Hobson

So if I understand the op corectly, basically, you can fill it up and declare 90/10 - heating/propulsion. Say you never go anywhere and challenge them to prove it if queried? It sounds to me like HMRC can't enforce this and so isn't going to bother. They are just banking on 10% on your fill up bill going to them and leaving it at that. There's no way I'd pay nearly 100% more for 80 litres of fuel if nobody was actually going to check. As for farmers and builders, you have got to be kidding? I've never met a poor farmer, despite their (perennial) protestations of destitution and builders! Pah! As for battery charging, it takes hours .. plural. 3-4 min. to do a cycle/recharge on a bank of 3-6 batteries. At least it does for me. That means the engine is running, including hot water, for at least 6 hrs a day when I am out and about. I worked out that it comes in at around £7-10 a day in diesel just to re-charge your batteries! One of the reasons I have ditched the fridge! Its probably cheaper to just pay for a mains hook up somewhere or buy a dedicated small bore charging generator. Actual propulsion is a meagre percentage for most people, unless you are a CC? I can't see it being more than 25% of your consumption quota ..? - Hobson

Buying/building a new boat now is not good sense if you care at all about value for money and depreciation. To be frank, making any substantial investments now is not a good idea. I'd wait out the winter and see how things are in the spring. - Hobbs

Bad day? 1. Ltd. company has many advantages over Sole Trader status. If you mean why as in, why bother being legit then you answer your own question there! 2. Of course it does? Since you fail to expand on your objection, I am assuming you are drunk, bored or just a troll? 3. Ahhh you must be a one of the 'on the clock' kind of people. You wouldn't get it then .. All in all, if you have nothing to add but objectionable outbursts, why add anything? - Hobbs

What we need is a body that will act on behalf of the interests of social and domestic waterways users. Similar to the BMF for bikers. Anything else is a waste of time imho. http://www.bmf.co.uk/pages/bmf_main_pages.php?area_id=5 Using that as a template, go to it! Let me know when you want my subscription fee. - Hobbs

That's why you tend to find specialists in each field: they know from experience what they can do in what timeframe and how much the parts will cost, where to source them at the best price etc. If you are general, non specific fixer then you need to be sociable and flexible enough to quote for a job and know that you are being reasonable and that you can finish it to budget. Its why tradesmen, good tradesmen, have years of experience and can simply walk in and decide whats wrong in minutes then quote accordingly. My best advice is to be sociable and forthright first and forget about hourly rates, negotiate a fee based on what's required. You will get more work and more repeat business in my experience. Sadly most people are only after the quick buck these days and it shows. Call out fees etc are for cowboys - but that's just my opinion. EDIT: Yeah you will need public liability insurance, unlikely to need VAT but I'd register with companies house as a Ltd. company just in case. It also makes trade accounts and business banking a doddle. Personally, I always worked cash in hand and if I broke something, I covered it. But I never did more than engines and I made sure I had a good relationship with everyone I worked for - none of that 'I'm a tradesman and I'm on the clock' crap the middle classes seem to expect. There's always a cup of tea and a chat and a mutual evaluation prior to anything else - and yes I have turned down work from people I didn't like. - Hobbs

Most odd job folk charge by the job not by the hour. - Hobbs

Count me in Fuzz! - Hobbs

Looks like a load of knackered old junk .. Probably being replaced or simply got rid of init. - Hobbs

Mr. CV you are indeed extremely carnivorous! Personally, I never quite got past that stage whereby you don't eat anything that doesn't look like it has any business being eaten. This includes: Fish, insects, lobster, crabs, mussles, welks, cockles, worms, squirrels, pigeons, kidneys, livers, spleens, tongue, little baby sheep, dogs, cats, horses, monkeys and whatever my dog finds on the floor in the town center etc. - Hobbs

Didn't know that Alan .. ! Learnt something today. Is it usually a fixed amount or a percentage? - Hobbs Six months time and I'd have snapped their hand off. Grr.

Shouldn't you get the survey before you hand over any money? Don't want to put a downer on your dreams but 15k from a broker is 'last legs' money. Unless its only a tiddler, 30ft or something? EDIT: And despite my endorsement of the engine, if its 20 years old it will be shagged. New ones are 5k min. That and the hull thicknes/overplating might be why its cheap? I know you won't want to be hearing this, but another 10k will buy you a lot more boat and you will easily end up spending that much sorting and refitting an old boat in my experience .. and at the end of that process, its still an old boat. - Hobbs

Depends which one tbh. The air cooled engines are bullet proof in my experience! Boat wise: big ugly tractor lump. Can't go wrong really. - Hobbs

In the Olde Days it used to be economical to cede dormant accounts to an inactive list, then eventually delete them. Nowdays, in the age of terrabyte HDD's and SQL it doesn't really matter .. I'd still do it, but I'm borderline OCD. - Hobbs

I'm not a prude or anything, but 50k is a lot of money to spend. Did you have many sleepless nights? - Hobbs

So what's the answer apart from privatisation? Then you'll see some real asset stripping .. Network Soar and Midland Trent etc. Unit trusts perhaps? Bureaucratic collectivist nightmare of course. Personally, I would like to see PAYG boating as presently I pay a huge sum of money for nothing at all, since I hardly ever move more than ten square miles a year! Seriously though, it can't keep going up the way it has in the last half decade but then neither can everything else - houses, energy, education, food etc. - Hobbs EDIT: Err don't reply to this. I forgot it was the fuel thread.

I was ladling cupfulls out of my boat last night at Sawley, someone (or something) had smashed one of my windows and the damn boat was taking on water like a bucket. Not good. The water level in the marina itself wasn't too bad, I slackened off the mooring ropes a good foot though to be safe. Of course we've had another eight inches or so since then .. Good news is, the chandlery now sells single cigars and cider by the cask! Stoke up the fire ... PS: That bloke who got into trouble, the office manager at Sawley (Linda) told me the story. He tried to do a turn .. his boat is the barge In Ernest that's currently up for sale on the brokerage at a very very reasonable 55k. - Hobbs

*Which must be why you sleep in a nice warm bed every night and three-quarters of a billion Indians don't have shoes. Any twenty-something female will tell you that we don't even see ourselves when we look at ourselves. Kant also expounded the belief (so wikipedia tells me) that 'using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions'. Who now has a farthing for epistemology? Meaningless dross when you consider the personality as only one component of a consciousness and the least subject to reason or consistency. Freud (for me) effectively de-bunked the soul myth and with it goes morality. As for altruism; most psychoanalysts will tell you it has masochistic underpinnings, before or shortly after they ask you how you feel about your mother. - Hobbs

Hehe tell my boat is an old shitter can't you.

Assuming this isn't a wind up .. Only real weakness on a NB is the windows. If I was having one made, I have a steel shutter for each porthole and hatch incorporated into the design. Beyond that, the security is only as good as the padlock on the doors mate! Ensure you have fully comp insurance and that you read the small print regatding individual item value and get seperate theft cover on anything worth more than a ton. - Hobbs

A friend is a vet and she refers to anything with a runny nose as 'Ash Cash'. Apparently they make far more money euthenasing animals than they do treating them .. Seems not enough get run over and not enough of the ones who do, have insurance. - Hobbs

Some sobering figures here .. I was initially shocked by Alan's projections, but then I thought about how much I used to pay (two years ago now) for a room in a shared house + bills + council tax. Basically 70% of my salary .. The rest went on repaying credit or loans and petrol for the bike. Now I have £400 going out every month, TOPS and I live very comfortably and have £50 a month petrol money to blow just exploring. Which means I can get by part time if I have to, usually not having to work for several months at a time .. It ain't bad. NB's can be extremely expensive, but you just have to learn to DIY or work longer hours, which defeats the point of an alternative lifestyle in my opinion. - Hobbs

Great vid! Just wondering but did he do the entire length of the boat at once, in sections or have several people working concurrently? There must be issues with 'overlap' if its done in sections? - Hobbs

Awesome! Thanks in advance! Have had some pretty bad results with sprays myself in the past .. - Hobbs