Lady Muck

If you're happy to breast up you'll be ok, it might actually be a bit quieter if you're coming in the summer as thats when a lot of the cruisers choose to be away from London. If you can't breast up, you'll be lucky to get anything between Kensal Green and Hackney Wick as we found last summer. Thing is, most of the cruisers move at the weekend, so if you too, are not on the move at that time, then it's a lot harder to get a space.

employ one over there? Yeah but yours is in awesome condition, you don't hear about the uninsurable wrecks that the London boat yards see.

No not at all, hes seriously concerned that people don't know what they've bought, which is why he told me what I've just posted on here. I'm not exaggerating when I say he sees a widebeam (and its baseplate) at least every week. Why would he make this up? He's a surveyor, it's his job to identify this stuff. Mariskae, send me a private message, I'll put you in touch.

Mariskae, I would be very careful with *any* budget widebeam builder. Its not the internal fitting out I'd be concerned about, a surveyor friend messaged me the other day to ask me to share his thoughts on budget widebeams being delivered to his yard, He said (c+p from message) 'most arrive painted some with the blacking still wet and all with the base plate never painted there is a lattice work of welds on the base plate and most bases are undulating which will be a problem in time take a 70ft narrow boat overplate the base in 6mm steel total cost 11k imagine what a 70ft wide will cost. with the poor quality workmanship of wide beams and there inherent soon to be realised problems with the steel work I can see wide beams becoming the NEW SPRINGERS.' Did you get chance to look at the baseplate? Do you know what to look for? I'm not sure I would, but I can see from the countless new ones that come past me in London, the constructions not always that great, lots of wavy cabin sides. The usual caveat with a new build is to employ a surveyor to oversee the build and it's really really worth doing, if you ask me.

those are also now really trendy with London hipsters. I considered a folding bike, but the state of some towpaths, I think I'm better off with my boys mountain bike, its really tough and copes with being slung on the roof. and I use the bike quite a bit for some distance journeys, when we cruise.

Hi Lizzy, I see you're in London, so I may be assuming, so if I am and I've got it wrong, I apologise. But if you're planning to cruise around the capital, run a fridge off solar and cruise only every 14 days, then 500 or 600w might be a better idea. Yes there are a lot of ccers on this board but they would probably have more engine running time than a London ccer, probably moving a lot more often and that can make your needs quite different. We've got a fridge (Shoreline 12V) with an ice box, the ice box is plenty big enough for our needs. I'd question the wisdom of having a separate freezer, the only people I know who cruise who have them have very sophisticated electrical systems with onboard gensets etc. Most cruisers I know, don't even have a fridge. Also as Mike says, Webastos and Ebers require batteries in good condition. If you're new to boating it can take a while to get used to living onboard and the electric systems and batteries are often the first things to suffer. Agree with getting a burner fitted, swap lights for LED, but personally I'd go for a 12v fridge over one with an inverter, I'm of the keep it simple school of thought and inverters are just one more thing that can go wrong.

I agree, we're not locking the thread.

Ours is there purely as a back up, in the case of engine/alternator/battery issues (because we WFH we need electricity). It seldom gets used now we have solar.

Its about £8 - £10 a night, I think.

Thats a lot more sensible if you ask me. Yes quite a few do it.

Well,I used to think it was a blockage that would render the elsan useless, but then we discovered that it was simply full to overflowing. 10 years ago, the cess pit was emptied about every eight weeks, then that was increased to every month. Then they gave the lock cottages a seperate pit. Then we got to emptying every two weeks. Then we lost the nearest set of services - don't know whether this is gossip or not but supposedly the developers ( of, yes you guessed it, yet more luxury waterside apartments), mistakenly demolished the services. Because of this, the elsan was full and unusable every week. The sewage backs up and overflows, it stinks. Because the toilets and showers still continue to be used it gets worse and worse. We've since got them to send a truck every week and we haven't had any problems since. Although some prat (who should have known better) tipped used engine oil down it a couple of months ago. When that happens it's expensive.

The OP is in London and it was implied in this thread that the change in terms was 'because of the London situation'. But I disagree. That's why I'm prattling on about it.

Maybe they were just having a brain fart and didn't read the date on your email properly?

See I really don't think this is happening in London, they have a massive housing shortage as it is, so evicting boaters is only going to give them more hassle. And there's not the nimbyism here as London moorings don't tend to be overlooked by housing. They don't get complained about. I really do think this is a CRT thing.

brilliant!

Bimbling not allowed anymore! Banned!

I wonder if this is CRTs' plan for other moorings? Wouldn't surprise me! Would be a right pain though, because I'm freelance, I please myself when we head off and come back, how on earth do I know where I'm going to be next week? I don't.

You've got to agree any berth sitting with CRT in advance, they have new rules to do with that, too. We were off our mooring last summer, we had difficulty offering our mooring to friends who we knew could use one as CRT now won't let anyone who is on the naughty step borrow a mooring. It's a double punishment if you ask me, you get into trouble because you're not moving far enough (because you really need a mooring in that area but there's no availability). Then when your friend says, 'borrow mine and stop stressing,' you can't, they won't let you. I've two friends who really want to let one round here, but they've got a very long wait, I reckon.

We seriously discussed getting one on the Oxford canal as well as this one. But, our plan B would be to cruise the system but choose a different marina every winter. That's always been the plan.

oh they had a proper official book that it went in.They know whats going on, on their sites. Just the same as they know where all the cruisers are. If they want boats gone then I shall just have a different adventure, we've always said that. I love my mooring but I won't be able to afford it if/when they inevitably whack it up to yuppie/hipster price levels, so then I shall cruise.

If we are talking London area leisure moorings, then I can think of only two sites (Uxbridge and Hackney Wick) that are towpath and neither of them are anywhere near houses. I can't think of any leisure moorings *at all* that are near enough to houses for them to be able to smell smoke or hear gennies. There are some on the lower Lea opposite flats but have you seen how wide the lea is at that point? Most of the Lea ones are offside and not near houses, most of the Stort ones are, too, (including the private moorings), the only ones in town that are leisure (I think) are at Lisson wide and they are not near anything at all unless you count that huge ugly power station.