agg221

If I was in your situation I would not be confident of finishing the job in the available time, and would want to limit the disruption. I would therefore do the following: Working in sections down the boat, I would remove everything from a section, run a powered wire brush (angle grinder) over it to remove any loose rust and then either use a surface tolerant epoxy or Vactan and a single pack paint, depending on budget and personal preference. Once the first day's work was done, the following day I would start by preparing a second section for half the day, then paint it, then go to the first day's section where the paint was dry and use Celotex or Kingspan, as per blackrose's comments, with a bead of adhesive right around the edge. I would cut it deliberately about an inch undersize and stick it in the middle of the panel, then use spray insulation to fill up around the edges. This is much quicker than trying to get an accurate fit, and the gap is wide enough to ensure that the spray foam goes right to the bottom. Once cured, I would trim off flush to the batten and tape right over the top (buy 6" wide tape). This will give you a pretty thorough job and the battens can be felt through the tape when fixing over the top (mark them up with a Sharpie). Once you have a sense of how much you can prep, paint and infill in a day, I would swap the order so the painting comes last. That gives you minimum exposure to the fumes, although one reason I prefer epoxy is that it is very high solids so the solvent exposure is reduced. Avoid water-based paints, keep the ventilation high and be aware that if you use Vactan it may be tricky to get that to dry and then the overcoating paint on top in a single day so the process might extend by a day. Alec

You will probably need to do quite a bit of ringing round to find a winter mooring that matches what you are looking for as they will be popular. One place you could put on your list to try is Stafford Boat Club as it has the things you are looking for and also a lot of friendly help and advice. Alec

I think you need to move on from the idea of legal recourse. What's done is done, the likelihood of getting the money back is negligible and the cost of trying is prohibitive, so you need to learn the lessons to stop it happening again. Simple lessons: Don't trust anything you are told by a broker. Look for yourself or get an expert to look for you. Choose your expert wisely - there are ways to find out who is or is not a good option. Unfortunately, whilst one of the best ways to do so is asking on an internet forum such as this, you have to be established enough to know who is giving useful advice and who is not. People also tend to join such forums after they have problems when it is too late. Nothing can be done about that, but at least you can now ask specific questions about newly arising specific problems. I suggest asking on a new thread each time - people may not be following this thread who could give you good advice (on your electrics for example). Photograph any invoices and keep either hard copies or photographic copies. If you find the right people to work with, there may well be no invoices. That does not mean they are bad, it means they are old-fashioned and have not had to catch up with the 21st century because they are good enough to always work by word of mouth. You need to start finding such people to cover the things you don't know how to do. Ask around. The engine is best assumed to be OK for the moment. That doesn't mean it is, it just means it's the best assumption to work on as anything else is not the priority and is probably beyond your knowledge. However, pragmatically, start mentally budgeting for the next round of engine work. The good news is that the boat having done very few miles means the engine is probably not worn out. Could a healthy battery have drained doing what you have been doing? Possibly. My guess is that your two batteries are old and need replacing - leisure batteries have a finite life and die much faster when not looked after, and who knows what the history of yours is. They probably haven't been charged while you were having the boat fixed. They might be possible to resurrect for a while (days/weeks) to the level where you can run a single light at night. However, do check what type of light it is - if it's been on shore power and is old enough it could be an incandescent bulb on a 240v circuit. What you really want is an LED - if your lights aren't LEDs then change them. Also check whether there is anything else turned on inadvertently, or which you just haven't considered. Fridge? Freezer? Do not consider the batteries failing to be someone else's fault - that one is partly just what batteries do and may well also be partly down to you, through lack of knowledge. I suggest a search of the forum on batteries (there are several recurring posts on how to look after them) and then if you can't find the answers, ask in a separate thread. Coupling - yes you will need to replace it. Although it looks simple, it isn't. It's a bonded rubber strip which is compressed in place and when it tears that means it has failed. Changing the coupling is not hard - the best option would be to see if you can get one easily and, if not, take up Tracy on her offer to point you in the right direction at the right price, and then get talked through how to change it yourself. Once you start to become independent of paying people to fix things you will be more in control, and also better able to start forming your own judgement on what does and does not need doing. You are on a steep learning curve - the rate at which you keep shovelling money in to this is going to slow down fairly quickly once the basics are fixed, although do plan for the regular maintenance of blacking, painting etc. Alec

There definitely were. In our case, I have a longstanding interest in ice boats. There are only five iron BCN ice boats left of the original six, one is Ross which is deconverted at the BCLM so that leaves four which might become available. Since 1998 when I first became interested in them, three of the boats have changed hands, one of them (ours) twice. We bought it with eyes open, knowing who had done the survey and who had built the cabin. The rest was down to chance - we concluded that anything else we could fix. Unfortunately, for the average buyer of the average boat, the combination of post-COVID lockdowns ending and ever rising house prices in city centres have put a lot of boats on the market which are nowhere near as good as they purport to be, and it can be a hard lesson finding that out. The OP has actually done better than many in that, whilst the need for all the work done is debatable and quite frankly an engine which has recently been service should at least have been run enough to know if the thermostat is not opening, it has at least focused on the priorities of hull and engine rather than the cosmetics. The OP has also set aside a sensible original budget for work. As such, I would expect that, in the fullness of time, this will be resolved. There is a financial cost but there is also a lot of learning. I would guess he will either find this boat works for him and keep it, in which case there is an intangible value to having had the work done on a boat you actually enjoy, rather than just treat as a financial proposition, or if he moves on he will not make the same mistakes again. Alec

Although possibly slightly less naïve than you, we also bought a boat which turned out to have a succession of issues, with a seller who, it turned out, had at best spun a lot of lines and at worst, lied outright. Like you, we also bought the boat we wanted rather than one which might be considered the best commercial proposition. I can therefore empathise to a large extent. For us, the thing to do was revert to the positives. Is the hull sound? Yes, so it's not going to sink. Is the cabin sound? Yes, so it's not going to fill up with water. How about other entry points for water? The stern gland, but that is new and the shaft is new so no issues there (you are one up on us on that one - ours had issues, now resolved). That means you have a sound boat. Everything beyond that is a system which will periodically break, but the issues when it does become increasingly manageable. Propulsion first - I would check the engine oil (do you really trust the boatyard?), see whether it smokes much on start-up or when running and whether it makes any horrible noises, either vibration or grating, in forwards or reverse and across the rev range. If it's OK on all of that it is probably alright. One day it will break down again, but it might be a long time so you have time to plan what you will do when it does - repair or replace, and time to set aside funds to do it. Prop and shaft - well that's already been done. That leaves the coupling - well that will also be brand new. Beyond that, your next systems to work out will be electrics, heating and cooking. Assuming you have a current BSS (you do have one don't you?) then the gas at least shouldn't be leaking. Yes, things get missed, but you can probably check pretty quickly whether it's OK and if so there is no particular reason to believe it will break rapidly. Things will fail but these will all have been in use while it was being lived on so are more likely to at least be basically functional. You can go a long way with a gas hob, a stove and some very basic lighting. I presume you now have a porta potti, so the only other thing you might ideally want is a shower. Once you have that lot, you have the basics. You will probably spend a fair bit of time working out why each of them has gone wrong in turn in the first instance, but they will fail progressively less frequently if you fix them properly, and you will be quicker at diagnosing them when they do. When we picked ours up the tiller was missing (used the broom handle), the chimney was missing (lived without heat and used thicker duvets) and the fenders had been swapped for ones which were so rotten that they fell apart. Our first stretch was up the Trent - there was a huge sense of relief in making it to the canal without the engine packing up. The throttle linkage fell apart the next day (not properly secured), the promised topping up of the diesel tank hadn't happened (made it to a boatyard and got some) and there was no water and no gas on board. We ran across a passing fuel boat to sort the gas and used some water bottles until we could sort the tank out. We found the engine hadn't actually been serviced in years (despite the statement to the contrary) but it held up until we got to our mooring, unlike the gear linkage which fell apart completely and the engine cooling system which sprang a leak. We made it in to Norbury with my daughter raising and lowering the gear engagement in response to hand signals and my wife jamming her thumb in the leak in the cooling system while pouring extra water in the header tank. I then found that the gear linkage had fallen apart because it was held to the ceiling with a single quarter inch screw! Some better screws and a piece of wood to spread the load, and some instant gasket and judicious use of spanners and mole grips got the thing going again and we made it to Cheswardine. The following day it refused to start - much turning over by hand to bleed the fuel pump got it running eventually and we made it to the mooring with a great sense of relief and set to with sorting it all out. We have now owned the boat almost exactly two years. The trip down to Audlem for a weekend this August (~4hrs each way) was the first time we have had a trip where the engine has started properly every time. Is it fixed? Probably not. However, you would expect that as more of it gets fixed, there will be an increasing frequency of this happening and eventually it may become the norm, with engine failure becoming the exception. That would be nice - less time fixing the engine will mean more time fixing other things and the boat will gradually progress towards finished. Yours will probably do the same. Alec

Nappy pins and goat chains are essentially interchangeable. Some prefer one, others prefer the other. For reasons I can't explain I regularly forget to pick up nappy pins but always remember goat chains. I also like the fact that they provide positive attachment by going right around something, and there are some cases where you can thread the chain down the back of something but the front isn't standard piling shaped, so the chain will still work while the pin won't. I had this at the Audlem gathering this year - we were the last boat on the offside, directly opposite the Shroppie Fly, by the lock. The ground was too soft to hold a pin and the working of the lock would have pulled us out. The piling has half collapsed at the front end and is under water but by reaching right down I could thread the chain in (below water level) and it was fine whereas the nappy pin wouldn't have worked. I fully accept that others would have just moved to a different mooring! It's very much personal choice on this one. Alec

That bit is quite normal - you are very much on your own when it comes to accessories. They either come with the boat or they don't and you certainly won't get given them by a broker or a boatyard. However, the learning curve for such things is not very long or steep. Get yourself a CRT key, a hose for filling the water tank, the keys to undo the water and diesel filler caps, an anti-vandal key for locks, a couple of mooring spikes and a hammer and personally I would add a couple of goat chains for mooring to piling (I prefer them to nappy pins). That should be about it for now. Oh and do check how much diesel you have in the tank! On the plus side, you now have control of costs and any work that you need/want doing you can decide whether to do yourself or have done, or put it off until you can afford it. Alec

The first time we hired (having previously had a couple of canal holidays with my parents) we went round the Avon ring. My brother and I were the only ones in the group with any experience and it was a very pleasant route. There were five of us and we went round the ring with a side trip to Birmingham, in a week. We did travel longer days though. We hired from Wootton Wawen (near Stratford) so the other end of the river section. Experience from the earlier trips where we had planned to go on the Severn and couldn't because of the river levels meant that we covered the river section first as the levels were fine, and then finished on the canal section - this was against the advice of the hire company who suggested we go anticlockwise as you are planning to do. It turned out to be a good idea though - all their other boats followed their advice and couldn't get back; we were the only boat to make it back to base! I certainly wouldn't regard it as too difficult a route. I would probably look to run for longer on the first few days, perhaps sacrificing long stops at Worcester, Tewkesbury and Evesham for getting a bit ahead of plan time-wise and clear of any potential issues with river levels. Once you are at Stratford and off the river you can slow down. That would also give you a bit more time in hand at the beginning of the trip, which would allow you to decide what pace suits you without any need to push on to get back. If you find you like shorter days you could just go round the ring, but if you find you like cruising for longer then you could use the time in hand to go into Birmingham (only a short run up from Kingswood Junction and no extra locks) and then if you still have time in hand at the end of the trip, you could go on past Droitwich and down to Worcester again whichever way you didn't go the first time, spend a bit more time there and head back the other way (Droitwich is part of a mini-ring with the Severn, the bottom of the Worcester and Birmingham and the Droitwich canals). Alec

Moor in the right places and you can avoid the shelf. The visitor moorings at Brewood, Gnosall, Norbury, Cheswardine, Market Drayton and Audlem are definitely OK. Alongside your main stops, it's worth being aware that Norbury has a decent chandlery, Audlem has the canal bookshop, a good butchers and the Shroppie Fly is currently in very capable hands for beer and food (including breakfast). It shouldn't be too busy at Audlem so the moorings between locks 12 and 13 should be available. I think there may also be a launderette at the Bridge Inn in Brewood which is right by the canal. Oh, and Wheaton Aston generally has the cheapest diesel around. Alec

It's still a pleasant stretch, which is why we are based near Market Drayton. Still has nice, quiet market towns. However, public transport is near non-existent and taxis to get to it are also near non-existent. We needed to get the car from Stretton to Market Drayton and had to pre-book a taxi 24hrs in advance. There are no buses to or from Market Drayton except for the one to Shrewsbury and I don't believe the other towns are much better. That said, if you plan the mooring stops right it can be done fairly easily. Penkridge has a station; it's fairly easy to reach public transport from near Autherley and if you have a bike it is a surprisingly short distance from Brewood/Stretton/Wheaton Aston back to Penkridge by road. Nantwich is the next place with decent connections - depends on your boating style as to whether you regard that as one day or two from Wheaton Aston. Alec

If you bolted one under each cavitation plate, and then hinged the plates, holding them horizontal on a chain, you could pull them up to clear them or do any maintenance. Alec

A Kelvin Ricardo petrol/paraffin would do it nicely. It's not really using petrol, any more than a J or K does, as it's just for starting. I would probably go for an E so that I could load it up properly (and they are smaller and cheaper). Alec

They did. It was Keith's last project. The Opduwers they have actually come in kit form - there is another one assembled awaiting someone who wants it finished, and a third which is still flat-packed. Not taking anything away from them though, it's a great place with a lot of practical skills, which is why Oates went there for some work (which included getting the rudder sorted) and my Opduwer will be heading there in due course for some substantial repair work. Alec

Your location may not be ideal for this, but Industry (Stretton on the SU) has done an excellent job in fixing the rattling (mine) and bent (someone currently there) rudders on two boats - they seem to be particularly offended by them and make a point of sorting them out. No connection other than as a very satisfied customer. Alec

I have a generator for running power tools. It's a Kawasaki GA1400A (1400W), bought second hand and well used. I have run power tools up to 1200W and it works fine. I bought this size because it's difficult to find certain tools, particularly circular saws and power planes, below that power rating which are worth having and tools like battery angle grinders really take the run time on the battery down. It also means I can run a decent sized power drill with a hole saw for cutting steel, and even for drilling smaller holes such as for fixing portholes it cuts the drill time right down - about 3mins for a decent DeWalt battery drill, 20s for a 1200W corded Makita. It doesn't sound like much, but in the course of a day it really does add up. Alec

You can - the standard hydraulic set up is a diesel engine driving a hydraulic pump which drives a hydraulic motor. You could replace the diesel engine with an electric motor. There are two main issues: 1. The efficiency loss from the hydraulic system is relatively high at around 15%. We run a 20hp engine into a hydraulic pump which gives us a calculated 17hp output. In practice, a conventional shaft drive would have energy losses from each bearing so we aren't losing that much, and we don't have an issue (I have never really run at full power) but if you are reliant on charging batteries then it would begin to significantly impact on range, particularly when you consider that having to drive the batteries harder would bring forward the point when you reached the drop-off point in discharge rate. Someone with more understanding than me would need to calculate it but I would anticipate losing 20% of full charge range, which either means capping range or adding more batteries. 2. Hydraulic pipes are relatively large and relatively stiff. Clearly this can be overcome (see Hampton) but it would be easier and less disruptive to run cables as they will be smaller and more flexible. Alec

As a poor student/group of friends with student debt we always hired on price. This was from 1993 to 1998. We hired cheap, we got cheap, and they broke down. On every boat I expected the engine to need daily attention - checking coolant and oil, topping up as necessary, a quick look over for anything that looked loose or leaking, greasing the stern gland etc. It's habitual. If we (usually I) couldn't lash it up, we called out the engineer and it got lashed up enough to get us going again. The furthest we were from safety was halfway across a canal, so we never worried about it. Issues we couldn't just sort out included: A cracked shower pump hose which we noticed when the carpet at the stern got wet underfoot. Hose wasn't long enough to trim so engineer needed for a new hose. It took the rest of the trip to dry out with the carpet up. A constantly dripping shower which periodically got the floor outside the shower compartment wet as water got walked through the boat when people used the wash basin. A broken fridge which filled up with water in the drip tray. Assurance that there was no way we could run the boat out of diesel. We ran the boat out of diesel coming back from Ellesmere Port, somewhere near Golden Nook. We got a tow from another hire boat and filled up at Chas Hardern's. The hire company attempted a complete engine swap between the previous hire and us picking up. They didn't complete it; we lost the Saturday and when we set off on Sunday they hadn't done any adjustments. Ultimate consequence was that the braking band on the gearbox was out of adjustment and slipped, eventually getting too hot and cracking in half somewhere up the Caldon I think. Nothing they could do about it so we did the remainder of the trip without reverse, perfecting the strapping technique for entering locks in the process. All of the above issues, with the exception of the first (which was Union Canal Carriers' Great Britain), were with the now defunct Middlewich Narrowboats. We got a very negative attitude from the owner who attempted to refuse to refund our deposit on the last one, despite the fact that the issues were clearly down to the company. Fortunately, one of our party worked for Canal Boat. I can't quite remember what he said to the owner but I know the deposit got refunded. On a practical level, only the last one was actually an issue. The others were minor, easily fixed and had no real effect. Losing the first half day did impact our plans (I have still never boated into Liverpool) and If we hadn't been reasonably confident, and experienced, the loss of reverse would have been game over. The attempt to blame the hirers because of the assumption that they were young and therefore easy to manipulate was also unpleasant. We hired the following year from AngloWelsh (being a bit less poor by that stage!) and the boats were middle of the road, perfectly sound and we had no issues in a fortnight. The children being old enough to try boating and see if they enjoyed it, we hired again in 2019. Again a cheap boat - by then named Molly but actually an original 1970s AngloWelsh hire boat, with original fit-out and engine. Yes it might have broken down; yes the wooden cabin leaked a bit when it rained hard, but it was brilliant and if we had been quicker off the mark we would have bought Molly when the owner packed up the hire business as a consequence of COVID. Edit: there was another one which was from the successor to Gregory's Canal Cruisers - we were doing the BCN challenge and only got a few miles up the W&E before reverse failed during a de-weeding manoeuvre. Had to bring it back and swap it for their other boat and start again, which resulted in doing the Wolverhampton 21 four times in two days. Their comment - we didn't think anyone would want to go into Birmingham when there's the lovely Staffs. & Worcs. to cruise! If you book a 2* B&B you don't expect a 5* hotel. With realistic expectations, you can still have a great time. The thing to remember with canal boats is that usually when something breaks down, your distance to safety is the distance to the bank, so there is no need to lose confidence in them, just keep going and cross your fingers! Alec

Unless some form of repair is effected, we are one of the boats which will no longer be there (although we might get as close as we can). To an extent, I am less concerned about that, more concerned about getting through and then not being able to get back as we don't have a viable option if that happens. Alec

The surface tolerant epoxy primers are better if you can't gritblast, and are very good for patching in for that reason. They are often more expensive and in my practical experience they often flow less well so it's harder to get a nice, smooth coat. My current preference is a surface tolerant epoxy on the hull and something which flows out better on the cabin and engine parts. I have the luxury of using up various ends of cans of things at the moment and particularly like Banoh 1500 on blast cleaned engine castings as it is largely self-levelling and hides a multitude of sins when it comes to pitting damage. It is also doing a nice job on bits of cabin. Alec

I know Canalworld is congenitally incapable of remaining on topic but so far this has been an interesting and enjoyable thread. Perhaps those who want to argue about fitness for purpose of welds would like to start their own thread to do so? If they do, I will happily contribute some thoughts on the origins of fracture mechanics and its application to welded structures, particularly in the context of low quality steels. Alec

If you can't find a supplier, such things are relatively easily made from some mild steel sheet of suitable thickness. If you have access to a lathe then it is extremely straightforward (fix it to a faceplate over a sacrificial piece of aluminium and cut from the front). If not, a hole saw to cut the outside and a step drill to cut the inside. Easier to keep straight on a pillar drill but can be done with an ordinary power drill. Ebay/Amazon are good sources of cheap drill bits for this kind of job where they are unlikely to be used very often. I bought a set of 3 step drills on Friday (biggest being to 32mm) and they turned up yesterday. Imperial hole saws and step drills are also easily available but remember that hole saws are measured by the hole they leave, not the disc they cut out, so you would need to test a few and may have to do a bit of fettling on the edges afterwards with a file. Alec

No - I was thinking of the moorings near Betton Wood Bend. I think someone moved on from there recently so there may be a space. Alec

Overwater at Audlem is decent. If you need absolutely nothing in the way of services then the offside farm moorings at Market Drayton are an option. Parking on site, no restrictions on working on the boat and winding holes 20mins one way (with services) and 40mins the other. Contract length is flexible. Alec

I think this may be overly pessimistic. I expect the canals to survive, but navigating them may well become increasingly difficult and costs are inevitably set to rise. What I do expect to happen is that the licence fee structure will change so that paying CRT for the privilege of not having a home mooring will become as expensive as paying someone else to have one. I also anticipate a harder line being taken on overstaying and other forms of enforcement, partly as a direct response to the George Ward case and partly a more general response to the rise of shanty towns in London and the Kennet & Avon. Viable lifestyle choice? - probably. Cheap housing akin to squatting? - probably not. Alec

There are cheaper options which are legitimate, if you are prepared to accept the compromises. We don't live aboard, but we could where we are. We pay £1300 a year for an online farm mooring for a 38' boat. I pay a year in advance and the contract has a month's notice either way. There are no facilities beyond a single tap at the end of the moorings, but there is a winding hole 40mins one way and 20mins the other and the second one has full facilities including a boatyard which sells gas and diesel if you don't want to use the fuel boat. There are also no restrictions on working on your boat so we can do whatever we want that is practical in the water, just with due consideration to the 'neighbours' - this is of course a quid pro quo situation so when John next door wants to watch the football and runs his generator until 10pm that's fine with us (we do check with one another if doing something out of the ordinary). I reckon it would be possible to live with a 2hr cruise every week. However, we are moored in deepest rural Shropshire in a location with no public transport and no taxis. The closer you want to live to a centre of population, the busier it gets and the more expensive moorings are likely to get (unless you want to live in Stoke on Trent, but who would...) Alec