Froggy

I have to say, i'm a bit surprised at the lack of interest in this post. I'm of the impression, having been a member of these forums for best part of 18 months, that a lot of you like your booze! Granted, it's a bit of unnecessary bling, but the reason i bought this is as follows: We have an aft room that was intended by the original owner as a spare bedroom, but for us it's a mutipurpose room: somewhere to drop bags and coats etc. to avoid cluttering up the main living space, a place to do a bit of DIY, a place for me to have my own space when the other half is watching something on tv i'm not interested in, and yes we have used it as a guest bedroom once. I came back into the boat one evening late last summer, having left just our wall-mounted brass spotlight on. We replaced all these lights shortly after getting the boat, because they were looking very tatty, with the brass finish falling apart and some of them not even working due to the last owner running bulbs that were too hot; we also took the opportunity to replace the halogen bulbs with LEDs. Anyway, our boat has the usual wood panelling typical of a 20 year old boat, and the warm low light suddenly evoked an old fashioned inn to my mind. I later thought it would be a good idea to accentuate this by adding a few pub-related items, since i already had an old-fashioned Truman's enamel-style beer advert bought at the Beamish Museum years back, lying around in storage. So, when i saw the above item on Amazon at a reduced price, which to me is a steal for something that is very good quality, i couldn't resist. I guess most of you wouldn't find the same use for this item as myself, but looking at the reviews it has proved hugely successful with landlubbers who have converted their garden shed into a home pub.

This is a great bit of fun, and currently on offer at £12.99 plus p&p if you want the blue one. If you want to splash out you can even order a multi-coloured variant with a remote control (at considerably higher cost). I changed the default text at the top to the name of the boat, and the text at the bottom to 'P(r)op-up Bar'. You even get a really nice day-glo coaster thrown in. Really good quality, highly recommended. Please note that it's mains powered. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EAJTNO6/ref=cfb_at_prodpg

As somebody else mentioned there are some at Devizes marina, but i think there is a waiting list, and possibly at Dundas wharf where i think the same applies. From what i've read on this thread though, leisure moorings would be a useful alternative. On the section i currently know, between Bath and Wootton Rivers, there seem to be quite a few privately owned leisure moorings, although most appear to be at capacity. As we might ourselves be looking for such towards next winter it would be helpful to have a directory with phone numbers so people could phone around. The only other option is the temporary winter contracts on visitor moorings that CRT offer, although the price isn't very attractive considering there's no mains hookup provided. This currently seems to be the best CRT can offer, although when i visited this page just now a pop-up chat box appeared, so i've provided a bit of feedback suggesting this. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/mooring/mooring-faqs To clarify the above (because i can no longer edit): i suggested to the CRT that it would be good if they could compile such a directory, across the whole network. Given that they seem keen for boaters to have a 'home mooring' you'd think they would be happy to do this. Nobody answered my message in the Chat box, not even the (presumably virtual) Charlotte whose name appeared in the box, so maybe it just falls on deaf ears..... On a vaguely related subject, it does seem that, looking at their FB page, there will eventually be a new marina at the junction with the old Wilts and Berks, but i'm guessing that this is many years away.

As somebody else mentioned there are some at Devizes marina, but i think there is a waiting list, and possibly at Dundas wharf where i think the same applies. From what i've read on this thread though, leisure moorings would be a useful alternative. On the section i currently know, between Bath and Wootton Rivers, there seem to be quite a few privately owned leisure moorings, although most appear to be at capacity. As we might ourselves be looking for such towards next winter it would be helpful to have a directory with phone numbers so people could phone around. The only other option is the temporary winter contracts on visitor moorings that CRT offer, although the price isn't very attractive considering there's no mains hookup provided. This currently seems to be the best CRT can offer, although when i visited this page just now a pop-up chat box appeared, so i've provided a bit of feedback suggesting this. https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/boating/mooring/mooring-faqs

CRT need to be slapping notices on these and then lifting them out of the water if there is no satisfactory response within a statutory amount of time. Otherwise, what motivation is there for everybody else to toe the line?

When i started reading this i was expecting to find a link to a directory of all private and CRT longterm moorings on the K&A - which is the sort of information i'm assuming the OP was after. Would i be right to assume that no such information exists?

This is all getting very silly! There should be an 'eating popcorn' greenie. This emoticon will have to do instead:

Maybe before the CRT look at penalising continuous cruisers they should take into account whether the demand for 'home moorings' exceeds the supply.

That's interesting because we've never had problems with water ingress from the side hatch - whereas many of the windows allow some ingress in an irregular fashion, largely depending on the strength of the rain and the direction of the wind.

Thanks, that's a serious bit of kit, I'll take a closer look at this option.

Thanks for the photo. Yeah, that might work, at least as a partial solution along with a heavy duty bar across the two hatches or something. It looks as if these fasteners do the same job as a slide bolt but without having to drill a bolt hole in the frame. This might be preferable in fact to bolts because the holes would have to be drilled at an angle into the frame. possible compromising the frame if you drill too deep. It looks like you have replaced a previously fitted bolt yourself, so did you find the sash fastener more effective?

That might work on ours, even though we don't have a lid..... am tempted to visit the local Screwfix to have a closer look since the price is very reasonable.

Are you talking of something along the lines of this: https://shop.rivercanalrescue.co.uk/shop/ShowProduct.aspx?Id=104160 or this: https://shop.rivercanalrescue.co.uk/shop/ShowProduct.aspx?Id=104164 EDIT: on closer inspection i don't think either of those would work.....

Thanks Jen, these suggestions are well worth looking into. I'm not at the boat atm but from memory the steel frame extends all around the wood panel. The overlapping lip is only on the left door. This does suggest that the original idea was to secure the door something along the lines of what you suggest, but i can't see any evidence of earlier fixings. Fixing a slide bolt(s) through the metal where the doors meet wouldn't stop the doors bowing out when pulled/pushed as per our existing setup, but fixing bolts through the metal frames at the bottom and top of the left (overlapping) door might work, which is what i was considering but hadn't thought of running the bolts through the metal frame. This could be further reinforced by either additional bolts between the doors, or a metal bar that stretches across the width of the doors as previously suggested by someone else. EDIT: oops, no, it was you Jen! Thanks, i can see that this could provide a very secure fitting. I still can't work out how our hatch doors were meant to be secured when the boat was originally fitted out though..... It seems obvious from the replies to this thread that there are no standardised ways of securing side hatches, which rather surprises me.

* desperately reaches for the logout button, just in case!..... You're being very naughty and have post-edited your post, i now wish i'd taken a screenshot as proof! Btw, i come from Cheshire, so have nothing but praise!

Uh, I hope so!..... No, PLEEAAASE, i'm about to turn in and fancy a restful sleep!

I sure wouldn't want to meet that guy on a dark night along the cut!

Just as an aside, we've had no trouble in the five months or so we've so far spent on the cut, but i have heard a few scary stories. I'm assuming that break-ins to boats is a relatively rare event? I'm not sure what you mean by flipover lids? That surely qualifies as cruelty to swans and other assorted wildfowl!

I echo these sentiments, and yes, if somebody really wants to get in they can simply kick a window through or something, but i guess you have to make some effort to deter them, and if you didn't there would no doubt be a problem when making an insurance claim. It's possible that some of the products advertised on this page might do the job, but without seeing them first-hand i'm not sure: https://shop.rivercanalrescue.co.uk/shop/ShowProductMasters.aspx?Id=5105 What's the thinking on the hatch fasteners and toggle fasteners shown on that page? Would either of them offer more security than a couple of bolts into the frame fixed to the door on the left? The trouble i envisage with bolts is that the holes would have to be drilled through the frame at an angle, so limiting the depth of the holes without compromising the integrity of the wood.

This is interesting. As it stands, the bolt fits through the left door and then the hole in the right-hand door, as visible in the second photograph, and we've had to bend the bolt on the left door so that it mates with the hole on the right door as they are closed (as you can see, there's a hexagonal nut on the bolt on the inside of the left door to prevent it simply being removed from the outside. However, i have suspected that the little plate was part of the original securing method since, if i remember it correctly, we found it lying on the floor shortly after we'd forced the door. Your suggestion that it might fit into the space between the doors is not something we've explored. I'm assuming that you mean on the inside of the left door with the L overlap and on the outside of the right door as they mate together, rather than in the small space between the two doors when they are closed? This latter would not work now although the original hole (now filled) though the L in the left door would have allowed a straight bolt (as opposed to our bent bodged one!) to pass through the left door and into the cabin without any direct contact with the right door. I'm not able to explore these suggestions hands-on right now because i'm not currently on the boat.

We don't have a welding kit so that would be an additional (and unwelcome, due to other forthcoming work with the boat) expense, but nevertheless your suggestion seems to be very workable so i'll definitely be bearing it in mind.

Btw, it's possiblie that the small plate shown in the second photograph was part of the original securing method, since we found it in the boat.

I guess that would work up to a point, Jen, although the vulnerability here would be the short screws fixing the handles to the doors. I accept what you're saying about a crowbar attack, but we'd like to make it a bit more difficult to get in than it is at present by ensuring that the doors remain firmly shut to anything other than brute force. I'm not sure of your meaning, Mike. The boat is, overall, well built, so i'm guessing that the doors were reasonably secure when it was originally fitted out.

First and foremost, be careful what you post in this thread, and please don't compromise the security of your boat, but notwithstanding this any advice would be appreciated. This is our first boat, and shortly after we took possession back in November 2016 we struggled to open the side hatch (even though the vendor had done so when we'd viewed). Later that day whilst i was elsewhere in the boat my other half managed to force it open somehow, but consequently neither of us could work out how it had been secured. We bodged something together with a bolt, a small plate, and a wing-nut, using a pre-existing hole in the overlap of the left door, as shown in the photographs. However, this allows the door to bow open by a few inches when pushed (or pulled from the outside), so the door could easily be forced open. Before venturing back out on the cut again we are keen to improve the security on this hatch. The obvious solution is to drill a couple of holes and screw in a couple of bolts, but we've scratched our heads over the ensuing months trying to work out how the original fitters (JD Narrowboats of Gailey) secured this hatch, since there are no signs of bolt holes in the frame or screw holes in the doors. Can anybody provide any clues or make any suggestions? It's not clear from the photographs but there was a slightly larger hole than the one we are using that somewhere along the way has been filled.

We haven't decided which product to go for yet (no point until we have our next pumpout, which is imminent), but i will certainly try your suggestion. Since we have a separate tank for flush water we could probably also add a bio product directly to this tank.