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Moving aboard - your experiences of hindsight


northern

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In the next few weeks I'll be moving aboard permanently.  I'm using a checklist I got from a solicitor a while ago when moving home to cover off things like changing my address with banks, GPs etc, meter readings etc, to help.  But I'd be keen on hearing from anyone who's made the move and their experiences which would never normally be consideration with a house move.

 

Any instances of you wishing you had the benefit of hindsight in something being missed or gone wrong etc, or best to sort now rather than retrospectively, would be brilliant.

 

And please don't say in hindsight you shouldn't have moved aboard 😉

 

 

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Thanks.  I'm heading down to Kilworth this Saturday to get stuff aboard for the boat mover who's taking it to Great Haywood for me, and I'll be taking it from there.  I'll be making sure there's enough gas, fuel and a full tank of diesel for him.  And more than enough spare for me to take it from GH to Nantwich. 

 

It'll be marina based in Nantwich so no worries with much of the sort of stuff you mention and I'm really familiar with water points and chandlers etc on the SU.  Also, Chamberlin fuel boat is moored very close by and does the circuit and I'll be buying all I can from them rather than a marina.

 

Oh, it's a drop-through toilet too, so no daily carrying and emptying.  It wasn't my preference but it's a used boat so didn't have much choice.

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45 minutes ago, matty40s said:

have you got an umbilical cord or what do you need to do to keep your batteries charged,

 

^^^This^^^ ... a hundred times over. 

 

No problem if you are 'sucking on the tit' with a 230Vac shoreline but if not, then I predict 99% of your liveaboard "learning experience" will revolve around how to generate enough power without trashing your batteries. Maybe not initially, but if you are CCing it will come to dominate your liveaboard thinking and life. 

 

 

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I had a very traumatic move due to legal fuckup by my lawyer, so was in a bad state both physically and mentally. I hired a van, and stuffed it to the gunnels, rest went to charity shops. 

With less pressure, I would have got a slightly larger van, as I had some spare room on my 57 footer. Clothing wise, I filled one wardrobe, four or five coats and jackets, maybe ten pairs of shorts and trousers, plenty of T shirts and a couple of outfits in case of going to a posh pub. 

All my tools, plenty of old clothes for painting and cleaning, a pump to empty diesel tank plus three empty containers from the car wash. Empty fuel tank, leave fuel to settle, do a bit of flushing, over three days, and using additive you should get fuel clean, I also flushed the engine oil. Use oem filters. Replace gaskets on the inlet, to prevent water getting in, I have to use a big screwdriver to tighten mine up. 

I flushed the water tank, adding an egg cup of bleach, left it for a while then flushed again. 

 

 

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Have to sat that living on a boat was easy and I found it fun, essentials were a radio, luxury was occasional telly, water is always gettable in a carrier if you run out, books are great, candle light and/or paraffin lamps are perfectly OK. That was years ago but we also had much the same on the upper Thames when we were miles from anywhere and the flow was fast, diesel and water low and no way was I going to untie the boat and move. That lasted for a few weeks. Downsides were, and are British Waterways board and  their more recent reincarnations and the amount of rules and regulations which cost money and in the end tipped the balance to moving back on land. Still own a boat but no longer in the UK.

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5 hours ago, Loddon said:

Downsizing to move onto the boat was easy for me, all I had was a change of clothes and my phone. The ex-wife kept everything else.

 

What?, she even had the tools and the train set?

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In my experience, ridding the decades of clutter and dealing with the shore-based life was no fun.

 

But living aboard was frankly much easier than anticipated and I sometimes have difficulties understanding those that say it is a tough life.  We CCd throughout the year and had no real difficulties with fuel, supplies, electricity generation water or any of that at any time  It lead me to think that the grumblers had a much easier life than me, prior to living aboard.

 

It must depend on your circumstances up to a point; we had many years experience of holiday boating, so there were no fundamental surprises (apart from the ease).  On the other hand, I worked although did not need to go to a place of employment regularly.  Also in reasonably good health. 

 

I wonder whether being a frequent mover OR a having a permanent mooring is rather simpler that a hybrid arrangement where you need to keep the car or stay in close proximity to somewhere;  I would not have enjoyed the faff of shifting a car around or trudging along a dark muddy towpath to a cold boat after a day at work.  But even when shut-in by unannounced stoppages or truly inclement weather, you soon adjust and the time passes joyfully.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Tacet said:

I would not have enjoyed the faff of shifting a car around or trudging along a dark muddy towpath to a cold boat after a day at work. 


shifting the car can be a pain in the ass when working

and trudging a dark towpath is ok when you know you’ll soon be cosey on board with a warm fire and a stew that’s cooked all day on the stove.

I like the winters

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I have not moved aboard full-time so am in no position to talk but will anyway.

I would start off with deeper stocks of non-perishable food than normal landside, and try to keep a decent buffer against having to shop when I don't want to.

I would keep entertainment stuff and smaller hobbies stuff, the diy electronics particularly.

I would err on the side of keeping stuff until I got my feet under the table, but maybe the baby grand would have to go immediately.

I would start off with a pile of collapsed cardboard boxes and progressively fill them with stuff I don't use and jettison them as soon as they become full.

I would buy more colder-weather clothes of maybe higher quality than I otherwise would, 'cos I'm a cold mortal.

And I would find a wife as these are good sources of warmth, but maybe not immediately as disconnecting them from their husbands can be a bit of a faff, even though many of them seem to be only loosely attached.

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We moved on board having never stayed on a narrowboat before. It depends on your personality, but it turns out my partner needed more time to adapt to change than I do. Your post hints that this is a gradual thing you're doing, but if not then it might make sense to stay on board a few days here and there before being on-board permanently.

 

In hindsight, psychologically, I wish I'd known that I'd get used to doing the Elsan. I thought I never would.

 

And as others have said, downsize possessions significantly. We thought we had, but then we needed to get rid of another half of everything we had left.

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2 hours ago, dmr said:

 

What?, she even had the tools and the train set?

Kept my work tool kit and the train set was in my mother's loft 😉 but the list of stuff left behind is only coming to light 30years later now my daughter has most of it.

Items include a Synthi A with Keyboard, a few hundred LPs and the excellent Quad /Tannoy stereo system. All my Ham radio gear and so much more. 😱

 

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8 hours ago, Loddon said:

Downsizing to move onto the boat was easy for me, all I had was a change of clothes and my phone. The ex-wife kept everything else.

My sympathy lad,

Ex wives can be absolute Bitches can't they?

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47 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Kept my work tool kit and the train set was in my mother's loft 😉 but the list of stuff left behind is only coming to light 30years later now my daughter has most of it.

Items include a Synthi A with Keyboard, a few hundred LPs and the excellent Quad /Tannoy stereo system. All my Ham radio gear and so much more. 😱

 

 

I am amazed at how much Quad stuff is still about. I think there is even a Chinese company making replacement PCB's though not sue many owners would want chinese parts 😀.

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2 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

I am amazed at how much Quad stuff is still about. I think there is even a Chinese company making replacement PCB's though not sue many owners would want chinese parts 😀.

I have A Quad system 

Its been back to them a couple of years ago for service and is now perfect just as it was in the 70's

Quad are owned by a pair of Chinese brothers whose  standards are higher than most when it comes to their hifi.

I have no problem with their parts, having examined a new and old pcb they are built the same.

Good that the company still exists and will service anything they have made and carry  parts for items that are over 50 years old and if they dont have stock they usually make new.

Pity some other companies dont have that ethos

Have a look at the prices of Quad 34/405 you will be shocked 

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3 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

I have not moved aboard full-time so am in no position to talk but will anyway.

I would start off with deeper stocks of non-perishable food than normal landside, and try to keep a decent buffer against having to shop when I don't want to.

I would keep entertainment stuff and smaller hobbies stuff, the diy electronics particularly.

I would err on the side of keeping stuff until I got my feet under the table, but maybe the baby grand would have to go immediately.

I would start off with a pile of collapsed cardboard boxes and progressively fill them with stuff I don't use and jettison them as soon as they become full.

I would buy more colder-weather clothes of maybe higher quality than I otherwise would, 'cos I'm a cold mortal.

And I would find a wife as these are good sources of warmth, but maybe not immediately as disconnecting them from their husbands can be a bit of a faff, even though many of them seem to be only loosely attached.

Thee is at least one professional musician with a baby grand on a wide beam, I believe.

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Thanks for the input.  Appreciated.

 

My boat's just under 50ft, tug-style with a large deck, and an engine room, so you'll understand there's not a great deal of living space.  In fact, it's actually not really best suited to living aboard only for this reason.  It has every bit of equipment you could ever want or imagine though.  The engine room will be ideal for storing awkward items like clothes maiden/buckets etc.  And there's a reasonable storage area under the deck too for lesser used items.  Despite it not being the most suitable boat to liveaboard, there's only going to be me on it, and I loved it as soon as I saw it.  I bought it subject to survey within a few hours of the broker advertising it.  Just over a week later it was surveyed (already had one booked for a month to look at a different boat) and paid for in full.

 

Anyhow, I'm not a fan of clutter and crap, which is fortunate.  Clothing will make up the bulk of what's coming aboard and some of this will have to live under the fixed seating in the saloon.  The wardrobe isn't large enough.

 

I've a decent amplifier and Quad 11L speakers with stands but there's no room for these and they'll be replaced with some smaller bluetooth Ruark speakers which seem well rated enough.  

 

I cleared the loft and de-cluttered most of the house 6 months ago when I found a boat I intended to buy and move on to but it fell through.

 

There's very little in the way of objects and possessions that I use and couldn't live without, so reckon there'll be nothing I miss.

 

I don't have to worry about batteries as I'll be marina based and will only be able to cruise at weekends and annual leave.  There's 700 watts of solar and I rarely moor in the same sport for more than 2 days as I get bored.  I've nothing which is power hungry - just a laptop and the dehumidifier will only be run in the marina - and there's travel power if I want to run the washer.

 

Oh, and I chopped my car in at the weekend.  Shame as I really enjoyed it but can't moan since Cazoo gave me more than I paid for it.  I've now something far more unassuming which I'll worry about less when sat in the marina's car park.  Needs must - the boat was out of my budget but I wanted it and so the car had to go.  I wanted to move aboard debt free, with the annual marina fees, licence, RCR and insurance all paid up for the year in advance, and didn't want to borrow money to bridge the gap.

 

I'll be on board a week tomorrow. 

 

Thanks again. 

Edited by northern
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31 minutes ago, northern said:

Anyhow, I'm not a fan of clutter and crap, which is fortunate.  Clothing will make up the bulk of what's coming aboard and some of this will have to live under the fixed seating in the saloon.  The wardrobe isn't large enough.

 

I've a decent amplifier and Quad 11L speakers with stands but there's no room for these and they'll be replaced with some smaller bluetooth Ruark speakers which seem well rated enough.  

Make sure that any clothes  under seating are bagged in vacuum bags to keep out any damp.

Bluetooth is horrible for sound you will really learn to hate it after the Quad 

Its better to use an Audio Chromecast  with a decent amp to stream music to as it retains full audio bandwith.

 

 

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