David Mack

The ones in MtB's link seem rather confused about their sizes:

When I saw the thread title I was expecting some combination of a children's song and this.

Rather misses the point! The ability to handle a boat is not the issue. What matters is that someone applying for a boat licence without a home mooring needs to demonstrate to CRT that they intend to use the boat bona fide for navigation, and not merely shuffle around a limited area with almost all stays being of 14 days duration.

The Lancaster Canal is 42 miles long from Preston to Tewitfield. In order to demonstrate to CRT that you are a genuine CCer (with a boat that is too long to go further afield) you will need to travel the full length of the canal a few times a year, and staying at a number of different places along the way. You aren't allowed to just switch between a couple of places - you probably need to visit (and have been sighted by CRT at) a couple of other places before returning to your first location. I doubt CRT will accept regular one month stays on an ongoing basis, particularly from a new licence holder. The concession which allows you to stay in one place for longer than 14 days if reasonable in the circumstances is intended to accommodate being unable to move the boat due to illness/injury, breakdown or unplanned canal closure. It would normally be expected that when the circumstance giving rise to the extended stay had ended you would revert to maximum 14 day stays. And CRT will be more willing to accommodate extended stays by an existing boater who becomes ill or injured than by one who cannot achieve the movement requirements on day one.

For how long and how often will the teenagers be staying? Or in other words will they be happy to camp on whatever facilities you can offer, or will they need dedicated home-from-home type accommodation? We had a tale on here a while ago of a chap who accepted significant compromises in his boat layout in order to be able to accommodate holiday stays by his children and grandchildren. But in 5+ years of boat ownership the family had only come to stay once, meanwhile he had suffered the inconvenience of the boat layout for 5 years for virtually no benefit.

The applicant for a licence for a boat without a home mooring has to 'satisfy the Board'... It seems to me to be perfectly in order for CRT to apply some test to determine that the applicant is aware of the conditions of that licence, before it is 'satisfied' etc. etc. And it follows that if CRT is not so satisfied it is entitled to refuse to issue the licence (or to require that the applicant obtains a home mooring).

The news report does say it is being towed, but in the drone shots I couldn't see a tug, although there does appear to be a small rib nearby. But hardly big enough to tow a thing that size I would have thought.

Older boats by the top names do crop up at reasonable prices from time to time, especially if they have been neglected. But in your position I wouldn't get hung up by the identity of the builder. As well as the products of the big boys, there are lots of boats out there built by small boatbuilders who only produced a handful of boats and many of whose names are all but forgotten. At the age and price bracket you are looking at condition is more important than pedigree. Just choose a boat where the lines and steel detailing appeal to you and the condition is reasonable for the price.

Not sure it's wise for the former chandlery owners to be so up front in public about the reasons for closure, especially as they make allegations against a named business. If that is their attitude I can understand why the marina management didn't want to discuss them staying on!

Well the OP was asking for a photo of a boat in Cobalt Blue. If someone here has a boat painted that colour, the OP would be better viewing it for real than looking at a photo. As to being newly painted, surely that depends on whether the OP is interested in how his boat will look shortly after painting or a few years down the line!

My first reaction on seeing that picture was Northampton, although I haven't been there by boat since 2007, so not sure why I would remember it!

Read what I wrote!! Under the 95 Act CCers have to move every 14 days. Under that same Act HMers can moor anywhere they like for as long as they like. However under CRT's Ts and Cs, which may or may not be legally enforceable depending on who you listen to, HMers are also subject to maximum 14 day stays, or such shorter periods as indicated on signs at visitor moorings and the like. However the key difference is that the HMer's clock resets every time they return to their home mooring. So a HMer can leave their home mooring every weekend and tie up at the same spot for a couple of nights before returning to the HM. A CCer has to visit a number (undefined) of other 'places' (also undefined) before returning to the initial location.

Almost every narrowboat on the market has 6mm hull sides, apart from Springers which are thinner, so this isn't really a thing to worry about. It's an ex hire boat with multiple cabins. Fine if you have a family to house, but if you are a single or couple you will probably want to take some of the bunks out. Which then leads to the question whether having several small 'rooms' is what you want, or whether you would be better with a boat with fewer larger spaces. Forget about compost toilets. CRT have banned the disposal of 'compost' (in reality just bagged poo and paper) in their refuse bins, and if you have nowhere on land to store it while it decomposes, it's just a headache. The boat has two pumpout toilets. There might be one or two waste tanks which they empty into. Remove one toilet and the second tank if there are two, and keep the other one. The saving in cost by not replacing the toilet will cover your pumpout charges for quite a while. In queries like this I normally suggest the buyer move the boat themselves rather than paying for road transportation - the saving in lorry and cranage costs could allow you to take a week or two's unpaid leave to make the move. But in this case with a length of 66ft I think the boat may be too long for the Rufford Branch, and possibly also too deep a draft for the Ribble Link. That in turn leads me to wonder whether moving a boat this size to the Lancaster canal would materially devalue it. Not an issue if you intend to keep it long term, but could be if you need to sell.

Colour rendition will depend on the characteristics of the camera used to take the photo and the screen used to view it. You can get an idea of the colour by looking at colour swatches on a paint manufacturers website, but to get an idea of how it will look on a boat there is no substitute for actually viewing the boat in the flesh.