Liam

I'm nearly 20 now, and I've been at it since I was 12, so 8 years - not bad. I've been told you have more confidence when you're younger. I spose I'll find out one day lol.

I've been at the tiller (and wheel) of a hell of a lot of boats.. I've driven everything imbetween a 17ft cabin cruiser to a full length working boats... Including a Leeds and Liverpool long boat which I used to crew on selling coal, gas & diesel etc along the cut.

I left school 4 years ago - not much chance of me bunking off is there Got lots of holidays left that I can take off work and I can't think of a better way to spend it them than messing about on boats lol.

Dan, what an offer! Nigel, I'm up north.. so any oppurtinites in this area.. can you let me know please?

My parents have been looking around on the internet and in different brokers for some time now, looking for a bigger, younger boat for extended cruising in the future. They eventually found one.. in Tring on the Grand Union (We are all the way up in Manchester). Here's what our log reports.. 09/04/05 Arrived at Cowroast Marina around 12. Went to see the boat out of the water. Good check all over and all is well. Our friends, Normal & Lynn, who gave us a lift in a very posh minibus. After sorting out the moneys and other stuff, we set off after filling up with diesel, water & coal. 10/04/05 Up at 6.30. Checked Oil & Water and we were off for our first full days cruise on the new boat. Shared the locks all the way down the GU with another boat. 11/04/05 Set off at 8am. Stoke Bruerne is as lovely as the pictures and stories make it out to be! No time to stop, unfortunately. Through Blisworth tunnels, complete with spooky shadows. Got rather wet, it's a very leaky tunnel. Fueled up at Alvechurch Marina, Blisworth. £30. Finally tied up at 8.30 after pasing through a couple of moor locks and Braunston Tunnel.. and then finally tied up in Braunston just before the junction. 12/04/05 Set off at 8.30. A lamb in the canal struggling to get out! We stopped and rescued the poor thing. Plenty of Baahh's which we decided were thank you's. At around 5.15pm we were again in rescue mode. A small Yorkshire Terrier pup was fighting for his life in the middle of the cut. I pointed the bows over in its direction. Unfortunately a pup in the canal moves around easier than a 50ft boat with a 2ft 6in draught. We finally managed to pull him out just in time. He was going under. I hate to think what would of happened if we hadn't of showed up. 13/04/05 Set off at 6am for the Atherstone locks. Very shallow pound... ran aground right in the middle of the cut, and with no boat pole it was very hard to get the boat moving. I shot off up the locks to let some more water down and we eventually got crawling along again.. We stopped, rather run down at Brindleys Bank, just past Bridge 67 on the T&M Canal. 14/04/05 Stopped at stone for supplies. Just nosing out of Newcastle Lock near Stone Boatbuilders and the engine died. I shot through into the engine hole and everything seemed to be in order. After a more deeper look, we'd ran out of diesel. OH NO! We've had a Lister SR2 for the past 5 years and have gotten quite used to the small amount of diesel it used to slurp. The Perkins D3 the boat has doesn't half drink it. After putting £120's worth of fuel in (just to make sure) I found out that the fuel lift pump was badly worn - that worn infact, that it refused to pull the diesel up from the tank and push it around the engine. A quick call to our good friend Tony, off "Rhoda" secured us a lift pump and a delivery time of 10am the next morning. Great stuff! 15/04/05 Up early. Had a leisurely breakfast and a walk around town before 10am. Tony turned up with the fuel lift pump. A quick fit was done and after spending a while bleeding the engine, we were back up and running! Moored up at Eturia for a slap up meal and a few pints later in the evening. 16/04/05 Late start. Headed for Harecastle Tunnel. We had a bit of good luck and we were allowed through straight away. Onto the Cheshire locks, or "Heartbreak Hill" as most people call it. Made Broken Cross by 9.30pm. 17/04/05 Set off around 7am, and I took over shortly afterwards heaving towards home. It's our last day now. I wish we could turn around and do it all again. We saw a few friends along the route and moored up for a chat. Tied up at Thorn Marine for a short while, whilst we put £30 fuel in, and got some more coal. We also emptied the loo. Onto Lymm, where we stopped at the pub for drinks and food. We met a few boats from our moorings, so we had a bit of company on the cruise back. Made it back home shortly afterwards, tied up and packed up. We made it home for 7.30pm. Work tommorow. Well, what a seriously brilliant weekend. Would I do it again? Yep, I sure would.. give me half a chance and I'd be off. Not bad going... 202 miles and 121 locks in around 100 cruising hours, which took us 8 days.

Ok, time to be stereotypical... Some of the people in London use their boats to live on only. Whether they are students or work in the city centre and don't way to pay through the teeth for accomodation. Living on a boat is the cheapest and easiest way you can do this. They just want to get on with it. They're not into all this "boating".

A mate of mine was actually p*ssed on from a bridge - SOOOO glad I didn't set off first!

He obviously does NOT know everything, otherwise he wouldn't of drawn the lock against you. Some people are right XYZ's !!! I think there is such thing as a "Real Boater" Not everybody knows what they're doing on the cut afterall. I would prefer not to explain as I wouldn't want to upset or p*ss any one off - It's only my own opinion.

After well over 200 years of bucket and chuck it - I think I'd pass on that.

I always take my watch off before doing any work - be it on the boat or elsewhere. I normally have two watches, one that cost me £40, and another one that cost me £5. I always make sure I am wearing the £5 watch before doing any manual work... which reminds me, replace the £5 watch as I managed to crack the face whilst down the weedhatch. £5 is £5... but it's better than £40

Hmm, let's see.. 1: A log which was about 3ft long and 6 inches wide caught between the prop and the inside of the weedhatch 2: A double matress 3: Numerous plastic bags 4: That industrial orange heavy duty plastic netting 5: Yards and yards of fishing line complete with several hooks.. OUCH! 6: Telegraph pole complete with yards and yards of cable. It chewed up and spat the pole out, it was the damn cable that was the prob. A friend of ours, years ago, actually pulled a big sack off his outboard which contained kittens! All in all, been quite lucky really lol

Okay you've got the Leeds and Liverpool long boat, which is widebeam and 72ft long, such as "Ambush" and then you have the Leeds and Liverpool short boats like "Bacup" at ellesmere port. I thought the point of this was that the short boats could get anywhere, hence why they're 10ft shorter.