BilgePump
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Posts posted by BilgePump
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16 hours ago, Mike Todd said:
Just to be clear - the Co-Op are not responsible for the venue - only paying to have their name on it, so they are as much a disappointed client as the ticket holders.
Yep, the backers are a real mix including MCFC's UAE owner's cash, Eagles' US management (Oakview Music Group), and Harry Styles!
I can never keep up with who is sponsoring all these venues at a given time and what they're officially called. This to me will be 'the arena at Man City' and the AO arena will stay as 'the arena at Viccy station'. The latter has gone through a load of names since I first went to it as the Nynex arena (remember them - they were a cable company).
Whole thing is a farce and some at the Co-op must be having a real facepalm moment.
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Under a fiver? Probably a bottle of meths. Get to cook warm food and clear up Sikaflex mess with it. And in-keeping with a previous post, you can always have a swig of it when out of beer.
Under fifty quid? First things to mind are a decent Seagull outboard for dead on fifty, or an Aldi inflatable canoe with paddle (£40) plus 12v pump (£5) and foot pump (£3.50) equals less than fifty.
Under £500? A 20' yacht in good nick with excellent sails and a great 8hp Yamaha engine. eBay auction for £497, although that was over ten years ago; often wish I'd not got rid of that boat.
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Pictures seem to be in two different hardstanding locations, both of which look better than most boatyards I know. Do hope it's going in the water before long! In all seriousness, looks to be a great boat. Enjoy!
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Quite a cool feather in your cap for confidence. Plenty of long time boaters who won't have done something tidal like that. Also shows that your engine is up to a bit of a challenge if required.
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1 hour ago, dmr said:
I half remember reading somewhere that CRT have said that the Lancaster is not suitable for CC'ing ?????
The OP really should not factor in the Ribble link as a means of increasing a limited cruising range. Its a tidal crossing suitable for experienced boaters in good boats with good bigger engines. It has limited passages that have to be booked well in advance and might be cancelled at short notice due to bad weather. If things go wrong it might be months before the OP could return to the Lancaster.
CRT are actually pretty good at granting a limited cruising range in response to genuine medical needs but I suspect will then require the boater to play their part and stick to those relaxed rule, and they can be quite harsh with those who continue to break the rules. Having a chat with those nice CRT people on the towpath is a thing of the past, rule enforcement is now ultimately controlled by people in the office who are obliged to apply the rules fairly and equally.
About five years ago, pre covid, met an older chap on the Macc who had this kind of arrangement. He had to go up and down between Bosley and Whaley (about 20 miles) and play by the mooring rules but wasn't expected to go down the locks to get in the distance. Lovely guy and stuck to CaRT's requests.
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To the OP welcome to the forum. I do urge you to let your situation dictate the boat and not a desire for as much space as possible. It may well save a huge amount of expense and mental anguish down the line.
The problems I see are those already mentioned by previous posters
A 66' boat will offer little extra space inside over a 57' or 60' if they are creatively configured inside. Putting an over 62' boat on the Lancy canal will involve large initial expense and probably put off some prospective buyers should you come to sell. The crane cost isn't the only part as they normally seem to just supply driver and possibly mate and will expect a banks(wo)man and rope(wo)men, normally supplied by marina, boatyard or owner depending on location of lift.
Continuous cruising on the canal whilst wanting to be at the Preston end would involve repeatedly going up and down beyond Glasson, just to be perceived as doing the absolute bare minimum range. Being more than twenty miles from where you really want to be and having to then commute costs a lot in time and money.
I don't think it would be possible for CaRT to argue that a 66' boat isn't suitable for the Lancaster canal as it could navigate the full length and off their waters onto the Ribble or Douglas. However, CaRT leisure moorings on the Lancy are not ridiculously expensive. There is a 40' mooring near Preston going for £1350pa.
40' is probably a bit small for liveaboard with adult guests for a few weeks at a time but let's use it as a thought exercise. Within that length, short bow, a trad stern and small modern boxed engine, you could get a cabin of 30'. Within that you could manage (stepping down from stern) a 4' wide double bed, a small toilet and shower room), a minimalist galley, an L shaped or Pullman dinette that can convert to a double bed (L shaped doesn't need to be converted if only being used by one person). Then it would be possible to have an open space with stove, screen on the wall and folding table for work, camp chairs and beds to make it flexible for visitors. My parents had a 60' extended holiday boat with only one fixed double so as adults when visiting my sister and self plus friends would sleep on a dinette, camp bed or floor on the boat. It just seemed pointless to have the boat set up for multiple occupancy by more than two people all the time. A nominal leisure mooring will be proportionally cheaper than one for a longer boat or if committed to CCing will be a little easier to move single handed, licence cheaper, painting, blacking cheaper etc. If you go up to a 60' boat, you get get more front deck, more space inside for sofa/futon, a bigger galley back deck or cruiser stern or whatever according to desires. Upping to 66' with all the associated expense really seems to offer very little additional benefit.
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Tufnol is a resin composite thing and seems to work well. Low friction, long lasting. Seems to have an indefinite lifespan as a bonus. Have washboards and pulley blocks made out of it and they're 40 odd years old.
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13 minutes ago, Heartland said:
Cotswolds Archeology are working on route of the A66 upgrade and have come across evidence of early communities and water channels. In relation to the time line for canals this must rank as early.
Just looked at the post on their website. Interesting. Settlements from late neolithic (up to approx 3,000 BC here) and middle bronze age (up to about 1200 BC) certainly makes them a lot older than the Bridgewater canal!
https://cotswoldarchaeology.co.uk/discoveries-along-the-a66-northern-trans-pennine-project/
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4 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:
Ouch, £1100 a year to get to your property
Holy moly! That's the same as band A council tax with single person discount here.
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If only those rents were today's prices, I'd get rid of my own boat and hire the whole year round. Really like the looks of some of these old hire cruisers.
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There seem to be a lot of overly optimistic potential boat renters on that site. A common theme in some of the listings by those wanting to rent is that they like the idea of the lifestyle and see it as a low cost way of life to save up some cash before buying a boat of their own. However, with so many newspaper/media stories about how cheap it is to live on the canals, they don't seem to have much of a clue about the going rate for long-term legitimate hire. There are some offering in the £300-£500 per month range, one offering £150/wk and another suggesting £700/mo. Many are hoping for a static mooring and a decent sized boat in expensive areas. I can't see many boat owners chomping at the bit to rent out at those kids of prices, even if there was an easy way to do it all above board.
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Have used the Osculati gelcoat filler before. About £13 for 200g small bean can size tin. Can be sanded quite fine and painted but as noted above don't put on too much or it will take ages to sand back flat.
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13 hours ago, GilesMorris said:
It's been a while, but I've had two boats around this size and both were wonderful. The Microplus 16ft powerboat on the canal allowed exploration of places that would never have happened with a larger boat and the Montgomery 15 sailboat was great over a large part of the Chesapeake Bay. The key is to temper your expectations - it's not going to be luxurious. And be careful who you share the cabin with - with the wrong companion it's like sleeping in a telephone box with a whale. I have my doubts about the limitations imposed by an electric motor, but you will soon be an expert on that.
Agree with much of what you say in this post. There's a boatload of fun to be had with a little trailer sailer. I have one the same size as the OP's, a Leisure 17 with fixed bilge keels. Perfectly capable of estuary, coastal and Irish sea sailing but with small enough dimensions to fit on even a narrow UK canal should it take the fancy. Also have its smaller sibling at 15' but that still has a little weekender cabin. The 15' at under 400kg is easy enough to launch and recover onto trailer and the 17' not much more hassle. Boat on the canal is just a 19' cabin cruiser, teeny, tiny, but can turn it on a sixpence.
I do share your doubts about the usefulness of the electric outboard though. I got one with my boat which came off a lake where petrol powered outboards were banned. It's okay for manoeuvring around the moorings in still airs for a few minutes but wouldn't have a hope against running tide, heavy wind or for any extended period of time. That worked on a lake because you were only looking to get away from the jetty before hoisting the sails. Not much chance of utilising the sails on a narrow canal so the range of travel will be dictated by the battery capacity. Even a couple of fully charged 110Ah batteries wouldn't give the same range as just a gallon of petrol. If the plan is only to go ten minutes up the canal to sit and enjoy the sunshine in a nice location before returning then the silent operation is certainly a plus. For any kind of distance though it's not going to cut it; it's not even as though you could throw a ton of solar on the roof to put some back into the batteries. There's very little spare space on the roof of one of these small boats. Good news is that even the smallest petrol outboard will push a little Skipper along the canal and old secondhand working engines can be found without breaking the bank.
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next post (they got merged and were to two different people)
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To the OP. I'm sure there's a lot of enjoyment to be had on the canal with your boat.
3rd party only insurance will cost about £75 pa. Mine is through Navigators and General (Zurich) but plenty of other companies offer similarly priced cover.
The 30 day canal and river short term explorer licence for 2023-4 was £138 so will be a bit more now. This allows you to use any 30 days in the year - maybe a few weeks, a few weekends and some odd days - in the water. It actually works out cheaper by the day than a week licence and allows you to cut short a week trip and pull the boat out without having paid for the abandoned days.
If you are only going to use the boat by putting it in when in use and then storing it on dry land, and won't be using it more than a certain number of days in the year (56 it used to be iirc) then you can avoid the requirement of renewing the BSS. The short term licences are for boats visitng CaRT's water so don't rely on the registration number that long term licence holders display.
The washboards to the cabin are usually just two pieces of plywood, a couple of retaining pieces and maybe a vent on it. It's an easy task and if you don't have the tools to do it yourself then it would be a quick job for any woodworker if you can give them a template of the old boards and you are prepared to do the sanding and varnishing yourself.
For the window seal, I'm assuming that it has the rubber windscreen type seal type, not in ally frame of such. Have a look on YouTube for videos on how to do it yourself. The tools are pretty cheap on ebay and no matter who does the job the actual rubber seal will cost money (again available on ebay).
Name removal will depend on whether vinyl stick on letters, painted or on their own plate.
All jobs that a new boat owner can get to grips with and all part of the fun!
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To the OP. You're doing your research right and you'll get a lot of information here but your plan to book a holiday on the canal that you would like to be on will give you a ton more knowledge than some of us on here will have about the area. If you can imagine yourself there on frozen December evenings, dealing with a broken engine or water pump, failed batteries (even if only a short distance from a home mooring) and the thought of living aboard still appeals then start looking at the ownership and mooring options. I think that you will have to make compromises and look at having registered address elsewhere with family if possible at first but most things can be worked around. That's not to say it will be cheap but your post doesn't sound as though you think this is a no-cost lifestyle.
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1 minute ago, MtB said:
Disagree.
Being allowed to moor for free on the public towpath for two week stretches at a time separated by one hour of cruising is legitimate CCing according to CRT, and is MUCH cheaper than living in a house.
Agree with both of you in different scenarios. Mooring fees are the kicker, especially if wanting true residential. Liveaboard CCing can be cheaper for sure but there's many people who can't use their boats like that.
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1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:
Nothing is free on the canals.
It is now dearer to live on a boat legitimately than in a house/flat.
I pay more for a no-frills, no amenities 27' towpath leisure mooring oop north here and licence for a little tupperware than have to shell out for the band A council tax and water at home. Would be near double that for liveaboard size NB. True residential marinas/moorings are an order of cost greater.
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Eggs, many years ago down the lower Peak towards Ashton. Most scrotes are looking to nick stuff, not gift groceries.
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1 minute ago, ditchcrawler said:
I am surprised that you didn't get an auto reminder from CRT or do they only do that for licences ?
Online, it's all automatic. Three months before, they email to remind you. When it passes, it updates in their records. It doesn't alert you the day it goes out of BSS certification though (or didn't last year).
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If you do licensing online then CaRT email three months before expiry to remind you. They don't email the moment it goes out of date though. Got mine done a week or so late and regular examiner said they probably wouldn't have made an issue until licence renewal. If anything bad happened though and need to fall onto insurance then lack of one would be a big problem.
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3 minutes ago, LadyG said:
I saw a little boat the other day, outboard driven, the cabin looked very like a garden hut, with side windows, I'm not clear how he could see to steer, and must struggle to generate enough electricity to charge a phone, OK for few weekends in summer, but absolutely not suitable to liveaboard.
I remember a young lad living on a 20' yacht (Corribee iirc) some time ago, and he was doing fine. How was that possible in a boat with no standing headroom and a cabin the size of a two man ridge tent? Answer - he was on a full service marina mooring (electric, wi-fi, washing machine, showers, elsan, cafe, chandlery and close to plenty of town amenities, pubs and shops). The boat was for sleeping, a few meals and sailing; pretty much everything else he did was off the water. His work was computer based so he would spend the workday in various cafes, library, shared workspaces etc.
Could you live on a boat that size if it didn't have access to all those facilities? It would be extremely hardcore and probably lead to physical and mental health issues. But...I imagine that it would be better than sleeping on a park bench or under a tarpaulin strung between trees in the woods. When someone asks me if I could live on my boat (before they understand how small it is) my response is to say that people were living in caves and round campfires in the past but it doesn't mean that we all would want to do the same these days.
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10 hours ago, marti.wunjo said:
So do you pay £500 for Canal license ? And then , do continual cruiseing.?. . . Does anyone know.?
Last year's canal and river licence was £755 for a 23' boat, so will be more from April 1st. I can't imagine there being many 23' yachts with sub 7' beam. 17' boats, yes, quite a few, 20' boats, maybe some but can't think of a 23' yacht that would go on the narrow canals. Even bilge or lifting keels on a boat that size will be a deep draft compared to most canal boats (for example a Leisure 23 draws about 2'8").
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Now this is a great thread. Makes wonderful reading on a dreary Thursday morning at home. Bravo, thanks for posting these.
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1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:
There was a pub directly opposite that I don't recall the name of, I wonder if that survives also? And one 100 yards down the road. The area was called The Pole iirc?
All shut on that road now. It was The Bay opposite which closed a year or more ago and is going to be turned into housing. The Pack Horse further down near the pole closed before Covid and is now owned by an alarm/security business. Still a few around but many have closed over the years.
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9 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
The Anglers arms, do you know it? Google tells me it's still there.
Yip. Know it well. Only just shut as pub recently. Most recent tenants have taken on the Oak at the pole as food place with good reviews. In all honesty, I think it takes a certain type of person to be running a bar, rather than the location as such. I'd feel happy walking into any bar in Failsworth on my own. Would I ever want to run one on a Friday night? No, ta! But I know people who did it for years.
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A Yankee Neo's Flog
in New to Boating?
Posted
Certainly would be a bit of a faff to bring them over on a transatlantic flight. On the other hand a few planes have lost one recently so you can always tell them that you've brought along a couple of spares1