Allthatjaz

We have a miniature Russian hunting hound that looks a bit like a mini pincher. He's the perfect size for a boat, doesn't malt and isn't yappy. I would like another dog and have thought about a springer, but when we were over at Woodbridge, which was tidal and so you ended up sitting in the mud a lot; our neighbouring boat had a springer who constantly jumped off to either swim or sink in the mud. I've always had lurchers and so was doubtful about having a small dog. Got to say though, our little guy isn't just clever, he's fast and can take down a rat and kill it in seconds. My lurchers couldn't catch a rat and that wasn't for want of trying.

Its a 60ftx12ft flat bottomed wide beam

Reading through these forums makes me realise how little I know about the UK waterways. I guess its going to be a whole knew learning curve and hopefully a great adventure. I'm very excited!

Very nice. I love cats even though they terrify me!

We have VHF and Steve has his yacht master (not sure if that's the same thing) He is registered to motor up the Thames. We obviously have life jackets. On the Orwell we have massive ships who are continuously giving five blasts of the horn due to people not understanding the rules of the waterways (small vessels sticking to the deep channel and thinking they have right of way over 100,000 tons of metal. Reading your experiences made me laugh. We once got stuck out in a force 9 for two days. We were close to the Thames estuary and getting nowhere and because of the size of our boat, in the shipping lane. Steve and me decided to get an hours kip whilst our supposedly competent crew member took to the helm. Steve woke up realising something wasn't right and realised a supertanker was passing us so closely in the other direction that he could of painted a stripe down its side! The guy at the helm just said, "its cool man, I saw it". Fantastic... thanks Alan

Is Tucky on here? We've already moved our workshop up there. We have decided we will stay here till the NY but then we need to get going. 60x12 and 25 tons. By the way, we aren't keeping this wide beam which has been ideal for round here. We are selling it and getting a narrowboat. I'd want it to be professional boat movers. Funnily enough that's what my husband did for years but that was delivering yachts to far away lands.

Around 11 years ago we were doing a lot of sailing. We had a 55ft ketch back then and she'd proved to be a great boat. We regularly got her lifted and attended to her undersides but the one thing we didn't pay a lot of attention to was the bow thruster mechanics (I guess we just didn't know much about them at that time). We left the boat at anchor on the Sands in Poole to go off and do some work for three months but just into our second week we got a phone call from the marina to say she had sunk. They had recovered her and were busy pumping her out. We arrived back to find our old girl was so badly water damaged that we didn't know if we could save her. The headlining were coming away, the floor was floating around the boat and all of our possessions were ruined. It turned out that an internal mechanical part had fractured which had created a fast flowing fountain into the boat. It had probably taken a week to sink. We did recover her but it took a long time to dry her out and restore her. The company that had provided and fitted the bow thruster four years earlier had gone bust so we had no comeback from them. Fortunately though, we were insured.

Having lived on a yacht prior to a canal boat, we buttoned down the hatches in winter and kept the log fire burning. Yachts are tightly sealed, they have to be because they have a tendency to roll over in a big storm. I have to say, that first winter we slept really well, in fact we had difficulty getting up in the morning. We put in a CO alarm and it took all of two minutes from closing the hatches for that alarm to go off. Yep, we were lucky and a bit naive/stupid. Our only blessing I suppose was, the lack of oxygen tended to put the fire out!

Thanks for the reply mrsmelly. They don't have a hoist big enough to lift our boat at York and they don't have a place where we can get a private crane in. Its all very manicured... a bit posh! Good to know we can get someone to move it. It would certainly make me feel a lot happier. We would love to do that Harold but alas its not possible. I wonder if we could get it lifted in at Goole. I'll check that one out. Thanks for the advice