Mike Jordan

I think your questions would be best answered by looking for a fabricator who currently makes such a boat. If there is one, then looking at the product will solve the problem of appearance. I think it has a good chance of looking like a floating shed, but we all like different things! If there isn't a current maker,then any fabricator prepared to take on the work will be liable to charge a premium price for making a "one off" item. I'm sorry to pour cold water on your ideas, particularly as I normally encourage people to fit out their own shells ( it's how I make a living) Adventures of this sort are best undertaken by the well heeled not those of us who have to consider the overall costs and the eventual sale of the boat. Mike Jordan.

You say that the surveyor is accredited, it seems sensible route would be to complain with a full breakdown of the unreported faults to the accrediting body. Taking legal action may only expose you and your bank account to more greedy incompetents. Anyone who uses the surveyor recommended by the seller is pretty sure to get a carefully worded report highlighting the boats better points. Your only redress without extra cost may be to talk to other boaters and name names. Bad news travels at speed on the waterways, its often only the new boaters who are caught by the bad guys.

Hi I use a purpose made moulding 30mm thick to edge 18mm ply and make it look better in thickness together with acting as a fiddle rail. The moulding I use is U shaped and fits over the board edge. You can get a similar effect with a rebated Hockey stick shape which is much easier to obtain or make. The material will bend to a slow curve but corners require a special moulded bit. See - www.mdwoodtech Mike.

Hi Ally I also went on the fender making weekend at the boat museum about twenty years ago. The side fenders are easy to make and worth the effort since you can use odd bits of old rope. The bow and stern buttons I made were hard work and rough on the hands even for a woodworker! I found the most easily available material for the centres was the tread part of a car tyre, the side walls are cut off and the tread rolled up to get the size you need. Wood screws driven into the roll hold it together. The buttons I made were for my own boat and lasted very well. I don't think I would be keen to make another set though. Best of luck. Mike.

Don't even think about it! When you have stripped out the existing linings you will have an old boat shell which has cost nearly as much as a new shell. Plus a pile of firewood of course.If you manage to finish the job you will have a boat worth little more than the original one, but which has cost the same or more to fit out than a new shell. If you don't finish the job, no one in their right mind will buy it from you at even the original price. This isn't what you want to hear but it's the bald truth.

Hi James You have been given good advice above and you have the right idea when you say that a survey is a must!It's always a good idea to use a surveyor unconnected with the brokerage. 15,000 pounds is a very small budget to buy any boat, if the owner accepts a substantial reduction you should be further concerned. Keep in mind that all of the money you spend on refurbishment is effectively lost, normally it adds not a penny to the boats value when you need to resell. A forty year old boat could have all manner of interesting problems behind the internal trim, just to give an example boats built in 1972 were often insulated with polystyrene sheet, I have seen instances where this has shrunk down to the thickness of a beer mat, presumably under the influence of the heat on the outside shell plating. Some even had no insulation apart from the air gap between the steel and internal lining. This is less of a problem for a boat used for summer cruising and holidays but would be a serious problem for a live-aboard. Mike.

Hi Bazza Yes the wheel is on the left hand front bulkhead, so there is roughly 38 foot behind the steerer and 8 foot in front. I put windows in the front bulkhead and in the doors, just the ones in the doors would have proved adequate in practice though. I didn't have any wipers to keep the rain off but relied on a motoring product called Rainex which kept most of the rain off the glass. If I were doing the job again I would try a single front door with a large glass panel and a wiper. On wet days in the summer I often moved along with the front doors open. Experienced steerers found the set up easy to use, my son who was 14 at the time, found no difficulty in working the wheel, but he had been tiller steering the boat right from the days when he had to stand on a box to see over the roof. I installed ignition and oil pressure warning lights, temperature gauge, horn button and engine stop button at the forward position as well. The last two seemed to keep the BSC surveyor happy. Mike

Hi You can have the advantages of both systems without any great cost! The secret is to avoid the use of hydraulic operation and the associated huge cost and complication. Before installing my system I visited the London boat show with the intention of selecting a hydraulic system and a set of dual remote controls, instead, I found a number of suppliers of push/pull cable operated steering gear intended for offshore use. The set I selected had a maximum steering force of a third of a tonne! The total cost (in 1998) for the steering gear,wheel,dual controls, and dual operating kit for the gearbox and throttle was 400 pounds. This compared very well with 1500 for just the hydraulic pump and ram, the connecting pipework, wheel, and controls etc all being additional costs. I built and used the resulting 46 foot narrow boat for twelve years and consider the 400 pounds to be the best investment I ever made. I had thought that the wheel would only be usable on the river when the weather turned and I was unable to moor up and shelter. It proved to be just as useful on the narrow canals, once confidence is gained you can cruise through narrow bridges,wind the boat and even into locks using the wheel, its a brilliant way of boating in the winter! I believe that you do need to leave the tiller in place and ready for use since there are many times when a full length view of the boat is vital to safe operation, and on days of good weather who would want to be inside? The advantages of the cable are that you can actually feel the rudder through the wheel and both tiller and wheel can be left connected so you can move from one to the other without having to open or close bypass valves or disconnect anything. The wheel will spin when you operate the tiller and vice versa, it makes the tiller a little heavier to move but the only important move is to ensure that the single lever control is in neutral at the end you are not using! The only small disadvantages are that the "traditionalists" tend to look down their noses ( usually while shivering and sniffling)and some inexperienced boaters tend to get excited on seeing a boat with no obvious steerer. On the plus side, the miserable type of fisherman tends to look baffled when he finds nobody to sneer at or ignore. When I commissioned the boat and tried out the wheel, my passage through the first bridge was accompanied by a small voice saying "ere there's no bugger driving that one" My advice is to go for it, you can't fail to enjoy it!!If you need me to fill in any details just let me know. Best of luck with the project. Mike Jordan

Ive had great results using sign writers low tack tape. This looks like 12mm wide red cellotape and can usually only be obtained at a motor factors or large paint suppliers. You need a reasonably calm day to stick the tape onto the finished gloss and then use a single coat of a dense colour (I used sign writers colours)then peeled off the tape while the paint was still wet.I made twin lines one about 4mm wide and one 8mm wide using three lengths of tape and leaving two gaps. If you press it down well the tape gives razor sharp edges that look very professional! Its the most enjoyable bit of the job!! Best of luck with the project. Mike Jordan

The normal method of fitting a houdini is to have a slightly raised flat section of roof plating to take the hatch. The standard mistake for new boaters is to want a hatch over the bed in order to "look at the stars" they are usually back in short order complaining of being dripped on during the night!. A secondary set of glazing below the hatch is vital.Its not the glass that causes the problem but the alloy frame. A conventional dog box with double glazing is a better bet if you like the look and the extra cost.Midland chandlers stock the prisms which can be fitted without altering the roof shape, but they also need to be fitted with secondary glazing to prevent condensation. Mike

Paul Matthews at Bescan Ltd covers the area and makes good covers at sensible prices. 01543 670244 Mike.

Ive used a number of these in past boats, made originally by Thompson Plastics and sold by Midland Chandlers. There was a straight version at about 2 X 4 foot as mentioned above, also a corner model with a rounded front edge I seem to remember. Mike.

Hi Paul Don,t feel to bad about it, I'm sure you can guess how I found out!It's possible to get the engine onto top dead centre on two pots at a time by looking at the crankshaft front pulley, you should find two small holes in the web, when these are horizontal two pistons should be at the top. With the cover off and the rocker shaft removed, its possible to use the bolts projecting from the head with washers and nut to secure a ring spanner. A second open ended spanner can then be used to press down on the valve spring to release the collets.(its a sort of three handed job) Obviously you need to turn the engine 180 degrees with a spanner to do the second pair of pots. On the occasion I had to do the job, I used the winter cover to ensure that nothing got thrown over the side if the spanners slipped off.The system worked for me but it took several days of cruising before the oil drips from the exhaust joints stopped. A little of that sooty oil goes a long way! One final point, the boat safety scheme requires the exhaust to be lagged for safety,unfortunately "oil soaked lagging" is a prime cause of fires in big ships. I strongly recommend you remove any insulation until the engine is running clean again. Very best of luck with the job. It would be interesting to hear how it works out. Mike

Hi Paul I note that you have had the top off the engine before the problem started. I think you may have made one of the classic mistakes with the 1.5 - Did you put valve stem seals on the exhaust valves? If so these can , if you are unlucky, weld themselves onto the valve stem while the engine is hot and the exhaust valve stems even hotter! The result is that the rubber seal moves up and down with the valve stem and makes a near perfect pump to force oil mist and drops down the exhaust valve guides. If you take off the rocker cover and use a torch you should be able to see if the seals are stuck to the stems. If this is the case just post again and I will detail a method of removing the seals without taking the head off again. Mike.

Hi The article is in the December 2011 issue of WW. The heater only works when using the engine on the move just like the calorifier systems. The heat requirements of a well insulated boat are much lower than a car traveling at speed.I've used this system in several boats with great advantage. You can download the issue. Mike.

A survey that you haven't commissioned yourself is worse than useless. Surveyors working for a broker who is marketing the boat tend to be optimists to say the least. Unless you have paid the bill for the survey you can't to hold the surveyor to account. Do you really think a seller would show you a bad survey report? A boat with a 6mm base plate that's lasted 27 years MUST be ready for extensive plating work. Take off the rose tinted glasses! Even if it looks nice and has your dream layout, a proper survey is a must. Best of luck with your search. Mike.

Hi Neither type of dinette will give you total armchair comfort, particularly if you try and fit the cushions under the gunwale overhang, your head will nearly always come into contact with the topsides when you are sitting down. I think the L shaped dinette is better than the face to face kind, since you can lie down or recline on it without making up the bed. The L shape works much better with a folding movable table rather than one on desmo tube type legs. If you look at the May & June 2011 issues of Waterways World, a suitable method of inserting a storage unit behind the back rest to keep your head away from the woodwork is shown in the "build a bed settee" project. The back issues or the articles can be downloaded for a small fee. Any competent fitter will able to produce the item shown. Mike.

Only a comparatively small number of steel boats were fitted with timber cabins in years gone by, some others had glass fibre tops. I once built a boat in steel with a timber top but wasn't really happy with the resulting look and the need to do work every year. Steel hulls and cabin tops are now the norm perhaps because the timber ones need constant maintenance. A small leak can make a huge mess of the boat interior.Timber tops are sometimes sheeted over with aluminium or covered with a layer of glass fibre to make them water proof, usually to little long term effect. Some have also had a steel top to replace the timber. You might be fortunate but personally I would regard a boat with a timber top a very poor investment and very difficult to re-sell.

A boat with a timber top can be a nightmare. The photos show some water penetration of the top. Its not what you want to hear but PLEASE get a survey from a competent surveyor. Best of luck. Mike

One high profile cover maker charges 930 pounds for one, so yours looks like a bargain! Just google -"cratch board" and look for prices.

You might try a call to Paul Matthews at Bescan Ltd 01543 670244 based in staffordshire so not far away.

Have a look at the Waterways World site for info on planning. If you are still not sure if the plan will work you could always resort to putting in a few bulkheads and "furnishings" made of insulation board to try it out in 3D.

With a name like that the Royal Navy should buy one for you!

As Duztee points out, if you had to have space it would lead to a huge increase in fees since the number of boats would be reduced. In practice it would be more constructive to require boats to be moored with wire rope or chain when in the marina. What happens in a developed fire is that the mooring ropes soon burn through and the burning boat can then move about downwind like a viking funeral setting light to numbers of others. Add in a few gas cylinders in GRP boats and difficult access for the brigade and you have the makings of an entertaining day! Mike