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12 hours ago, wilful said:

Hi, new member here!

Always wanted a narrowboat but have always been on a low income so it never happened. Now, later in life, we have bought a GRP cruiser to see if we like canal life, with a view to moving onto the water in retirement. We have bought a 1986 23ft Highbridge (like Dawncraft) which we can play on at weekends when not working. Look forward to learning lots on this forum!

Welcome,I am sure you will have lots of fun,it can be quite addictive.

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The warmest of welcome's to my little reply, hope you enjoy the read. Hi my name is Teddy, (the one with sunglasses on, not the good looking younger man) so to begin, Have you ever had a dream and you threw it away, only for it to keep coming back, sometimes it might return in a week or so ... other times it would take months, but this is whats happened about my dream ... it just keeps coming back and I am thinking its time to make my dream or desire a reality. My dream is to live on a narrow boat with my guitar, wood burning stove, a collection of books and maybe a dog for company and annoyance. Reading some of the post's by others on here i'm far from it but would love as much advise as possible before i rush out and do something stupid, like buy a boat with nowhere to moor it. 

 

So Please if anyone has any adviseor indeed any great OOOOOOPS stories id love tho hear from you

 

 

Many thanks

Teddy

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Hi Teddy

We haven't yet bought our boat - but if all goes according to plan we should do so in the next couple of weeks :)

One thing I would suggest is don't get too enamoured of a wood burning stove. We have one in our home and the amount of space you need for wood is quite ridiculous. Unless you're planning on having a tender to store the wood you'd do far better with a smokeless fuel burner...

 

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Hi All,

Hope those afloat are enjoying the Sunshine. Myself and my partner are on the cusp of purchasing our new home away from dry land.

We will be taking our 57ft Widebeam out of the water for a pre purchase survey early July and if all successful (and with a few adjustments) we will be aboard from the 22nd July.

Its going to be a big change for us and having visited this site for some time I think the array of questions we have will be both numerous and humerus but it seems we will be in the right place.

We are going to try and keep a documented update on here so please feel free to comment and question.

:) 

 

Edited by Parvis
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2 minutes ago, Parvis said:

We are going to try and keep a documented update on here so please feel free to comment and question.

Might be an idea to start a new topic in Build Blogs once you get started :)

enjoy your new life: :cheers:

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Hi, I'm new to boating having finally pursued a dream and bought my own narrowboat. Loving it, but I haven't had to learn so much since I was at school. Everything's new. But this is good.

So first question, of many. My boats starting to lean. Had it about 3 months. Sure there's more furnature on one side than the other, but it didn't lean so much before. There doesn't appear to be much water in the bilge, at least the engine compartment. Should I be worried? Could there be more water elsewhere in the bilge, that I can't see? Narrowboat is 14 year old reeves narrowboat, ex hire but privately owned for 6 years. Otherwise appears to be in good condition. Any thoughts or advice appreciated. 

Thanks, Jon 

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14 minutes ago, Jonathan Buttery said:

Hi, I'm new to boating having finally pursued a dream and bought my own narrowboat. Loving it, but I haven't had to learn so much since I was at school. Everything's new. But this is good.

So first question, of many. My boats starting to lean. Had it about 3 months. Sure there's more furnature on one side than the other, but it didn't lean so much before. There doesn't appear to be much water in the bilge, at least the engine compartment. Should I be worried? Could there be more water elsewhere in the bilge, that I can't see? Narrowboat is 14 year old reeves narrowboat, ex hire but privately owned for 6 years. Otherwise appears to be in good condition. Any thoughts or advice appreciated. 

Thanks, Jon 

Welcome Jon.

I suppose its possible you have water in the bilge.If its a free running bilge the water should find its way to the back of the boat, where there should be a place to check.If it isn't free running and you can't check the cabin bilge through inspection hatches, it could be possible to put some temporary weight (people) on one side of the boat and see if it makes any difference.

Only other thought is have you been filling up a toilet tank that is on one side of the boat, or is the boat aground?

 

Edited by rusty69
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Check to see if your boat has access to the cabin bilge. It is usually a small door cut into the floor,  near the back of the cabin,  often under the steps or in a wardrobe or cupboard. 

If it doesn't have one, then cut on in the floor, so that you can see under the cabin floor. Either make the cut at 45° (so that it is self supporting) or cut it square and glue battens in place to supportvthe cut out bit. They are ALWAYS worth having.

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3 hours ago, cuthound said:

Check to see if your boat has access to the cabin bilge. It is usually a small door cut into the floor,  near the back of the cabin,  often under the steps or in a wardrobe or cupboard. 

If it doesn't have one, then cut on in the floor, so that you can see under the cabin floor. Either make the cut at 45° (so that it is self supporting) or cut it square and glue battens in place to supportvthe cut out bit. They are ALWAYS worth having.

^^^^ This. 

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Rusty and all, thank you so much.

There aren't access hatches in the floor of the main cabin and I may have to create them. I can see the bilge in the engine compartment only.

Two things have happened. The electric macerator toilet - not my first choice but I liked the boat - has already developed a fault, and keeps flushing. I've switched it off, as I think it's now filled the tank to overflowing. Have switched water off as well just in case. So the tank could be full and this could be contributing to the listing.

Black water has appeared in the engine bilge, 45 mm deep. 

I'm getting the wc tank emptied tomorrow morning and have moored by new mills marina for this purpose.

Beyond that I need to work out what's going wrong with my wc. 

Thank you all again so much for your advice and being kind with an a newbie.

Jon 

 

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What definition of "black water" are we thinking here given that the term is normally used for sewage in boating talk?  Are we thinking this given the toilet issues or simply oily water in the bilge? Agree that 45mm of water is a fair bit and whichever definition we use that should not be pumped out into the cut. Given it is still in the bilge it seems there is no working automatic pump

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On Friday, June 30, 2017 at 21:38, WotEver said:

Sadly, this probably means that the cabin bilge is swimming in it :(

That was my fear too. Turns out the wc had been cycling itself flushing by itself during the day the last few days. Completely filled the tank and reserve tank. Emptied it yesterday, looked like a lot of water in it, and boat stopped listing. Yeay :-)

The water in the bilge was black but didn't appear to be raw waste. I have a cruiser stern and the drains to the gulleys around the deck panels were fairly gunked up with leaves and debris, which I've cleared out, but water also appeared easily to drop into engine compartment. So this may have contributed. 

Cheers for advice. Am keeping an eye to see if wc keeps flushing itself, if so I guess I might need a new control unit. Saniflow C43 if that means anything to anyone. 

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5 minutes ago, Jonathan Buttery said:

That was my fear too. Turns out the wc had been cycling itself flushing by itself during the day the last few days. Completely filled the tank and reserve tank. Emptied it yesterday, looked like a lot of water in it, and boat stopped listing. Yeay :-)

The water in the bilge was black but didn't appear to be raw waste. I have a cruiser stern and the drains to the gulleys around the deck panels were fairly gunked up with leaves and debris, which I've cleared out, but water also appeared easily to drop into engine compartment. So this may have contributed. 

Cheers for advice. Am keeping an eye to see if wc keeps flushing itself, if so I guess I might need a new control unit. Saniflow C43 if that means anything to anyone. 

The sh#t hasn't hit the fan yet then. 

 

A least you will be able to tell when its full in the future by the angle of the dangle, unless you shift some furniture. 

Edited by rusty69
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13 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

The sh#t hasn't hit the fan yet then. 

 

A least you will be able to tell when its full in the future by the angle of the dangle, unless you shift some furniture. 

Thank you! I like this advice :-)

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Husband and I made our first attempt at buying boat and mooring here in Venice some 10 years ago. A non-starter, so here we go again. In fairness, the conditions for investing are better this time around, so my fingers are tightly crossed that the right boat, mooring and price tag all come together this time. Now daughter has left home we needn't look for something too large. Just hope she doesn't argue with her boyfriend! Looking forward to picking your brains in here for lots of useful tips and information when the time comes.

Edited by Guest
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On 02/07/2017 at 12:51, Ben phillips said:

....had a moment of madness a few weekends back and bought a river cruiser but don't have a clue what make it might be!

Looks as if you've got yourselves a Norman 18' river cruiser. Example on eBay here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Norman-18-River-Cruiser/122580280115?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D43781%26meid%3Db30b7df3a6da463cbf83a69a800bcec3%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D322576401363

 

Enjoy :)

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Hi new to the canals, after years of hiring boats on the Broads, we have decided to buy something closer to home, due to the wife's limited mobility we have decided to join the grp crew on the Lancaster. First outing is next Sunday all being well we will be heading out after lunch after doing the usual checks and familiorrising with the systems on board

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all.  New member here.  Is this the right place to introduce myself?  If not, please move/delete as necessary.

We are not on the water yet but we have the house up for sale (currently sold STC).  Our long term aim is to fit out our own narrowboat and become continuous cruisers.  In the short term I still have two years to do at a school on the Devon/Somerset border.

We are currently looking at options for those two years - undoubtedly I'll be asking for advice!

Jack

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