Captain Lockheed

OK, This has run its course. As the orginal post would suggest, I've worked out that of all the things I could and should be doing, participating in the canal community isn't one of them. I Originally Posted this thread to ask for a bit of help with a problem from this part of the boating community, I feel Ive had all the sensible answers I 'm likely to get and it's degenerating into a series of criticisms of my approach and conversations about the Amish, neither of which is much use to me. I'm going to attempt to unsubscribe now, as I have made clear my intent to leave the boating community, there seems little point in me sticking around in this forum. I'd just like to thank the people who did make an effort to help me, and I'm sure that your goodness will be rewarded appropriately, as that does seem to be the way things work out eventually. I've made a small contribution elsewhere, so this hasn't been a totally selfish endeavour, but as some of the more sensitive contributors have realised, this has been a bad experience for me, and I really did start the thread as stated in an ongoing and increasingly desperate effort to get away from the situation. I've been continuously ripped off in one way or another by an extraordinary high percentage of the people I have dealt with, I have a nutter stalking me by telephone and in other ways, and I've lost a shedload of time and money all as a result of me venturing out into your community, and frankly, I don't need it. My normal life although not perfect, isn't anything like as weird and unpleasant as my canal life has been, and I'm clear in my mind this is not for me. So please excuse the sharp exit, I mean no disrespect and I'm sure at least some of you will understand it's the best thing I can do in the circumstances. Thank you all, Steve C.

No problem at all 14Skipper, I appreciate a frank response, it's a better response than some.. You don't know who I am, and in my own defence if such a thing is possible, I did pen that apollo duck ad whilst being particularly anguished at how things were turning out. Happy new year, Steve C.

No your eyesight is correct, I was just passing on what I was told by someone in the trade who should know. I'd have expected rivets... It obviously IS quite old, but I have been unable so far to get any response from BW when I have asked if they could help me out with a bit of history for the boat. I think we are looking at a comprehensive overplate myself, over and older boat, but to my eye it did look OK and the minimum thickness recorded in one place was 4.9mm and the maxium 6mm. Against the advice we were given we took off all the old crap and painted it from scratch with the best material we could afford. I fully intended to (if I could find a friendly slip way) to pull it out again, and check our work after a year or so, but it looks pretty darn good to me so far. Thanks for the question.

OP=Original Poster? Thanks, Steve C.

Thank you Nina, and all the others who have pointed these things out in their own ways, that's the course I intend to take. I think in this case, a broker will serve me best, but in the mean time I've rejigged the apollo duck advert, and we have removed a lot of the dreck since the original pics were taken.. I am hamstrung by the fact that I am disillusioned with canal life, and almost everyone does talk my boat down, and being someone who tries to be honest in life, it's very difficult for me to keep a straight face whilst trying to play up the good side of the boat and canal life. I am sure I'll get it all sorted before the end of the world comes... :c) If anyone can recommmend a decent straightforward fair to both sides kind of broker, please let me know. Part of the problem I've had is that I hardly know anyone on the water, and certainly don't seem to have demonstrated a very good instinct on who is trustworthy, my common sense tells me that there must be SOME good people out there. Cheers, Steve C.

They should overall make a profit from those who pay their premiums and do not break down. Like all insurance, it's a brillliant and very cost effective idea in an honest society, but a swift look at the car insurance market shows what happens when the trust gets broken. The trick I think is as a decent customer, is to realise you pay your premium in order to get the help when you need it, and you should have a right to expect that help to be delivered promptly and without drama, but when you can avoid making a claim, you should in the interest of the greater good. Hopefully RCR will be allowed by the honesty of their policy holders to continue providing such an excellent service, and as their customer base grows, will cap their profits to a reasonable level and allow the customers to benefit by a steady small reduction in their individual premiums over time! Cheers, Steve C.

Yes Graham, I got the message Loud and clear, from the previous posters, and have already taken some action to address those points. Thank you.

I appreciate both your replies, and thank you for your feedback. I don't agree that the expression "commitment of a gnat" is entirely appropriate, (although it is an amusing use of the language captain14), as I've done an awful lot of work already to this boat despite the plethora of advice I've received to "get rid of it and buy something decent". Part of my nature is that things leave my hands better than I find them. I am definitely right in placing the blame for the overall bad time I have been having at least partly on the three people who have robbed it so far, the gang of kids who injured my crewmate by chucking a brick at him during a further unsuccessful attempt at robbery, and at 1 boatyard who wasted three months of our time continually lying to us certainly did not help to progress the job. Those people have not enhanced the experience at all, and I observe that in my life OFF the water, I seem to meet far less of them... With the wording of the apollo duck advert, I'm just trying to filter out the timewasters and dreamers. I've bought and sold a lot of things in my time, and generally I like to sell to the first person who views. Honesty helps in that endeavour. I'm not a trader looking for as much money as I can get off a "mug", I'm looking for someone who actually wants to buy a "genuine" project, with all the "mystery" taken out of it, and hoping to high heaven I get someone decent come along who offers me a fair (ish) price for it. So big thanks to all who have participated in this thread, some of you are obviously decent sorts, and willing to try and help. I appreciate that very much. I think in the new year I'll try and find a broker, who can sell it "properly" and fairly whilst keeping me out of the proceedings. One yard did offer me a possible job, a month or two ago after I did some impromptu electrical repairs (I'm a fairly good and experienced engineer, and find it difficult to walk past some people apparently struggling with their electrics at 12:30 at night.) as it turned out I was helping out the manageress of a boating company who'd been let down by a boat tradesman... Maybe I'll start there.. Happy new year, everybody. Steve C.

I take your point, and since I know my boat is a wreck and does not give an impression of financial recitude, I make damn sure I find out how much it is, I make sure I understand what is and isn't being done (the hardest part, I found, with some boatyards) and make sure I can pay it before I order the work, and then I pay as soon as the work is done. I do unfortunately need the work doing fairly cheap, but as I'm an engineer by trade I have knowledge of how much it costs to do things, and I have enough wit to see when I've been ripped off, and enough decency not to expect charity for someone who is trying to make an honst living. Anyway, here's some pictures of it before I got the hull done. We took it back to the base, so as we could see what we were dealing with, and so as the paint would have no odd chemistry to deal with, and put on a minimum of three coats of rytex ( five in a couple of critical areas). It needed no welding due to corrosion, although I got a couple of old openings covered, becuase I could. We also replaced the prop shaft and stern gland, as it was wearing, and I like to try and do things properly. https://picasaweb.google.com/swallabat/RomanyNr7# It doesn't look as nice to me now as it does in the pictures, partly because we have removed the render, which was both conferring a degree of water resistance to the cabin and covering up the ugliness, and partly I suspect because now I have seen canal life for what it really is, I can't view it romantically any more. The sooner I get it out of my life, the better. Cheers, Steve C.

OK, Here's the best thought out set of suggestions I have had so far. (Thanks, Chris) 1. Put it with a broker who doesn't mind the lower end 2. Advertise on apolloduck and boatsandoutboards.co.uk 3. Moor it near to other people who you know 4. Don't worry about CC rules, what can they do? 5. Get it craned out and onto a bit of hard 6. Find a boat sitter 7. Put it onto an unoccupied BW permanent mooring (see 4) 1. Sounds like a good idea if I can find one. 2. Done for some time now on Apollo Duck. Admittedly it's up at 10400, but it looks very comparable at that price to the others. 3. Don't really know anyone. Have met a few people that I recognise, but I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone by mooring this wreck near to someone's nice boat.. 4. I signed up to the rules willingly I should follow them. eeing stuck somewhere with meachnical problems or because of ice, is fair enough, dumping my boat somewhere because I've become sickened with it, isn't fair play at all. (That's why I'm urgent to get rid of it.) It's no good complaining about the scumbags if when I face adversity I make it someone elses problem, is it? 5. Tried that. Got ripped off hugely and was not made at all welcome. Any one with canalside hardstanding wants to do the easy work to a low standard (for three times what I used to get paid as an aircraft engineer) as well as take a rent. 6. If it was habitable, I'd be moving it about and at least getting some small joy out of it. 7. See point 4. SO. Can anyone recommend a decent broker? Near South Birmingham? Cheers, Steve C.

- I tried calling and your phone doesn;t accept calls from my phone apparently! It did say try later, so I shall.. If you wish to PM me a landline, adn a suitable time to call I'll gladly try that instead. Thanks. Steve C. G.. G.. for Germany?? :c)

18 Months ago we bought a narrowboat in rubbish order, with a view to using it to learn both the skills of boating and something about the practical problems. The first Six months were great, we puttered around the waterways system, without a care in the world, fixing up the boat's mechanical issues, and generally got to a point where we were (so I thought) ready to get the hull out of the water, and if it turns out OK, re-black it and get the cabin replacement underway. Since then its been a horrible experience, everyone we have tried to deal with in the role of "customer" has been either dishonest, unpleasant, or simply "nuts". With the exception of Midland Chandlers, the wigrams wharf people, and one yard I went to near lichfield. In short I have now wasted a full year on promises that aren't kept, service which has been provided to a low standard and at a final price nearly double the original "quote", and just plain "nutters" everywhere. I lost patience with the whole thing and put the boat up on ebay, 99p no reserve, winner "takes all" with a very honest listing so as the damn thing would go quickly without ripping off the buyer. Yeah, we got a third the price of a new hull for it, (which given that ours "ultrasounds" to a minimum 4.9mm, and the boat has a nice old engine,plus a very decent paloma plus a fresh survey etc. We thought the "buyers" were getting a bit of a bargain, certainly a better start than we got for spending twice as much money in the first place) but no, the buyers "withdrew", leaving us with the ebay fees to try and recover. In the mean time, the robberies have started. During the last one, (obviously a fellow boater, as they carefully uninstalled my new engine start switch amongst other things, and only seemed to take chandlery and boating useful items, like my fire lighter, waterproof coat etc.) SO, please fellow boaters, if you know, please tell me how the hell do I get out of this quickly? And with some return on my 11K of investment? Is it possible to get a scrapper to take the damn thing off me? (I'm on a CC licence so I have to keep the damn thing moving, but I don't want to go on the water any more, the state of my boat just seems to attract "ne-er do wells" of one sort or another, and I'm thoroughly sick of the whole paranoid and unpleasant experience). Cheers, Steve C.

The advice to "get a laptop" whether you like the beasts or not is the best advice I have read so far. (IMnotsoHO) I have replaced all of our computers with laptops several years ago, for the following reasons. Laptops are dead portable, and self contained. Most laptops can be docked with a docking station which allows the use of a full size keyboard and larger screen and most docking stations have usb and other interfaces for permanent installations, so you can get all the good ness of a full blown PC, but still retain the portability and low power consumption of a laptop. If you are a muso, the extra quietness of a laptop versus a full PC has to be a good thing. By carefully selecting your large screen you could end up with multiple functionality, as I have. I can easily switch between a single screen or dual screen setup. (Dual screens are very useful for certain parts of the music production process apparently) or I can use the latop internal screen and the second screen for video, (I bought an LG M1717a, which does computer scart and composite inputs...) best of all, since you want to run at least 2 computers from the get go, by using 2 of the same, if one breaks you may be able to easily swap the hard drive into the other to complete mission critical work. (Its a strategy thats kept my g/f's small business going in the past...) Since I know a bit about laptops I'd have to recomend DELL TOSHIBA or IBM as your best bet, (if you can get away with the not so cutting edge performance, use ex-corporate second hand laptops, they are usually initially bought by people who recognise a good machine and spares and accessories are cheaper and easier to find, when you want them.) ABOVE ALL, Once it has taken a charge, take the battery out of the laptop if you are going to leave it running on mains or 12v power... UNless you really, really need the insurance against power failure that the laptop internal battery offers... Also consider tablet P.C.'s. My toshiba portege folds flat and the stylus / screen interface has much to recomend it for certain things... Just my two pennorth worth, AND I don't yet have any practical narrow boat experience. (although I have 35 years of practical electronics and computer experience, and I've been planning and implementing a low powered life for quite a while now.. ) Cheers. Steve C.