Boat afloat

We have just paid £1.60 at Heyford Marina on the Oxford.

Update. We’ve been through and we met by the engineer working in the lift bridge. The reason they are trying to restrict access is due to the risk of flooding to the dam tbey have built. He tells us it gets to critical levels very easily. they are pumping 1,600 cubic metres (tonnes) a minute (I think he said a minute not an hour), out of there to keep the dam levels where they need to be. Turns out the contractors agreed to operate Dukes Lock because 1) CRT said they had no staff and 2) the contractors thought it would only be the odd boat. On the day we went through we were the 5th… I forgot to ask him what they were doing with securing the lock when they weren’t there ie padlocking or whatever? Given there is a good reason to restrict access though hopefully everyone will book properly although the CRT system for doing so seems somewhat haphazard!

That’s super helpful Dave. I rang them an hour ago to book a passage along Dukes Cut so it will be interesting to see what they come back with… interesting there are no notices on the locks…curious…

That’s top stuff - thanks for posting that up!! We’ll get in touch because that’s exactly our early route!!

Thanks for those. Will take a look and see which might be knocking about our route (and will likely still have fuel to sell us)

I should have posted up the number - doh!! They did suggest to me that it was best to phone for the booking rather than email but I suspect that's as much so they can capture the info they need for the passage in one hit rather than anything else.

No but the Mrs sort of is and I suspect we will have to become semi-Facebookers if we want (need) that sort of info, which I think we do... Suppose a couple of Jerry cans of very expensive fuel station diesel dumped into the boat tank is the painful answer at least in the short-ish term. 😪

As per my new thread here: Shame the website isn't more up to date but at least we managed to speak to someone who knew what was actually going on down there.

Just had a helpful conversation with a CRT rep who has asked if I can report an extension to a stoppage that the website isn't currently stating. The stoppage at 233 is supposed to be finishing on the 18th March but will be extended by at least 3-4 weeks! The alternative route is up the River Thames and across Dukes Cut but you need to book the passage with CRT via phone. The CRT website suggests that Dukes Lock 44 is also closed. This is mostly true. You need to book the lock in conjunction with the passage along Dukes Cut and they will open/unlock the lock for you. You need to book at least 24 hours in advance but they are recommending 48 hours just to be safe... Obviously anyone currently sitting on the Oxford waiting for the Wolvercote Lift Bridge to open this weekend is going to find this a major disappointment

Does anyone have any real-life experience of finding diesel on the canal network right now? We are due to set off from Oxford to the Leeds Liverpool in the next week and am starting to get anxious of fuel shortage issues. We have about 40% of a tank...which I presume would be a 200 litre tank? It's a long way so will definitely need more but are we going to find it an issue maybe? Can anyone recommend a reliable way of tracking fuel boats and their movements? I've being doing some research but it seems a touch hit and miss though.

Ah now that would make sense! Thanks for that. I knew posting up on here would do the job

Thanks David for that. That's how I read the situation other than the CRT website said the stoppage started at Dukes Lock - it read to me at least that was closed too. Unfortunately the guy from CRT as helpful as he was trying to be couldnt confirm whether Lock 44 was indeed out of action. Surely if they are booking passage along Dukes Cut that must mean the Lock is open...or am I giving people too much credit?

Hi - I wasn't sure where to post this on the forum so hopefully I've got it right? We need to get a NB from Oxford (currently on The Thames north to the L&L. The CRT website says there is a stoppage on the Oxford whilst the Wolvercote Lift Bridge is being repaired. The stoppage starts at Lock 44 Dukes Lock and includes the Wolvercote Lift Bridge. The stoppage is currently until the 18th March. We have emailed the London South East CRT team who say the stoppage is likely to be extended but they don't know when to. We thought about going up the Thames and then east across Dukes Cut to Dukes Lock. The CRT rep stated we would need to book passage and to call the Customer Services Team. We rang that team and they said: 1) they couldn't see the extension to the stoppage 2) to book the passage we needed to speak to the L&SE team that told us to speak to the customer service people 3) they couldn't confirm whether Lock 44 Dukes Lock was actually closed as per the website So, I thought the good people of this forum might be able to give some info from the ground...! Is Lock 44 actually shut right now (meaning that regardless of booking a passage along Dukes Cut we can't pass any further? Does it look like Wolvercote Lift Bridge will be opened on Friday or is it blatantly obvious from being there that's not going to happen? Fingers crossed someone reading this is there now

Touch wood the answer seems to be sight of the hull survey and agreement to attend to the priority recommendations within it. A pragmatic and sensible approach I think.

Hi - the current owner has Third Party insurance. Not sure if that was relating to the survey requirements or what? By way of update then because I think it's always good to post up for the benefit of others who may find themselves in the same situation, I think we have a solution. David Mack's suggestion of talking to Michael Stimpson has helped and Michael looks to have sourced the fully comp insurance we wanted, so thanks David for the referral!!! We haven't closed the insurance piece out fully but I think it will be sorted and a weight off our minds. Much to do still i.e. getting our licence and planning the long route home via the stoppages and day to day life commitments, but the 1 - 2 months it will take us to get the boat home fully will be a great learning experience. Can't wait (hopefully)

That is super helpful thanks for that!!

This is also super helpful thanks and thank you to those that have wished us well on this 'journey'. All knowledge is good and we are learning so much as we ask questions and listen to the answers. We are currently awaiting Michael Stimpson to see what he can do. Another broker someone put us on to has come back to say all insurance bar TPO (no theft or fire cover) will require a survey with their panel. That seems to be the way it is now. Hoping Michael can sort something or looks like we'll need to go TPO for now and then look at fully comp when we can have a full survey done.

I'll answer this Mike but battening down the hatches for the comments that may come from forum users dsaying 'oooooooo I wouldnt do that if I were you!!'. Hancock & Lane 52 footer. Heard good things about the former in terms of build quality and layout of the latter suits us. We have checked out licencing etc so think we are sorted there.

Fair enough. I wasn't sure in what context I was answering the question about whether we were liveaboards hence giving the detail of our plans. Thanks - have heard the phrase "bubble tester" but not checked it out so I will because all knowledge is good and I (WE) want to learn because this will be a huge part of our life going forward if time/finances/life allows us the luxury.

The first part of that post makes me think we should trust the examiners but I also hear comments about quality of chocolate biscuits...? We intend to get the boat home which will involve 20 days of cont. cruising, but we will split this over a number of weeks and come home inbetween, hence the concern about leaving th boat at the side of the canal 100 miles from home whilst we do so. Perhaps book into marinas...? Once home, the boat would live in a marina and then be lived on for a month here, a fortnight there, and then moored again whilst normal life consumes us again. In time we would love to CC and that's the plan. Whether it is on this boat or not remains to be seen. What are you thinking when posing the question?...(curious)

That's very interesting and exactly the sort of actual real life examples and detail that's useful. I think we might have been putting more faith in the BSS than we should. My better half downloaded the form the other month and said it ran to something ridiculous like 70 odd pages. "that sounds onerous and thorough" said I...clearly mistakenly? Just picking up on the BSS thing then would a Gas Engineer and Electrician be able to test a boats systems adequately or is a specialist marine equivalent of both needed?

Don't want to thread drift but I am a touch of an anomaly here in that I drive classic cars. I do understand the first part of your post, and M Stimpson mentioned just that point, but I suppose my point is that it doesn;t matter how old my car gets my insurer asks for nothing special to insure it. Damn - at 40 years old they don't even need an MOT...and the insurance premium drops considerably for classic cars versus modern ones. Not apples and apples I accept though. Anyway, that starts to sound like I'm having a pop at the insurers which as I say I'm not. I would just like someone to say "let me have a look at the hull survey, and the BSC and lets see if we need anything more from you, or whether we simply need to charge you more money for the fact you dont have the normal paperwork). I know this can be done because I've worked with insurers in a different field to create brand new products and underwriters can flex and price actual risk. Boat insurance, at first glance seems to be very vanilla but I retain faith there is at least one insurer out there who will look at the case on it's merits, or otherwise, and quote based upon our circumstances, not a document somewhere in their files.

Maybe. The boat looks well maintained, there is a valid BSC, the previous owner lived aboard for two years and the whole thing looks and feels like a cared for craft. We've looked at a few boats and have got a feel for things. Having said that we are clearly no experts. We are expecting things to be needed, perhaps in time, perhaps more immediately but that we could do them when we wanted rather than being told they needed to be done immediately (even though they might be very minor things) because of the insurance element. As Alan posted we wont no. It;s a part time thing. Trust me I am not a worrier but my better half is and I am respecting her concerns given this is a joint thing. Usually I would make the larger purchases myself so have to weight up risks through my own eyes only but this will be 50% her money too and she is more cautious than I am, so by definition that is how 'worried' we will be coming across. My personal view is to see if one of the specialists like Michael Stimpson can sort it and if he can't to get a new BSS done (so we know it's safe), although it still has one, insure it 3rd party, hope no-one torches it whilst we aren't there, get it home (3-4 weeks of sailing), get it out of the water at our leisure, tackle any jobs that come up when we are ready and then switch to fully comp insurance once we are in a position to do so. It's just an unpleasant feeling thinking of leaving the boat on the canal whilst we come home for days at a time on the looooonnnnnnnnggggggg journey home. Having said that IF we don't need to do that, and can sort the insurance out (a good part of the reason for posting this thread up in the first place) then happy days. So far Michael Stimpson is our top lead (and a very pleasant guy too when I spoke to him earlier)...

We have done, where that's possible i.e. where we've had opportunity to talk to a human rather than a computer. Sadly no-one seems to care. It's been a matter of 'these are our rules and we need to be able to tick the boxes'. I don't have an issue with that but it doesn't help us progress. I can see the point although my car insurers haven't asked for a survey before I insured my car... I can see this is how boat insurance seems to be now so it looks to be what it is. Just hoping there are a couple of companies out there with a different approach - we just haven't found them yet. That tickled me...ha ha That is exactly what we've found. You can say it's not right, or they are all daft etc but it's how it is right now. Maybe it will change and soften but that's the market right now. If only that were the case for us now. They definitely want a full survey and have committed as much to writing. That's very useful thanks. Michael Stimpson rang me back earlier and suggested we ask the surveyor about doing just that. I did speak to the surveyor earlier (before that suggestion cropped up) and I feel confident I can bung him a few quid and he'd do it - fingers crossed. Your comment around insurers and a lack of fuss about the boat seems consistent with how many existing boaters find things...but not our experience at all.

We have a hull survey from 2021 with recommendations (priority and advisories). We also have a receipt for subsequent works. It;s not like we have nothing to go on. Gas and electrics etc are un-tested though, although surely thats a quick fix? Suppose a new BSS would test those to give us some safety comfort?