Review my fitout plan - Lights

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

27 minutes ago, Peanut said:

The thing is, Ian, has done all that in his day job, but working in an area outside his knowledge, he benefited by talking to the builder, who had the experience. Which is why I suggest you might like to do the same.

No he hasn’t, he didn’t do a self fit, or buy a shell then find a fitter. He ordered a bespoke build with a builder start to finish. Easiest solution if you have the funds.

That’s why you go to and employ a professional builder to build your boat. The builder works with the customer and his ideas to produce the final product in accordance with the customers budget. I don’t see customers, going out to the wood yard and ordering plywood, fitting the batteries or painting the top coat and sign writing, while paying his builder £100,000😂 Do you know how professional bespoke boat builders work and the involvement of the customer, as it looks like you don’t really🤔

Edited September 2 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[Gybe Ho]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

If your goal is to get boating (which several on here seriously doubt), buying a decent boat already in the water will work out a good deal cheaper than building one from scratch yourself. 

 

Let alone five years faster.

 

My goal is 10 to 20 years of simple living on a low budget and I want to explore the UK canal network and be part of an interesting continuous cruising community. Most secondhand boats on the market in the £80k price point were not designed for 12 months of tow path living and would require substantial upgrades and expense including a large lithium battery bank better insulation, smarter invertors and more solar. Even after that if the engine has more than 3000k hours on the clock a modern diesel will routinely have breakdowns. Within a few years I would likely have to throw £5k on a shot blast and baseplate re-epoxy and count myself lucky if there is not £2k to £3k of welding to do as well.

[Graham Davis]

10 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

I responded reasonably to every post with critical feedback on the subject of my fitout plan. Things went south when the usual crowd of provocateurs used the thread to deliver personal attacks for their own entertainment. If you had the time to review the personal attack I listed earlier and work backwards through the thread I think you would conclude there were nasty unprovoked personal attacks.

I see most of the "unprovoked personal attacks" in this thread have come from you.

 

10 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

There was another personal attack from @Tony Brooks which came out of the blue...

No there wasn't!

 

10 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

Not the behaviour of a decent person.

I suggest you try reading the Forum rules about personal attacks, something that seems to have escaped you.

And I will repeat what numerous other knowledgeable people on this thread have been saying. Since you have (allegedly) NO experience of canal boats and what makes them good or bad, save yourself a whole pile of grief and probably money, and go out and buy a used boat and live on that for a couple of years. Then you might realise that what you are currently proposing doesn't work.

[Arthur Marshall]

3 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

This feels like more work than starting with a shell. In your case do you think your cumulative labour and incremental fitout cost was less than a shell fitout?

For me, yes. It was an old boat when I got it, I had to rip everything back to the metal when it was rebottomed to stop the insulation catching fire. In effect, I suppose, it was a shell fitout. This was nearly thirty years ago, probably cost me a fair bit less than £1000 in total, including new plumbing, wiring and gas lines, and took about 3 months, working alone  2 or 3 days a week. I donated the labour... It is a small boat though, with a relatively small cabin.

 

[Peanut]

https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/profile/36876-boatinglifeupnorth/

 

I am not suggesting Ian builds boats, only that as an engineer in his day job, he has to carry out all those rolls. Gyb Ho will not be building the shell, and will need to talk to the shell builder, or take advice from someone like the Fit Out Pontoon, to revise their plans in the light of what is possible. They do not need to go down the custom build route to do that.

 

I am surprised that you managed to misconstrue what I have written, and do not need lessons in how boat building works.

Edited September 2 by Peanut
link

[Gybe Ho]

13 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

No he hasn’t😂 That’s why you go to and employ a professional builder to build your boat. The builder works with the customer and his ideas to produce the final product in accordance with the customers budget. I don’t see customers, going out to the wood yard and ordering plywood, fitting the batteries or painting the top coat and sign writing😂 Do you know how professional bespoke boat builders work and the involvement of the customer, as it looks like you don’t really🤔

 

This all sounds reasonable and is the right path for many, however that professional expects to make £50k to £100k personally a year and his business & employees probably require £ 1/2 million to tread water each year. Not every one is in a position to contribute the funds for that despite the logic of your argument.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

Just now, Gybe Ho said:

 

This all sounds reasonable and is the right path for many, however that professional expects to make £50k to £100k personally a year and his business & employees probably require £ 1/2 million to tread water each year. Not every one is in a position to contribute the funds for that despite the logic of your argument.

I agree and know. But I don’t think you’ve got the funds to go down the@Peanut route. Of getting a professional boatbuilder in to fit your shell out, after getting all the plans done by a boat design fitout company.

[Arthur Marshall]

6 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

My goal is 10 to 20 years of simple living on a low budget and I want to explore the UK canal network and be part of an interesting continuous cruising community. Most secondhand boats on the market in the £80k price point were not designed for 12 months of tow path living and would require substantial upgrades and expense including a large lithium battery bank better insulation, smarter invertors and more solar

Admittedly I only lived full time on mine for three years, but I did it very contentedly with one domestic bog standard battery, gas cooking and hot water, and a 12v system for everything else. ANY boat can be lived on - even before I insulated mine properly I had to sleep with the door open in winter to avoid overheating. Your definition of simple living looks like luxury to me!

[Peanut]

1 minute ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

I agree and know. But I don’t think you’ve got the funds to go down the@Peanut route. Of getting a professional boatbuilder in to fit your shell out, after getting all the plans done by a boat design fitout company.

You don't need to employ a professional boat builder to do the fit out, but the good plans will ensure that your self-build will run smoothly and to budget. It will save you from having to do major rework when the unplanned happens.

I never suggested a professional fit out.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

19 minutes ago, Peanut said:

https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/profile/36876-boatinglifeupnorth/

 

I am not suggesting Ian builds boats, only that as an engineer in his day job, he has to carry out all those rolls. Gyb Ho will not be building the shell, and will need to talk to the shell builder, or take advice from someone like the Fit Out Pontoon, to revise their plans in the light of what is possible. They do not need to go down the custom build route to do that.

 

I am surprised that you managed to misconstrue what I have written, and do not need lessons in how boat building works.

But you suggested that he has self fitted, as that what was being described in the conversation, planning, finances, building, project managing. 
And why have you put a link to my profile on?

5 minutes ago, Peanut said:

You don't need to employ a professional boat builder to do the fit out, but the good plans will ensure that your self-build will run smoothly and to budget. It will save you from having to do major rework when the unplanned happens.

I never suggested a professional fit out.

 So who do you get “DIY Dave” from YouTube with his GoPro or the guy that assemble’s the IKEA flatpack down the street.

 Did you self fit your boat?

 

 

Edited September 2 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[Peanut]

1 minute ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

But you suggested that he has self fitted, as that what was being described in the conversation, planning, finances, building, project managing. 
And why have you put a link to my profile on?

I did not suggest that he had self fitted, but that as he is an engineer, he will carry out those roles in his day job.

 

I omitted to put the quote in, and thought that I had linked to your post, not your profile, the forum software is not my area of expertise.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

Just now, Peanut said:

I did not suggest that he had self fitted, but that as he is an engineer, he will carry out those roles in his day job.

 

I omitted to put the quote in, and thought that I had linked to your post, not your profile, the forum software is not my area of expertise.

OK, I’m not getting into a bun fight about self-fitouts and getting a professional bespoke build done, as they’re totally different and a with a totally different budget involved.👍

[Arthur Marshall]

The thing is, you only really live in a very small chunk of the boat. If it's just one person,  all you need is a comfortable chair and a heat source. That's about 6 foot of your cabin.

You need a place to wash and pee, to cook, to sleep and a bit of storage. For basic living  that's it. Everything else is indulgence (nowt wrong with that,  but it's expensive and tends to cost you when it goes wrong). Personally, I need shelves for a few hundred books and room to swing a trombone,  but most people just need a TV, and with streaming,  possibly not even that.

I think the definition of simple living has changed a bit - most boats are now like floating cottages.

All of which, I admit,   is well off topic,  so I'll shut up now.

[cheesegas]

9 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

My goal is 10 to 20 years of simple living on a low budget and I want to explore the UK canal network and be part of an interesting continuous cruising community. Most secondhand boats on the market in the £80k price point were not designed for 12 months of tow path living and would require substantial upgrades and expense including a large lithium battery bank better insulation, smarter invertors and more solar. Even after that if the engine has more than 3000k hours on the clock a modern diesel will routinely have breakdowns. Within a few years I would likely have to throw £5k on a shot blast and baseplate re-epoxy and count myself lucky if there is not £2k to £3k of welding to do as well.

My 32 year old boat cost £22k, the engine has something over 20k hours on it (hour meter was broken at 19k when I got it) and has been perfectly reliable save for wear items like fuel lift pump, engine mounts and drive plate. I don’t know where you get the idea of routine breakdowns from. (Edit: the engine isn’t any special/vintage either, it’s an old Isuzu from before they were marinised by HMI and painted blue)
 

I live on it year round, the 1990s polystyrene insulation is just fine. The 4kw Villager stove runs with the damper barely open in the middle of winter and keeps the boat at 22C easily. 
 

I’ve spent a fair bit of money fitting solar, upgrading to lithium, bigger alternator etc - around £8k over 4 years which is very reasonable. This doesn’t include repair costs, just upgrade costs but does include replacing the bed, buying a sofa etc. 

 

I’d heavily recommend buying even a £40k boat first, leaving some money to make changes and upgrades. Soon you’ll work out what you need, so the custom boat in a couple of years will be near perfect. 

Edited September 3 by cheesegas

[Graham Davis]

40 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

I’d heavily recommend buying even a £40k boat first, leaving some money to make changes and upgrades. Soon you’ll work out what you need, so the custom boat in a couple of years will be near perfect. 

 

 

THIS !! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Bod]

9 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

My goal is 10 to 20 years of simple living on a low budget and I want to explore the UK canal network and be part of an interesting continuous cruising community. Most secondhand boats on the market in the £80k price point were not designed for 12 months of tow path living and would require substantial upgrades and expense including a large lithium battery bank better insulation, smarter invertors and more solar. Even after that if the engine has more than 3000k hours on the clock a modern diesel will routinely have breakdowns. Within a few years I would likely have to throw £5k on a shot blast and baseplate re-epoxy and count myself lucky if there is not £2k to £3k of welding to do as well.

Not wishing to pull your reasoning apart.

Granted there are a lot of boats out there that have been built as holiday boats, not full time live-aboards, some better designed than others.

If you are moving every few days, do you really need massive power supplies?

£80k boats are not likely to be ancient with dubious insulation, most will have "spray foam" insulation, more or less industry standard for many years (30+)

Inverters unless it's on the small side then modern pure sine wave, is about as good as they get.

Solar, yes, definitely as much as will fit on the roof. A great advantage of fitting it yourself,  you know it's done proper, not someone elses cobbled together nonsence.

£5K, shot blast, the need or not for this would be seen at survey and accounted for in the purchase price.

As would the welding.

A modern diesel engine, with proper care and attention should last many many years with out problems.  (A modern diesel car with 100,000 miles is often considered nicely run in!  Unlike grandfathers day when 40,000 was clapped out.)

Seriously, look at boats in the £80-95K range in the flesh, looking for large water tanks 5-800l, diesel 200l+, two forms of heating, electrical generation ,and well set out tidy electrical.(tidy electrical wiring usually shows good working practise and is less likely to have faults, bird nest wiring shows great lack of skill, and can hide horrible things! But may work perfectly.)

Look beyond the personal decor, the rotten boat pole on the roof, the mouldy mooring ropes, there are hidden gems out there, even in the sub £50k market.

 

Bod

Ps  The choice of toilet system is up to you, just don't even consider "Compost types"

If you think design topics get rough, you ain't seen nothing comparied to toilet topics!

Edited September 3 by Bod

[GUMPY]

The big question is:

How many times will @Gybe Ho change direction  with the forum wind blowing up his arse?

 

From his comments on here I suspect not many.

 

[Gybe Ho]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Admittedly I only lived full time on mine for three years, but I did it very contentedly with one domestic bog standard battery, gas cooking and hot water, and a 12v system for everything else. ANY boat can be lived on - even before I insulated mine properly I had to sleep with the door open in winter to avoid overheating. Your definition of simple living looks like luxury to me!

 

Good to know, I plan to escape the boatyard costs and lunch as soon as the fitout is viable for living afloat. I can tolerate cold nights and cooking off a single gas ring providing I can see I am heading for a desired goal. I have even looked into the possibility of launching without an engine, registering with the CRT as a Butty and declaring my old yachting Avon dinghy as the primary engined mother craft.

 

For a while my life afloat might equate to the simplicity you experienced but the goal is luxurious by some standards.

[cheesegas]

1 minute ago, Gybe Ho said:

Good to know, I plan to escape the boatyard costs and lunch as soon as the fitout is viable for living afloat.

Will you be heading for a mooring at this point or CC’ing? 
 

If you won’t be on a mooring with good road access and electricity, I’d suggest staying in the boatyard as long as possible. Fitouts on the towpath are very very difficult - you need to get raw materials delivered to the boat, move enough to keep the CRT off your back, be near to somewhere to dispose of rubbish and also run a generator etc until your electrics are installed. 
 

There’s a lot of new shells out there being lived on with just a mattress on the floor and temporary electrics/water, often for years. I know quite a few boats which were launched as sailaways during Covid and are still being fitted out on the towpath. Most of those owners were aiming for a basic fit out as well. 
 

If you want a bargain, they also come up for sale regularly once the owner runs out of patience/time/money. 

[IanD]

12 minutes ago, GUMPY said:

The big question is:

How many times will @Gybe Ho change direction  with the forum wind blowing up his arse?

 

From his comments on here I suspect not many.

 

Useful content : 0%

Provocative content : 100%

 

The kind of post that leads to flame wars and drives people away from CWDF... 😞

 

 

 

 

[Francis Herne]

10 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

Since you have (allegedly) NO experience of canal boats and what makes them good or bad, save yourself a whole pile of grief and probably money, and go out and buy a used boat and live on that for a couple of years.

This is, I think, good advice.

When I bought my boat I knew the interior needed a significant refit to really suit my needs, had a definite idea of what I wanted, but decided to leave it a year to see how things worked in practice.

 

Two years later I've seen all kinds of other layouts and features and recognize that my original ideas were very flawed. I still haven't got started on refitting, but that's partly because I've come to think my choice of boat was - while sensible at the time - the precise opposite of what I'd be looking for now...

 

Experience counts. I still don't have much, but at least over the really steep start of the learning curve. Designing a narrowboat with no experience of them at all is unlikely to be successful.

 

The hostility above seems excessive. My impression is that 'Gybe Ho', while a bit naive, has done no more than 'give as good as he got' in response to constant jabs from a couple of others.

Not everyone can have 50 years of experience, and the attitude that those of us who don't should just shut up and say or do nothing at all is offputting. Better to speak up and be an fool now than not and be one for a lifetime...

Edited September 3 by Francis Herne

[cheesegas]

30 minutes ago, Francis Herne said:

Two years later I've seen all kinds of other layouts and features and recognize that my original ideas were very flawed

I think the reverse is also true to an extent - for example, I was told online that for a year round CC'r liveaboard, a trad stern is best and I had that in my head whilst looking at boats. I ended up with a cruiser stern as I liked the rest of the boat, and now having spent a decent amount of time on trad stern boats, I'm now convinced that for my needs, a cruiser stern is best. Everyone uses their boat differently and generic advice on layout needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

Having lived on the boat for 4 years now, if I were to have a new one built to my specs (which I'm not, ££££), it would be a cruiser stern, conventional non reverse layout which is the opposite of what most people recommend.

 

@Gybe Ho the above is why it's even more important to buy a used boat with a layout that feels good for you. You may change your mind a year down the line or you may not. It's a lot more expensive to change your mind with a newly fitted out boat, especially one that you've spent a year fitting out.

[nicknorman]

37 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

I think the reverse is also true to an extent - for example, I was told online that for a year round CC'r liveaboard, a trad stern is best and I had that in my head whilst looking at boats. I ended up with a cruiser stern as I liked the rest of the boat, and now having spent a decent amount of time on trad stern boats, I'm now convinced that for my needs, a cruiser stern is best. Everyone uses their boat differently and generic advice on layout needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

Having lived on the boat for 4 years now, if I were to have a new one built to my specs (which I'm not, ££££), it would be a cruiser stern, conventional non reverse layout which is the opposite of what most people recommend.

 

@Gybe Ho the above is why it's even more important to buy a used boat with a layout that feels good for you. You may change your mind a year down the line or you may not. It's a lot more expensive to change your mind with a newly fitted out boat, especially one that you've spent a year fitting out.

I think part of the point here is that you like whatever it is you end up with, see its advantages, ignore or are ignorant of its disadvantages. Human nature!

I was “brought up with” trad stern, spent some time on semi-trad, hired a boat or two with cruiser, but went back to my roots and bought a trad stern boat. I can’t see beyond the great advantage for foul weather cruising, which is apt for boating on the UK!

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

I think part of the point here is that you like whatever it is you end up with, see its advantages, ignore or are ignorant of its disadvantages. Human nature!

I was “brought up with” trad stern, spent some time on semi-trad, hired a boat or two with cruiser, but went back to my roots and bought a trad stern boat. I can’t see beyond the great advantage for foul weather cruising, which is apt for boating on the UK!

 

Same here. I once spent a truly miserable 11 hours steering a cruiser stern in foul weather - wind, horizontal rain and freezing cold - (towing a broken down boat back to base). I was five feet from a lovely warm dry interior the whole time but unable to use it, which left its mark on my psyche. Trad sterns for me too for comfy bad weather cruising, always! 

[Gybe Ho]

1 hour ago, cheesegas said:

I think the reverse is also true to an extent - for example, I was told online that for a year round CC'r liveaboard, a trad stern is best and I had that in my head whilst looking at boats. I ended up with a cruiser stern as I liked the rest of the boat, and now having spent a decent amount of time on trad stern boats, I'm now convinced that for my needs, a cruiser stern is best. Everyone uses their boat differently and generic advice on layout needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

 

The stern design is the most consistent element of my design and that is a cruiser stern. Semi round stern about 8ft long. I have finally settled on open railings at the back (the pushpit in yacht) because in the summer that allows for the stern canvas to be detached. I like a view of the water close to when sitting in the cockpit, something to do with my sailing days and the open transom on the racing yacht.

 

There is a version called a "trad cruiser" cockpit which is like a semi-trad but the rear doors are eliminated and the cabintop sides drop about 6" which is opposite to the semi trad design where the cabin sides incline upwards to resemble the lines are a boatmans cabintop.

 

In winter a cruiser stern with a pramhood is a porch protected from the weather. Somewhere to kickoff boots before entering the main accommodation.

 

One design tweak I am planning is a two gas bottle bench to port on the side of the galley gas hob and to open to starboard which provides space for my steamer chair in summer. The gas bottle locker bench will also act as a step up to the cabin top.

 

Assuming a liveaboard lifestyle and say 50 to 100 cruising days a year with an average 5 miles (3 to 4 hours of cruising) I think towpath lifestyle considerations take priority.