MtB

Oi you not all of the drivel is yours. Some of it is MINE.

Well spotted. I walked up Claydon the other evening to see how it was 'closed' and basically it wasn't. This explains it! Next day I took my boat up the flight and disappointingly the summit pound (the long windy bit around Wormleighton) was missing about 8" of water. I repeatedly bumped over rocks on the bottom and got proper stuck in Fenny Tunnel. So I winded at The Wharf and came back down again. I passed several other boat struggling with the shallowness including HECTOR with its FR6, one of my favourites!

Don't ask. They can be very dangerous to operate. DAMHIK.

To be fair, I think he has claimed ownership of lumpy water boats in the past. Or have you seen him now claim to have had a canal boat for two years?

The inverter. The GF only gets switched on intermittently 😂

Except none of this matters when the boat is permanently moored on a shoreline. My on/off GF's boat inverter has been switched on for at least the last decade! If you decide to get out of the marina and spend days on end away from the shoreline, having to generate all your own electricity turns the whole of this upside down and you'll be turning the inverter off at every opportunity!

Very wise. Its no fun having a pump-out that never seems to need emptying, then lifting a floorboard and finding out why.

First time you bump a piling or lock apron hard you'll make a load more scratches and/or holes in it. Are you gonna get it docked and touch up the two-pack every time?!

From the link: "...and make a new Smoke Control Order, which will also extend the provisions of the Clean Air Act to moored vessels (canal barges)" I can imagine this leading to a whole new loophole opening up, based on claiming your 'barge' is 1) Not a 'barge' so exempt 2) Somehow not 'moored' but secured in some other way (E.G. anchored) and therefore again, exempt Ok that would be two loopholes.....

FORD: Alright, just stop panicking! ARTHUR: Who said anything about panicking?!? This is still just a culture shock. FORD: Arthur! You’re getting hysterical. Shut up! VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless! FORD: You can shut up as well! VOGON GUARD: Resistance is useless! FORD: Oh, give it a rest! Do you really enjoy this sort of thing? VOGON GUARD: Resistance is……what d’ ya mean? FORD: I mean does it give you a full satisfying life? Stomping around, shouting, throwing people out of spaceships? VOGON GUARD: The hours are good. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/114212/is-there-a-link-between-the-vogons-resistance-is-useless-and-the-borgs-resi

Having just checked, you're right. "Resistance is futile" was the Borg (in Star Trek!) The Vogons (Douglas Adams) used to say "Resistance is USELESS".

Oh was it? I can't remember actually. But I agree, its important to get stuff like this right.

All good advice. However in my experience, when you find a boat with everything on your list it leaves you stone cold when you actually step aboard to view it. Then there is a "while I am here I may as well just have a look at this other boat" moment. It has nothing on your list at all but the boat feels fantastic, and you spend the next week thinking up reasons to buy it instead of the sensible one. Resistance is futile, as the Vogons would say.

Point of Order, its 'principle' in this context. I dunno about the rust spots though. I'd ignore them and just get on with boating. Or jut dab them with blacking as you already thought. If in 30 years they've rusted through, get them welded up!

Just to challenge you slightly, a 240Vac shoreline is £40 from mIdland Chandlers. Have you thought about what you want it for? This stuff (whatever it is) may need to be present and installed in the boat. There are still plently of boats around which manage fine on 12Vdc only. Similarly with a cassette toilet. They are £80 from Midland Chandeliers. So you can buy a pump-out boat and add a cassette for £80! And finally, 57ft is about the most expensive length on the market. Several boats ago I bought a 68ft boat as it was so much cheaper than 57'!

I do,. They always seemed weirdly large and being only filled to the line with 20mm of space above, one always felt short-changed even though you'd genuinely been given a full pint!

Typical northern pint, glass only 9/10s filled up... Cheers!

Woss "SS"? Stainless Steel to me! SF stoves are not generally SS.

^^^ This ^^^ There is nothing more miserable in the middle of winter than having no hot water. It's much more important than having heating even, as you can always keep yer coat on. So having two (or more) ways to get hot water means when your normal hot water equipment breaks down, you just switch over to your back-up alternative while you set about fixing the failure. Great! Ways to get hot water: Engine coolant heating a calorifier (hot water cylinder) Shoreline powering an immersion heater in the calorifier Eber/Webby heating the calorifier Solar panels heating the calorifier Instantaneous gas water heater (LPG) Back-boiler in the solid fuel stove Any others, anyone?

This is exactly how residential boats were viewed when I first lived aboard. We were viewed as 'water gypsies'. The 'Oh what a nice alternative lifestyle' only really developed in the 80s/90s IIRC.

The interconnects on my ten year old 24v BYD battery pack (salvaged from a vandalised BYD car) are a stack of very thin, very flexible stainless steel leaves. At a guess, each comprises a stack of about 20 leaves about 5 thou' thick. They are spot-welded to the cell terminals - no mucking about with unreliable threads and bolts!

They appear to be marinised Mitsubishi industrial engines. https://craftsmanmarine.com/propulsion/engines/cm4-42/ Curious that like Alan, after a lifetime of mucking about with boats I've never heard of them until now.

A price well worth paying I reckon!