Neil2

So you are saying that for almost two years there has been three boats permanently moored in a no mooring area yet CRT won't/can't do anything about it?

I suspect the distinction between summer and winter is possibly because there are no lock keepers around in the winter, even though the opening hours are the same. The anti vandal locks are different to the padlocks/chains that are applied when they lock up for the day.

I remember years ago when the locks were manned full time, the keeper at Newlay used to say in the morning, paradise, in the afternoon, Beirut... There was an incident quite some time ago when apparently the lockies were pinned down in their hut by kids from the council estate with an air rifle. This has left a long standing legacy, but we've been through this stretch many times and never had any real trouble. The only incident was when we got our timing wrong one day and hit the staircase after school. There was a gang of kids swimming in the locks, despite three BT lock keepers in attendance, but we got to the top ok. Then one of the lads wrapped our centre line around the bollard as the boat was coming up and it started to heel over - I honestly think he was trying to help - but my wife screamed at him and the entire gang immediately lined up on the lockside just as if they were waiting outside the headmaster's door expecting to get caned. I actually felt sorry for them. But if my wife shouts at you then believe me, you do as you're told...

But didn't we agree on a different thread that the cost of doing up a wreck these days is way more expensive than a few years ago, just on the cost of steel alone. £10k on a boat like this that almost certainly needs overplating - and the rest - is not a cheap boat. Get it for £3k maybe and it might be worth it. But, it needs to come out of the water before anyone can make a proper assessment.

I think the key factor here is that you had the opportunity to return to be near friends and family. Owning a house in the uk is like being a member of an exclusive club where the members have some control over their future. If you give up that stake in society, when you have problems all you can do is throw yourself on the mercy of the state. I had an Aunt who with her husband decided to sell up and move to Spain, where they were conned into spending their life savings on an apartment that on resale wasn't worth anything like what they paid. When their health deteriorated they decided to return to the UK and ended up in a tiny council flat in let's just say not the nicest location in central Lancs. I remember when they had this fabulous detached Victorian villa just on the edge of the Peak District and they gave it up all because of a rush of blood to the head. They must have spent a long lonely time regretting that decision.

It sounds like this "survey" was conducted with the boat in the water? If so, it's worthless. You need a proper external hull survey. But based on the comments above, unless you are getting this boat for next to nothing, forget it.

The fact that it's not unusual doesn't make it acceptable.

This topic probably occupies more space on cycling forums than any other, as it's all about theory and practice, ie in theory high pressure is better but in practice it isn't - only on dead smooth surfaces and uk roads are anything but dead smooth. It's the reason why in recent years wide section tyres have become more popular among the racing fraternity - when I was racing some of us were using pencil thin 18mm covers - it's great though, I now have a great excuse for my pathetic results. In the case of the record breaking Moulton, Alex Moulton collaborated with French tyre company Wolber and produced a one-off special - I think they were 17" at the time - which was a special compound and did in fact run at very high pressures. AFAIK this tyre never went into mass production, probably because it wasn't safe for general use. Actually I'm not sure about that, it may have been produced but I suspect as you could only use it on a Moulton the market was limited.

Alex Moulton was ahead of his time in many ways, he was the first to truly understand the importance of rolling resistance in cycling, something which even today isn't fully appreciated. His approach was that small wheels (tyres) have less rolling resistance because the contact patch is smaller than a larger wheel. But in practice the ability of a large wheel to roll over rough surfaces and bumps outweighs this. That's where Moulton's innovative suspension system comes in - removing the drawback of small wheels. The Achilles heel was/is going uphill, where the front suspension causes power losses. That's why mountain bikes often have sophisticated controls to lock up the suspension when climbing. I'm out of touch TBH so I don't know if present day Moultons now incorporate this feature, the one's I've ridden didn't.

Your Carlton will be Reynolds 531 tubing which is hardly used any more mainly because the frame building industry is now dominated by more modern steel alloys that can be (TIG) welded. It's less labour intensive ie cheaper. So there's probably only a few builders who would be prepared to build in 531 which is only available to special order these days. How times have changed, it was the de rigeur frame material when I started racing. I'd guess to build a replica of your frame alone would be around £1500 today. The components it's difficult to say as you would want the proper vintage stuff and some parts have become horrifically expensive - all the stuff I've thrown away over the years!

I don't know I would say I got tired of boating, and think I would still be a boat owner if there was some way of substantially lowering the costs, but on the inland waterways there isn't really a cheap way of doing it. Many of us live a long way from the nearest waterway which means marina fees all year round, so with the licence as well even a small boat has significant overheads. There comes a point where you start looking at a) what real enjoyment you are getting from it and b) what else you could do with the money... Not being fabulously wealthy I just wanted the novelty of having a bit more disposably income for a while. I may very well buy another boat, eventually, especially if the currently inflated market crashes.

The point I was trying to make is that it should be a two way thing - yes if the customer welshes on the deal the builder keeps the deposit, but if the builder doesn't fulfil his side of the bargain the customer can similarly demand their money back. But TBH anyone commissioning a new steel boat at the moment is taking a great leap of faith, it's surely another reason why the used boat market is white hot.

Of course in the end it's all about the engine... But it's worth bearing in mind that the upright bicycle land speed record of 51mph was set on a Moulton. Because Moultons do not conform to UCI rules you can't use them for road racing but it's rumoured that Tommy Simpson said he wished he could have raced on one. British amateur racer John Woodburn once broke the record for Cardiff to London on one, that's the only example I can think of where the bike was used in a competitive sense. It's academic for most of us because of the eye watering price of "proper" Moultons.

That's the bit that confused me - surely if you place a deposit on the basis that the build will start at a certain time and then it doesn't, you can ask for your money back. Doesn't matter whose fault it is.

At last we have a "real world" narrowboat account - very interesting. It certainly challenges the notion that you can move a narrowboat at "normal" cruising speeds with less than 1kw. And with the state of many of our narrow canals, lack of dredging etc. means that most of the time you are going to be travelling in less than optimal conditions. The economics of solar panels is equally thought provoking.

Getting behind a crawling boat on the Shropshire Union is the worst I think, there's so many linear moorings on that canal. I think it's the stretch down to Ellesmere Port where the moored boats seem to go on for hours.

I agree with the sentiments, but one aspect of Ange's post makes you realise how important it is to have a safety net if things take a turn for the worse. I've met a worrying number of liveaboards in recent times who have sold everything they have in order to live on the waterways. One case in particular I remember was an elderly couple who had sold their house bought a new boat and given away the rest of the money to their three children. When I asked what they would do in the event of a serious health issue the answer was they didn't like to think about it. No wonder. I'm in the "life's short" camp myself but life is also very unpredictable and it doesn't hurt to take sensible precautions against an uncertain future.

The conclusion I am coming to is that whether it's the guys selling hybrid systems or the outlandish claims of Motherships etc. it is just a distraction to the main issue which is the need for charging points. This is what happens when you try to tackle a global problem in a market led economy. I'm sure the likes of Finesse and Motherships are genuinely concerned about the environment, but once you transfer that concern into running a business the need to make a profit takes over and everything becomes smoke and mirrors. You could even say that if these companies were first and foremost concerned about emissions and energy conservation they would take a more holistic view and campaign for a proper infrastructure to take us into the next century. Back in the 1990's Graham Booth was predicting an "electric future" for narrowboats, we've made virtually no progress in over twenty years and all we get from the government is meaningless waffle dressed up as a "plan".

It's a slightly depressing aspect of the modern canal environment that many users now seem to think their floating home with all the comforts of land based living should be immune from the slightest disturbance. When I started boating, an awful lot of canal craft were grp cruisers or lightly built Springers - the first steel boat I had would rock from side to side if you sneezed. Of course at the same time the new breed of canal boater can't be bothered to learn how to tie their boat up properly. I'm waiting for the day that someone yells at me from the towpath at Tixall. It's only a matter of time.

No it isn't. There's no stated requirement anywhere for all boats on uk waters to be emission free by 2050. The relevant government document here is the "Clean Maritime plan" but it's not a plan at all, it's a vague statement of expectations as to how boats in future will be emission free with no concrete aims or targets and certainly no detail on how the nation is supposed to meet these expectations.

Got to say my experience this year is quite the opposite. Too many boats travelling much too slowly. There seems to be a significant number of boaters these days who think being on a canal gives you the right to travel as slowly as you like, regardless. I'm not going to make excuses for the speeding boater described above, but if he had maybe been held up for miles by a boat moving at tickover speed you could perhaps understand his frustration. In similar vein, I too have had "slow down..!" yelled at me more than once this year, and on each occasion I was passing by on tickover at around 2mph. A lot of folk new to the canals don't seem to realise that as canals get shallower it's almost impossible to pass by without disturbing moored craft.

Oh, so true - up here in the Highlands these things are wall to wall and you have to increase your journey times to compensate.

Years ago we had our skin tank re- welded (in the water) when it sprang a leak - surely that's even more hazardous given the plating is usually thinner than the base. It was stick welded IIRC and a swine to get at but the guy did a great job.

The press "reviews" of the Motherships boats spend a lot of time describing the fit out etc before getting to the interesting bit which is then rather skirted over, I feel. Also, all the demos were done on rivers... I would like to see a real world appraisal of these boats on somewhere like the Ashby, for example, a notoriously turgid canal. When marketing/publicity is done so selectively you cannot help being sceptical. If this company has something which is genuinely ground breaking then why not subject it to more rigorous testing. As I remarked on the Finesse boats - full order books say nothing except that some people have been convinced by the marketing. There are not enough of these boats in circulation yet so every buyer is taking something of a risk.

I'm sorry to hear that @mrsmelly it's truly sad if you have to pack in on health grounds. As for the plus points well our house is costing us a bloody fortune at the moment so I'll have to get back to you on that..