Ange

Thanks for your input folks - please keep them coming cos to form a balanced view we need lots of opinions

Waterways Guide 5 - North West & the Pennines covers the Leeds & Liverpool. Where are you picking your boat up from?

My mum & dad have caught the boating bug from us and are currently boathunting. They saw a 48' narrowboat today which they're rather taken with. Our only concern is that while it has a steel hull (recently replated) it has a GRP top. We have very little knowledge on the subject but Dave seems to remember reading somewhere, possibly on this forum, about GRP tops leaking. The boat in question has recently had a full refit, including removing the wooden top and replacing it with a GRP top, which appears to be made in 3 sections with what looks like expansion joints in between. With re-sale value in mind, how much stigma is attached to this type boat? Also can they expect problems in the long term with leaks? Thanks for you help Ange

This is one I was contemplating starting a thread on. I'm more than happy for another boat to breast up with ours, whether we are on board or not. Can you get stickers to say so? I know I'd be uneasy about breasting up without permission but if they had a sticker saying it's fine it'd be different.

Just a bit of an aside:- I did chuckle when I read the title of this thread this evening - we're actually struggling not to cook at the moment!! We're newbies to this and it seems when we fire up the Squirrel we end up in our t-shirts baking hot and opening the doors up to let some cool air in! I'm sure in time we'll learn to tame our Squirrel so it keeps us warm and doesn't cook us!!!

We're moored in Adlington at the mo planning to pootle around this area for a while. Our mobile phones are Tescos mobile, the internet dongle is Vodafone and we've got crap reception on both which is giving us a bit of a headache as we live on the boat so have no land based facilities to fall back on. Can anyone recommend a service provider for this area? Hoping to get some local info. We're on PAYG for both so can switch providers easily. Thanks folks Ange

We didn't buy a boat through Whilton so can't help you on that front, but we did visit them on quite a few occasions when we were boathunting. Even if you don't find what you want there you'll get a good idea of all the different layouts and what's available for the money you can afford. I was astonished by the number of boats there that were very poorly presented - dirty interiors, cluttered, dirty dishes in the sink, that sort of thing. I did find they were overpriced, but then you can always make an offer if you find anything you like. We bought our boat last October from Harrals at Northwich who have a good stock of boats, most of them out of the water so you can inspect the hull as well. We have no complaints about the service. Good luck, take your time to find exactly what you want and don't be afraid to bargain - I believe it's still a buyers market

We've only travelled up as far as Skipton on the L&L, but on the swing bridges before Skipton I needed either handcuff key or BW key - some swing bridges needed a windlass and a handcuff key. A copy of Nicholsons is a worthwhile investment if you haven't got one - it tells you what you need for each swing bridge. If you pass Iona drop in for a cuppa

No idea about pet insurance but .... can we have a photo of your kitten please? I just love kitten photos

It worked!!!! I'm now plugged in with computer running but no engine - what a star you are Pete Blimey - an evening of uninterrupted internet surfing - I thought those days had gone! Just a tad worried that if the inverter does suddenly decide it's had enough everything will die instantaneously - and I'll get stroppy messages from Microsoft when I fire it up again telling me off cos I didn't shut down my computer properly

Tis done via the battery icon Thanks again

Some useful power saving hints there - thanks. How do you turn down the screen brightness? Reducing CPU speed - how do you do it and what would it effect? Damn & blast - my signal is very poor in this area!! Ooo - hadn't thought of doing that - I suppose it wouldn't need as much power if it's just running the lappy as opposed to charging the battery at the same time. Thanks Alan - some very valuable pieces of information there which we weren't aware of (they make perfect sense when you know them but when you don't they don't always spring to mind). Our inverter is right at the front of the boat in the living area, the batteries are at the back, attaching them is a very thin cable. We also only have cigarette style sockets. We do have a socket in the back cabin but never use it as we only sleep in that room. We need to get an extension lead, relocate the inverter to the back cabin and then run the extension into the living area. Thanks so much to everyone for your advice

It's actually an Acer - I think someone just asked if it was a Dell. I should be ok with the gizmo from Maplin.

Happy boating Alan!!

Thanks Tony but I don't get a low power warning - I just find that 10 minutes is sufficient time on the internet to check out anything new on my favourite sites and means it doesn't take too long to charge it back up again.

Blimey - I did get a bit tired and emotional last night didn't I I made a bit of an error in my OP as well - to clarify I can run my lappy with then engine on quite happily, it's when the engine's turned off that I have problems - I can only plug it in when it's closed down, otherwise the invertor shrieks at me then switches itself off. I took the battery out to have a look - it is Li-on. Interestingly it said on it that it had a rating of 11.1 volts but the power supply unit is definitely 19v. The laptop's an Acer. It was interesting to learn that the 3G dongle is probably exacerbating the problem. Mine is mounted on a pole on the roof which probably makes this worse. We do intend to replace the boat batteries but need to completely overhaul the whole system which will probably cost somewhere in the region of £1k so we're busy saving up. In the meantime we're managing with what we've got. I think a trip to Maplin for one of these gizmos is definitely the way forward. My original concern that I'm knackering the lappy battery by constantly topping it up has been assauged (thanks folks) - I know in the early days of mobile phones the batteries had to be completely discharged each time to maximise their life - this was vaguely on my mind when I very unwisely opened a topic on something I have a very vague grasp of after a few too many sherberts!! Thanks for the input

Dave tells me invertor is 150 watts I'm feeling really stupid right now - wish I'd never asked Edited to add - far too tired & emotional right now - will discuss rationally tomorrow

/me sobs quietly cos she's obviously made an ass of herself sob - you're speaking Swahili to me now - I'm asking about my lappy battery - not a clue what it's made of! sobbing even harder now - only know the answer to the first question - yes I charge it up via an invertor - which shrieks and then turns itself off if the lappy is running.