booke23

Yes, especially in this price bracket. It’s a case of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Yes it sounds like it. In plant equipment these engines probably get to 5000 hours in a couple of years so any widespread issue with the push rods would soon be widespread.

On the face of it a much better prospect than the wooden top first boat. Overpriced I think considering it has no galley and is a bit unfinished in places. The Superser gas heater will have to go to pass BSS.

I guess it boils down to how much you like the boat and if it has historical value. Common sense would dictate you scrap and use the refurb money to buy a newer boat, but if you love it you could end up with a very nice boat after the restoration. It would be great if you could actually get the boat re-plated instead of over-plated, but I imagine that would cost a fortune and would require specialist skills to have the replacement plate shaped properly and riveted.

That was lucky you were able to get parts so close by. How many hours were on the engine when that happened?

No, surely a write off.

Yanmar (Barrus Shire) along with Kubota (Beta Marine) are amongst the highest regarded modern engines in canal boats. The only thing I noticed about the Yanmar's is they tend to be a bit smokey at low rpm. This is a feature of the design with direct injection and lack of swirl in the cylinders at low rpm and not actually a fault.

There's never a staircase lock around when you need one!

If you're near a staircase lock you could achieve the same....you would even have a fixed ladder going down to the dry dock just like a real shipyard! Although leaky gates might make it a little wetter than ideal.

I remember my victron 160ah LiFePO4 battery could be mounted upright or on it's side, but not with the terminals pointing downwards. I think there was one model of victron LiFePO4 battery that had to be mounted upright but I can't remember which one. ETA a quick look on Google reveals that the victron 330ah LiFePO4 must be mounted upright, the others are ok upright or on their side.

Good point, except I found it wearing after about 3 days!

I have to agree with Alan. At the £25k end of the market you're up against it, but you're particularly up against it with a wooden topped boat. Run away. I love how the advert mentions the skilled team at Shropshire boat builders from 1972! Does anyone remember if they were a skilled team? Sadly they're probably all 6 feet under by now and the boat has had 53 years of use in the meantime so any build issues are long since ironed out. With a lot of careful searching it might be possible to find a reasonably decent steel boat that has been recently overplated, as boats in this price bracket are generally in need of overplating or have just had it. Even then it's a potential can of worms as the quality of overplating varies. Another idea is to look for a decent GRP cruiser....£25k will buy you a good one but even then there are potential problems, like lack on insulation for winter living.

Yes but Elon only owns 12.8% of Tesla, OTOH Adolf was responsible for the deaths of 70,000,000 people. Should I hate both VW and Tesla....or just one, or neither. A tricky dilemma!

I assume the panel has the same view on VW group cars (Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Porsche) as VW was basically founded by Adolf Hitler himself.

That's a very good point. Some people could find it very distressing seeing their home of many years getting abused and wrecked in a way only tenants seem able to do. The frictional costs could be well worth it for some. Longest ever built was 1504ft so they should be ok in that regard!

I concur. I had a boat with hardwood stern rails which were varnished like that. I made the mistake of not varnishing them one year and the next year I had to extensively sand and re-do them as water had made it under the varnish in places. I took the rails home and did it in the garage for ideal conditions.....Of course it was pretty hard going sanding the hardwood, and I had to apply 5 coats of varnish (24hrs required between coats) to get the deep shine back. Took a week!

You could try covering it in washing up liquid in the absence of lubricant spray....that should make it much easier to fit.

Indeed. You could cut the irony with a cricket stump!

Yes boatclubs are worth considering. They are all different, I didn’t get interviewed for the last club I was in (to any newbie thinking of starting a boat club - I’d recommend you always interview as there are some funny characters on the canals!), there was a grass cutting rota that required you be responsible for the grass one week a year so that wasn’t onerous, and a couple of working party days a year to do odd jobs. There was water but no electric or elsan. The downside from my point of view is they are much more social….no such thing as keeping yourself to yourself. This is great if everybody is easy to get on with but as the saying goes it only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel, and I did come across a few rotten apples. It was very cheap though….paid £1200 for the year 2023-24 for my 40 footer.

Absolutely. Sea otters are brilliant, a great and innovative product and I'm surprised no one took up the mantle to build them, especially in the last few years where the market has ballooned. I think HDPE could be similarly innovative and great in the small narrowboat market.

It was and the MAIB report is a good lesson for a new narrowboater as it shows how things can get out of control fast. The crew of carers were quite experienced and had done many trips with disabled clients, but they were clearly distracted when operating the lock as the first to notice the boat was hung up was the crew onboard when by this time water was flooding the rear of the boat. They shout to drop the paddles, but the crew member instead ran to the top paddle with the intention to open it to try and raise the water level...of course he didn't have the anti vandal handcuff key in his pocket as it was on the bottom paddle so couldn't do this. The boat then released from the hang up and the resulting wave completely sank it. They emptied the lock and it was actually a 15 year old lad who managed to get in the cabin and drag most of the casualties out. This accident would have been prevented if any one of the points raised in this thread had been adhered to i.e. having a weak link in the bow fender and paying attention to the boat while operating the lock. After this incident I think BW did install anti hangup plates on top gates, but that only reduces the risk. It's still possible to hang up on a top gate.

Excellent point. I hesitate to mention it as acatual fatalities are exceedingly rare but this very issue was the cause of the Steg Neck Lock disaster in the 1990s when 4 disabled people drowned when the bow fender got caught up and the boat sank when descending.

I'd agree with all the advice given. But as a first time single hander, be very careful to keep the boat forward of the cill when going down. It's easy for boats with multi crew as one stays aboard and controls the position of the boat with the engine but as a single hander you'll have to use the centre or bow line to achieve this. But you must not tie it as the rope needs playing out as the boat drops in the lock. After doing a few locks you'll be a pro.

Ditto. I've reported a handful of clear rule breaches on use of bad language over the past 6 months, which mostly don't get upheld. Maybe the mods are very stretched theses days and perhaps have to triage reports to a degree and target their resources at the most serious breaches.