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Not relevant, no. Hence the giggles. I don't keep one (beyond service history and receipts etc) for my car, bike, microscooter or roller skates either... I'm not too worried about navigating on a canal in a major conurbation in a vessel I can walk as fast as (when it is going at a suitable tick over speed for passing wide beams...). My terriers have greater range most days and we like tow path walks! Horses (with or without full veterinary and competition history) for courses innit ? Remarkably I've managed to steer all of the above without GPS. A canal is much harder to loose than a bridleway (or ones balance on roller skates)!

Is that someone on here's boat? Looks familiar so guessing either that or I've seen it moored up near me?

On new boat my plumbing is pretty simple and well labelled (to the point of 'but surely if you need it to say _that_ you have bigger problems?!?'). And not _overly_ good (the pump out tank pipes hadn't been fitted according to even the instructions left on the boat and I had to reseal all the entry/exit points). The wiring seems overly fancy (in a mostly good way) and is not labelled at all that I've found so far. Or at least... the only labels are the ones on the 5 panels of switches (none on cables) all of which say the same things and the boat definitely doesn't have 5 bilge pumps, 5 lighting circuits, 5 ... So, small shout out for labelling the stuff you're good at rather than just the stuff you find tricky. New owner may be the other way around!

Giggles. I love London and I love that my boats are basically less good at getting around than I am as a pedestrian so I never have to leave it. I *did* used to keep a (b)log of the best curry houses though!

It's not really super-complex is it? https://www.amazon.co.uk/AquaPlay-Water-Toy-Holiday-System/dp/B000PKFF3C Blinking hard work, but not, y'know, actually that hard to 'know'. Most London boaters can't afford a mooring in a London marina and are struggling to manage commitments and cruising simultaneously. I'm very fortunate. And hard working. Albeit in a 'commute to it by boat' rather than a 'do it on the boat' kind of way. And yes, for many years (before they were all integrated with the Oyster system) I had a Thames Clipper pass but no travel card/car to commute with.

Not my objective, no, although I'm cruising one of my boats at present. I've never holidayed on a canal and may well never do so, even when retired. Was genuinely perplexed by the idea a boater mentioned of keeping a written log of journeys! I can get my boats from A to B and the cruising one is just a slightly interesting place to host friends and family really. For more extended leisure boating I used to row and more recently sail. I'm keen on my narrowboats but wouldn't particularly want to be taking them all over the country. I even staycationed sometimes in a land home 8-)

The kind of boater who is ticking off a list of canals as they cruise them.

That went for most of the original occupants of canal boats too. They weren't the landed gentry taking time to 'cruise x% of the network' - they were working people who could very often not afford anything else. 'The life (of a retired canal spotter)' is definitely not a part of 'the (older) history'.

Maybe if old boaters took time to take stock and learn they'd at least be able to impart some factually correct historic or current info ? I meant picking on new widebeam owners. New, expensive widebeam owners.

Nice pictures of e.g. the Ward family who lived on NB IRIS? And an account of the difficulties faced by the Grand Junction Canal Company in the '30s with too few boatmen prepared to live/work on the canal? I think you can (new to forum so fount of all board knowledge, me) - there is some form of likes counter on here isn't there? And picking on new boaters is such a noble art form ?

That is still cheap (possibly the only affordable - have you seen how much baristas get paid vs how much flats in Hoxton cost?!?) accommodation for those working near by. Which is still way more 'in keeping' with what the GU was built for than retired ppl canal spotting.

Go on, have fun finding me a lovely book to read explaining how it is an entirely stupid novice mistake to assume that the small accommodation sections at the back of boats were ever used as accommodation by the people who worked on the boats...

Narrowboats have a very long tradition of being used as cheap housing - what on earth do you think boatmans cabins are?!?

Of course. But I'm pretty sure the GU wasn't built for retired people to go canal-spotting on.

Some people in houses have little/no interest in interior design or buildings maintenance. Similarly many people in 'park homes' have little interest in caravanning. It is quite difficult to feel sympathy with the leisure boater when the GU was designed and built for trade and workers' accommodation (in boatman's cabins), not for boating as a pass-time... Do all the 'proper' boating-interested boaters paint over their scumbling becasue it is all about making their boats too similar to a pleasant place to live? Burn their crochet on their stoves becasue pretty needlework is too homely in the context of 'serious' boating? There is a longer tradition of making cheap homes as nice as possible on the canals than there is of swooshing (or not swooshing, becasue washes and all that) around them for fun.

It might help if you could let people know what you want the boat for...? What you want for *living on *drinking gin on in summer *tinkering with *feeling historic with *(presumably not) racing/exercising in etc is going to be a bit different.

My 6yr old human can get my 60ft boat moving.

It was a 'boats used to be pulled by horses' joke. I was allowing for a canal horse being a bit more powerful than the ones they calibrated on.

He has an opinion that new boaters don't do well in other than pointy boats. It doesn't take years of experience of boating to know that some people enjoy their gadgets (bokats/cars/kitchen flipping blenders, it doesn't matter) over-spec'd. That is a human observation, not a boating one. And anything more than 2hp is over spec'd for a canal boat anyway. I ask plenty of basic questions on here and am enjoying learning. Feeling a little defensive of other newish boaters doesn't make me knowledgeable about narrowboats (and certainly not about widebeams). But I tend not to pick on other people's boats (or cars, or kitchen blenders...) and didn't think it was a particularly friendly thing to do.

Nothing wrong with over-specc ing if it makes you happy / you enjoy winning awards. My floating flat boat has a more powerful engine than my cruising boat. Doesn't mean you have to use it!

I doubt that the boat being wide has much to do with how much cruising non-itinerant people do. Some people are natural travellers and some are not. Some become travellers when life throws them a curve ball or a wake up call. Likewise people become stationary at those times. For people moving from a house / flat to a boat a widebeam could well be a 'gateway' boat - they may not be ready for living in a 6foot tube. As with any lifestyle change it may/may not pan out as envisaged. Doesn't make it a failure.

That too, for sure. I thought the amount spent had also come into it...

It's just a boat. That fits on the GU. Like loads of other widebeams.

Shhh. You can get round section ones more designed for rails (these look more similar to the ones I have on ridges). If these are the plastic ones though they won't do much harm. On my boat with rails I tie them to the rails directly with an adjustable knot. Easy to pop up onto roof (and not worry about loosing) when cruising and adjustable/slideable depending what I'm moored against. But some people prefer gadgets. And that is fine too! In any event they are way better than things fixed to gunwales!

See! Most handy to have controls right in front of self :-) My other boat has more the set up of OP's (albeit on a trad) and whilst I'm fine with that I do slightly wish the tiller was a little lower. I'd waste time and money faffing if I had them too :-)