while but they are like golddust it would seem.... I will not give up. You do not appriciate the awesomeness of clean clothes until you have hand cranked them clean with your own blood, sweat n tears
Yeah, it's a presawash. I like it so much, I'm thinking of giving it a name. A distinct lack of blood, sweat or tears though, I must say - and it's very kind to my knitwear (the majority of which I spent hours and hours knitting myself - there are few things as upsetting as the washing machine messing with the jumper you laboured over for months!).
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That was moored close to where we are now for quite some time. They spent a FORTUNE on it, didn't they. Money not at all well spent in that particular case...
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Unfortunately I live about as far away from the canal network as it's possible to be, east Kent, but I'm hoping to chat to plenty of people and look around a few boats etc when we go hire boating in August, hiring from Anderton and probably going to Chester and return.
I'm 99% sure that I will end up buying a boat sometime between then and Summer 2015 although if I buy sooner then I'll be using it as a holiday base for the first year as I won't be able to pack up work until then.
We're in Kent too (on the Medway)- and live on a residential marina full of all different kinds of boats (only 3 narrowboats, but also 3 decommissioned lightships - which is pretty cool - and many more in between). Come hang out if you like. There's usually a barbecue to gatecrash during the summer, and lots of different people with lots of different experiences of lots of different types of boat
You get the impression that a lot of folk see the adapting to a much smaller living space as the main "drawback" to living on a boat, certainly a narrowboat.
But to me that's actually the easiest thing to come to terms with, and it's getting easier all the time owing to digital technology.
I think what does for most people who don't take to the canal life is the realisation that so much of what you take for granted on dry land can be at least a chore, at worst a nightmare, on a boat. It demands a much higher degree of self sufficiency than most people are used to, and it's how you react to that aspect which determines whether you will enjoy the life or not.
Hear hear!
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I have an iPhone on a 3 all you can eat package. I connect to my ipad using Bluetooth and turn on my personal hotspot. Works most of the time on phone and IPlayer. No dongle.
I reckon that's the simplest way, if you are 'all Apple' - doesn't require any extra kit, which is nice.
Hand crank washing machine revelation
in Living Afloat
Posted
Really? Maybe my version of clean is less so than yours