Wombat

Please can someone tell me how to change my alias/nick name? Strangely I can't find anywhere to change this basic info anywhere in the user control panel. Thanks.

Things seemed to have improved a bit visa-vie visitor moorings at Macclesfield since the installation of a couple of floating pontoons near the Buxton Road bridge (just to the north of it) although this really is a pitiful contribution to what should be taken on board by all interested parties to improve the whole waterside in this vicinity. There are major sites that need development either side of this bridge; the comments above from two years ago still stand as far as I'm concerned, Macclesfield needs to put some serious folding money into a proper canalside development to compliment and attract people to our wonderful town!

I now have the surveyor's report and as suggested/predicted in an earlier post it makes no mention of the well deck spine drain. His reasoning for this is that he apparently is not able to comment on an aspect of our NB's original design and build, which in the light of the EU Recreational Craft Directive of recent years, is sub-standard. In other words you could not build a boat today with this type of well deck drain as it clearly does not adhere to basic 'good practice' in boat building. Having now had chance to get the views of the other owners about acceptance or not of cratch and cover, it is clear some are vehemently against this, and as for lifting the well deck to a sensible self-draining level ...don't even go there! Most likely outcome is a tonneau cover for use when boat is unoccupied. I am still waiting for the result of a specific test of the integrity of the spine drain which I am told is a standard 75mm x 50mm rectangular hollow steel section with 5mm thick walls. Hopefully 20 years won't have eaten too much of this away - quite how many more years life is left in it only time will tell. Despite RCD's/ good practice and the rest I can understand why this low level well deck design was adopted for a fleet of NBs to 'sell' to prospective syndicate owner/clients of the now defunct Ownerships business. The key is in that little word - sell. Like the sale of new houses in recent decades; the last thing anyone could give a toss about are the most important and often hidden aspects of the design (foundations/roof/structure/drainage), nice fitted kitchens sell houses not foundations. I generalise but you know what I mean; and, despite all the knowledge I've gained in recent weeks on this nitty gritty subject, I have to admit that I like our boat the way it is as well, so maybe I'm not so 'pure' as I make out!

haha - quite true - that'll be the option they definitely do not want

The owners don't want to do either option really but I am sort of hoping that cratch and cover will win out the day. Once again, thanks to all contributors to this thread

hmmm - I've been puzzled by that as well; does seem odd. Not seen the official paper report yet so I reserve judgement until we get it.

Finally can confirm that our NB has what I call a 'spine drain'. ie. a drain outlet in the rear centre of the well deck connecting to the engine bay bilge through a steel rectangular hollow section (similar to what I used to specify for wind restraint posts in low rise office block cavity wall construction) tube, which may or may not have a welded joint in it along its length which is tack welded to the baseplate. Needless to say our surveyor has flagged this up as poor design and is going to recommend either crutch and cover or an expensive modification to raise the well deck to a self draining level (with all the modifications to front doors etc that that would entail). Interestingly our surveyor is not making these measures mandatory as part of his survey report but writing to us separately with a covering letter, pointing out that having had these recommendations made by a surveyor we would invalidate our insurance if the boat sank due being inundated with water from tidal waters or from short lock gates. Knowing that this would effectively stop us from navigating two key northern canals (the Leeds & Liverpool and the Lancaster) and a few others, it is clear that the owner's group in this case has some decisions to make. My vote is to stick to basic good practice and get that well deck lifted.

Yep - me too in the astonishment department. I have no idea. We only bought our share last September. On behalf of the owners I think I'm the first to bottom out this problem (lol, forgive the pun ). Cratch coming soon (hoping!) as I think it is the only solution that has a chance of working. Live and learn. One thing is for sure - if I ever buy our own boat 100% I'll be looking for a step up from the front cabin and drain holes thro the sides of the bow! At least with this one the costs get shared 10 ways

Our joiner, who is presently stripping the rear cabin, tells me that it is the worst of the design options for front well deck drainage; ie. as described by Radiomariner but without any sort of constraint for water to the edge of the baseplate to starboard and port; no pipe, no tube, no channel, nothing. It gets in at the front and drains all the way back and is free to swill across the boat width, creating the perfect conditions for all sorts of timber rotting nightmares as it goes . If I'm lucky I might be finding corresponding triangular apertures at the bottom corners of the engine bulkhead to let it escape into the engine bay. Timbers in unventilated wet/damp places - that's a triple yuk! I'm going to recommend to the other owners that we invest in a cratch cover - they've said they don't want one, I think I've found a very good way to encourage them to change their minds!

Hi - I signed up for this forum in the small hours of this morning, and for expediency I used the Facebook sign in method. I now want to sign in 'directly' and "Disassociate Facebook". All I thought I had to do was set a password on the Canalworld settings page and use my email address (same one as used for Facebook) and the new password to login, but this doesn't seem to work. At the moment I can still login with FB. Obviously I don't want to disassociate FB until the direct method works. Any ideas? Anything I've missed? I assume the username will be my email address and not my screen name? Thanks in advance

Many thanks to all who have responded; all very helpful. Comments from andyb116 regarding drain tubes connecting the well deck to the engine bay bilge are of particular interest. I'll be attending the boat next week so I'll be taking a close look into this; the well deck floor level is equal to cabin floor level so there has to be an arrangement for drainage as you describe. I also note the useful suggestion made by Neil Smith about using potentially corroded drain tubes as a conduit to feed a new length of plastic pipe along the length of the boat although the practicality of this as a solution will depend on existing pipe diameter and wall thickness of the new pipe; sealing at the end also being a challenge. Great stuff! Very pleased to have joined this forum; have used a few over the years but this one thus far is getting a big thumbs up from me

Hmmmm.... Interesting already and thanks for the very fast response - is this forum always this good?!!?... That's what I was expecting Dog House, but the holes as described must be very small if they are there as my pictures of the boat don't show any, and I don't recall spotting them on NBs generally here on the Macc canal, although admittedly I haven't been looking for them (I will be now!) I suppose from a design point of view it all depends on the intended relationship between water level and well deck level.

I part own a 1995 ex-Ownerships 58ft semi-trad NB built (I am told) by Liverpool Boats (as was). The front well deck is open to the elements and in common with many NBs at first glance you would think it would act as a huge bucket when it rains and fill up with water, which it never does. I am new to this boat which is the first boat I've ever had any ownership of... Question: Typically, how does rainwater drain out of this area? I am assuming it drains to the stern (to be picked up by the stern bilge pump) along the sides of the cabin somehow using the natural bow-to-stern fall of the baseplate? If so are drainage channels formed at the sides somehow to stop water flowing across the general underfloor area? Q is prompted by the fact that we have water accumulating where it shouldn't under the rear cabin floor. NB is soon to be dry docked for investigations and a full survey which hopefully should reveal all. Presently we have the bed removed and much of the floor decking removed; it's not a pretty sight (rotten battens on corroded cross bracing) and clear therefore that this problem is a long-standing one. Potential plumbing culprits are being identified and fixed but I do just need to fully understand the rainwater factor; particularly how it moves from bow to stern (I understand all about engine bay bilge and stern gland etc)