How old is too old

[ditchcrawler]

11 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

At 73 with a dodgy back I can no longer get down into the engine hole to fettle anything, though it feels daft having to go to a yard to get someone to tighten up the engine drain plug. I'm also a lot more careful round locks, and a bit slower. However, while I can still shin up the ladders I reckon I'm ok.. what will make me too old will be when life just gets too short to be bothered with the endless system breakdowns and closures these days , which have made the last few years cruising impossible to plan and cause a constant niggling worry as to whether you're going to get back to the mooring or get stuck (for me) in an unaffordable marina mooring somewhere miles from home.

For the last five years I've been saying "let's see if I enjoy next year better". If my wife didn't insist on her few weeks on the boat every year I'd have packed it in those five years back.

If you stayed out of the garden you wouldn't have so many back problems 

[Ewan123]

We met a chap in his nineties the other week, still doing pretty well! He had a young assistant (60s?) and she worked the locks while he did the driving. It's all about individual health and will rather than a number.

[Rob-M]

I often boat with volunteers in their late 70's\early 80's.  Keeping active and recognising your limits are important, I wouldn't want to do some of the long days with 30+ locks with an elderly crew.

[DandV]

The previous owners of our boat were in their 7O's when they commissioned a new build 58ft  narrowboat after about 4 years of hiring for one or two weeks a year.

They owned the boat for seven 5 month seasons, in which they covered almost the entire network, even including the remote Pocklington Canal and three traverses of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 

They were intending an eighth season when they would have just short of eighty when one of them was struck by a near fatal stroke.

So if your general health is good, have you really got anything better to do?

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by DandV

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

If you stayed out of the garden you wouldn't have so many back problems 

This is true! Though the initial injury was trying to rush my way through a lock on the Bosley flight nearly thirty years ago because there were people waiting to come down, looking impatient. It knackered two discs at the base of the spine. It didn't strike me at the time (I'd only just started singlehanding) that if they were in a hurry they could have come and helped. A lesson I've not forgotten, though I reckon I'm still faster through a lock on my own than most crewed boats that I meet.

Off topic, my memory tells me that when I did that trip there were a lot of swing bridges on the Macc where they now aren't, probably along by AstraZeneca. I've never been able to track down when they were dismantled or whether it's just a duff memory.

[GUMPY]

Aged 71 after 50 years on and off the canals, 25 years of which was  living on board full time we decided it was time to quit whilst we were  ahead so we sold the boat.

The biggest joy is that we no longer have to pay £3k to keep the boat on the water and we get £3k a year from the invested sale moneys.

So £6k a year more to spend on other things. 😉

 

[enigmatic]

61 sounds like a younger than average narrowboater  

[cuthound]

15 hours ago, DandV said:

The previous owners of our boat were in their 7O's when they commissioned a new build 58ft  narrowboat after about 4 years of hiring for one or two weeks a year.

They owned the boat for seven 5 month seasons, in which they covered almost the entire network, even including the remote Pocklington Canal and three traverses of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. 

They were intending an eighth season when they would have just short of eighty when one of them was struck by a near fatal stroke.

So if your general health is good, have you really got anything better to do?

 

 

I bought my boat from a couple who.were in their 80's. They had commissioned it from new.

 

I bought it at 6 years old with less than 500 hours on it.

 

Unfortunately in the time they owned it the husband had three heart attacks, so his wife made him sell the boat. 

 

Their loss was my gain.

[Bromleyxphil]

We are looking for a boat so expect lots of questions.  It’s been a long time since we were on a narrowboat so we are hiring one this Friday for a week……make sure the legs are still up to it!  I know whilst looking we may miss a few boats but I will just write those down to experience.  I expect we will know when we step on the one.

[Tracy D'arth]

As a child of the '40s I intend to keep going as long as my physiology lets me. I can still do 20 locks a day and 12 hour if I have to,

With the threat of a  sudden death hanging over me I surprise myself at how well I can do by ignoring it.

I have noticed that the first thing to fail on a hard day's boating is the thigh muscles. Takes 2 days to recover. Helps in a boat that there are no stairs.

[Sea Dog]

On 11/08/2023 at 14:37, cuthound said:

 

I bought my boat from a couple who.were in their 80's. They had commissioned it from new.

 

I bought it at 6 years old with less than 500 hours on it.

 

Unfortunately in the time they owned it the husband had three heart attacks, so his wife made him sell the boat. 

 

Their loss was my gain.

Well, "you can't take it with you" and they got 500 hours of boating enjoyment they might never have had if they'd played safe and kept their monetary "loss" in the bank. I'd say you both had a "win-win".

[magnetman]

4 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Well, "you can't take it with you" and they got 500 hours of boating enjoyment they might never have had if they'd played safe and kept their monetary "loss" in the bank. I'd say you both had a "win-win".

 

It is possible that someone who only did 500 hours of boating in 6 yars actually never enjoyed it at all. 

 

Surely one would do more! 

 

 

Thats less than 2 hours per week. 

[Sea Dog]

9 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

It is possible that someone who only did 500 hours of boating in 6 yars actually never enjoyed it at all. 

 

Surely one would do more! 

 

 

Thats less than 2 hours per week. 

Dunno, I bought my boat from someone who put 12 hours on the engine in 5 years from new, yet the boat was his pride and joy. Different strokes, I guess.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

33 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

It is possible that someone who only did 500 hours of boating in 6 yars actually never enjoyed it at all. 

 

Surely one would do more! 

 

 

Thats less than 2 hours per week. 

I suppose it would all depend on what it was used for, and how. Our boat only had 1100 hours on the engine when we bought it and it was 13 years old then (so only 1.6 hours per week) but was first owned and fitted out by Phil Abbott at Braunston who had it outside his chandlery for 7 years and then sold on to a couple of women who lived aboard for another 3 or 4 years, it seemed no-one went very far in it though.

 

We've taken the engine hours up to 9,200 in the 10 years we've had it, so a slightly more respectable 15 hours a week

[DandV]

When we bought our boat it had 3500 hours on it after seven 5 month seasons.

We carried on on the same pattern with the remarkably same results, the last time  the beta LCD hour meter briefly displayed it was reading 5540 hours, just after completing the SPCC Thames tideway cruise early in our fifth season, the boats twelfth season, and our last season. 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

It is possible that someone who only did 500 hours of boating in 6 yars actually never enjoyed it at all. 

 

 

When we boought the cruiser it was 10 years old and had 73 hours on one engine and 75 hours on the other, The one with 75 hours was the one connected to the calorifier so I guess it had been run a little longer to get hot water.

It had basically been an elder;y gents "man cave" and I think he just ran the engines up once a month to keep them turning over.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Dunno, I bought my boat from someone who put 12 hours on the engine in 5 years from new, yet the boat was his pride and joy. Different strokes, I guess.

I have a friend who doesn't go anywhere but his brass and paint are shinier than mine 

[Momac]

We learned recently that two couples we know well are packing in boating.

One couple late 60s . They bought a motorhome last year.  Some health/mobility issues. The wife prefer the motorhome.

The second couple in 70's have bought a static home/caravan due to recent health scare. Don't really get their logic but its their choice.

 

We picked up our first  boat the day before my 49th birthday in 2008. Had the present boat since 2014. 

Still got some good boating years to go I hope.

 

I have put 820 engine hours on our boat since June 2014 which may not seem a lot but possibly  above average for our type of boat. 

The first owners had done only 200 hours in 11 years. The boat did have some issues due to lack of use.

 

A lot of boats rarely if ever leave the marina. I have no issues with that. 

 

[Laurie Booth]

On 09/08/2023 at 13:24, Bromleyxphil said:

Going to look at some boats this weekend.  I see on some advertisements that the boat is being sold as the owner has reached an age where boating has become too much.  A child of the 60s I am no spring chicken, it’s going to be for leisure not liveaboard so……how young is too old to start 😀

If you are asking the question, then you are too old.

[LadyG]

18 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

If you are asking the question, then you are too old.

I disagree, I bought my boat with some degree of trepidation, and it's worked out OK.

I knew was too old to pursue my other hobbies, so this one is suitable for the older person, I'm quite a bit older, and not getting any younger.

It's a major investment / commitment.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by LadyG

[johnmck]

67 now. One knee replaced and the other fair knackered!

Still love it, but the once shiny boat has dulled and after 12 years ownership, the engine hours now stand at 6700. Like me, certain parts of the boat need attention. But hey ho,we age and wear and tear in tandem, I know the boats foibles and it knows mine.

[JamesFrance]

I am now 85 and sold the last narrowboat last year and the last sailboat in Spain 2 years ago.   It is some years since we went very far but more because of failing sight rather than age.

[Dav and Pen]

Had first canal boat in 1965 and progressed through 5 others including ex commercials until 2001 when we gave up on the canals as the enjoyment was spoilt for us by how busy it had become (even worse now) and brought an old Dutch barge in Belgium. We had 18 years on the continent spending all the summer there until both the maintenance of the barge and madams health made us decide to finish. This was just as well as things have turned out as she now needs a wheelchair to get around. We had brought the barge from someone who had lived on it until his wife died and it had a wheelchair lift from the galley up into the wheel house but the rarely went anywhere by then.

Enjoyed all my boating life and miss it every day.

[manxmike]

Started on the canals with my parents in the 50s, had a break when I was in my 20s, then bought my own boat after borrowing a friends boat when I was in my 40s and 50s.

Sold the boat when in my 60s and, apart from hiring occasionally, I now drive a motorhome. The boss is now in a wheelchair a lot of the time (MS), so the idea of her doing locks has long gone. Her dyslexia meant that she could never get her head around using a tiller, so the Motorhome is the best we can now do.

Yes I miss the canals, but at least we can still get around a lot of the country (more than in a narrowboat!) and she loves the MH.

[MtB]

On 10/08/2023 at 20:35, ditchcrawler said:

If you stayed out of the garden you wouldn't have so many back problems 

 

Many years ago a good friend of mine subscribed to "Osteopath Monthly" magazine.

 

He says he has a lot of back issues.