Research on life afloat!

[Jacinta]

Hi everyone! I’m a postgraduate student from Oxford University, and I’m doing research on the experiences of people living afloat in London. If any of you would be happy to do so, I would love to be able to talk with you about your experiences and opinions. I am particularly interested in questions of infrastructure and governance in light of increasing pressure on moorings and facilities, as well as opinions about governance by the CRT and Environment Agency.

I hope that my thesis will generate insight and relevant recommendations for policy. If you would be interested to share your experiences, or to air any grievances you have about boating facilities (anything from toilet waste facilities to ways of keeping your boat cooler in this weather…), please do send me a message here to find out more!

Thank you,

Jacinta 

[Jacinta]

Hi everyone! I’m a postgraduate student from Oxford University, and I’m doing research on the experiences of people living afloat in London.

I am particularly interested in questions of infrastructure - both at the broader scale of to what extent the CRT is succeeding in providing sufficient facilities and moorings for boaters, but also how boaters maintain their homes day-to-day with regards to water supply, disposing of toilet waste, heating boats, etc. in ways which are unique to life afloat. 

I hope that my thesis will generate insight and relevant recommendations for policy. If you would be interested to share your experiences of boating, or even to air any grievances you have about boating facilities, please drop me a message. I would love to chat with you about it. 

Thank you,

Jacinta

[Tumshie]

Hi @Jacinta welcome to the forum, just a little tip if you want to use the private messaging on the forum you need to make a couple more posts before it will activate for you. 

 

There are people on the forum who boat in London, but have you tried also searching the internet for narrowboat / canal blogs, quite a few boater have their own blogs, and there are a few people putting up narrowboat and canal vlogs on youtube some of which are specific to London, there are also facebook groups for specific areas, some of which are open to everyone. You may have already done this of course ?

 

Good luck with your quest and with your course.  

[Jacinta]

Hi @Tumshie! Thank you so much for your suggestions. I have only just begun my research, so I have not yet contacted anyone via blogs... but it is a great idea, and something I will definitely do - thank you! That's really useful to know. I have also joined a few Facebook groups, and am making slow progress. Thanks also for the advice on posts...

I'm guessing from your location 'North of... everywhere' that you don't live in London? 

[Tumshie]

2 minutes ago, Jacinta said:

Hi everyone! I’m a postgraduate student from Oxford University, and I’m doing research on the experiences of people living afloat in London.

I am particularly interested in questions of infrastructure - both at the broader scale of to what extent the CRT is succeeding in providing sufficient facilities and moorings for boaters, but also how boaters maintain their homes day-to-day with regards to water supply, disposing of toilet waste, heating boats, etc. in ways which are unique to life afloat. 

I hope that my thesis will generate insight and relevant recommendations for policy. If you would be interested to share your experiences of boating, or even to air any grievances you have about boating facilities, please drop me a message. I would love to chat with you about it. 

Thank you,

 

Jacinta

Hello again ??

 

You don't need to make multiple post in different segments of the forum - if you scroll up to the top right hand corner of the page you'll find the "view new content" button if you click that it will take you to the page where all the new content / latest posts are shown so anything you post will likely be picked up by everybody there. 

 

[Jacinta]

Brilliant, thanks again @Tumshie!  

[Tumshie]

6 minutes ago, Jacinta said:

I'm guessing from your location 'North of... everywhere' that you don't live in London? 

No I'm not in London, I'm at the other end of the country at the moment. I'm based at Inverness and my local canal is the Caledonian (Caley) Canal. 

 

There was a youtube vlog by someone who goes by the youtube name of London Boat Girl, she did a very informative vlog about how to approach boaters when you want to interview then it's mostly aimed at reporters but it might have some good tips for you. 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2019 by Tumshie
to replace words

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, Jacinta said:

Hi everyone! I’m a postgraduate student from Oxford University, and I’m doing research on the experiences of people living afloat in London.

I am particularly interested in questions of infrastructure - both at the broader scale of to what extent the CRT is succeeding in providing sufficient facilities and moorings for boaters, but also how boaters maintain their homes day-to-day with regards to water supply, disposing of toilet waste, heating boats, etc. in ways which are unique to life afloat. 

I hope that my thesis will generate insight and relevant recommendations for policy. If you would be interested to share your experiences of boating, or even to air any grievances you have about boating facilities, please drop me a message. I would love to chat with you about it. 

Thank you,

 

Jacinta

Maybe (just a suggestion) you could include how boaters without a mooring manage to comply with the requirements to move every 14 days. There are apparently about 5,000 boaters in what C&RT classify as London.

It would appear that complying with the law is harder than finding water, toilet emptying etc.

 

Don't know if you have found the London Boaters farcebook page ?

They should be able to help you with the nitty gritty day to day problems.

[system 4-50]

I've got that Petunia feeling...

[Tumshie]

With 4 posts you may find you can receive PMs now. There is also the search function in the top right hand corner of the forum header try throwing some random words in there and giving them a whirl that will bring up stuff thats been posted in the past. 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2019 by Tumshie
Cos I can't string stuff together coherently

[Tumshie]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Don't know if you have found the London Boaters farcebook page ?

They should be able to help you with the nitty gritty day to day problems.

She managed to start two threads before she realised she didn't need to, she says on the other one she just starting out and has had a little look at Facebook. I think I might report this thread and ask for the two threads to be merged. 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, Tumshie said:

report this thread and ask for the two threads to be merged. 

Already done

[Tumshie]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Already done

Oh snap ?

[Jacinta]

21 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Maybe (just a suggestion) you could include how boaters without a mooring manage to comply with the requirements to move every 14 days. There are apparently about 5,000 boaters in what C&RT classify as London.

It would appear that complying with the law is harder than finding water, toilet emptying etc.

 

Don't know if you have found the London Boaters farcebook page ?

They should be able to help you with the nitty gritty day to day problems.

Hi Alan. Absolutely, that's a great thought --- I am really interested both in the experience of continuous cruising and also the ways in which people respond to the mooring regulations. I have only just begun my research, but it does seem that there are a real range of legal, governance-related, and infrastructural challenges for boaters, all of which I'm really keen to learn more about. 

 

Sorry for accidentally creating two threads... Thanks again to both you and @Tumshie!  

[Tumshie]

Just now, Jacinta said:

Sorry for accidentally creating two threads... Thanks again to both you and @Tumshie!  

It not a problem but it has been reported to a moderator to have the two threads merged so if you suddenly find you only have one then that's what is likely to have happened. it's just to save confusing those of us bears with very little brain. ?

[Jacinta]

8 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

It not a problem but it has been reported to a moderator to have the two threads merged so if you suddenly find you only have one then that's what is likely to have happened. it's just to save confusing those of us bears with very little brain. ?

Ok, that's fine --- Definitely me that was the bear of little brain! - thanks for helping me out  

 

[Jacinta]

46 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

No I'm not in London, I'm at the other end of the country at the moment. I'm based at Inverness and my local canal is the Caledonian (Caley) Canal. 

 

There was a youtube vlog by someone who goes by the youtube name of London Boat Girl, she did a very informative vlog about how to approach boaters when you want to interview then it's mostly aimed at reporters but it might have some good tips for you. 

 

 

Great suggestion about the vlog... I'll look it up. Thanks again for giving so much useful advice! Hope life is good on the Caley Canal.  

[Tumshie]

Little Bump - How's the research going?

 

On 12/07/2019 at 17:23, Jacinta said:

Hope life is good on the Caley Canal.  

Yes, The Caley is beautiful and unique and makes everything better; but I can't say that I'm biased in any way at all. 

 

Inverness is a little different from London but we also have quite wide locks and a huge variety of boats.

 

https://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/canals/caledonian-canal/

 

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/inverness/caledoniancanal/index.html