Looking for residential mooring on River Lark

[Martin44]

Hello guys,

ever since I have seriously considered moving on a boat (few months back) I have been looking for residential mooring on river Lark.

Now I will (touch wood everything is fine with finalising the purchase) have boat within one month and still don't know where to put it. In one marina they had a spot, but don't allow children as it is as they call it a 'semi-retired' area, in the other they were welcoming, but won't have place until one of their residents sells her boat (which is not certain). I need to be able to commute to Bury St Edmunds. I have considered also the lodes which come out of River Cam (Upware; Reach; Burwell). One of them belongs to Northampton marina, but provides just leisure moorings.

Any advice by fellow boaters in the area would be much appreciated. I intend to go solar as well, and am easy on what facilities will be available for me. Just to have some sort of security there would be fine (don't want to leave the boat completely out in sticks).

Best Wishes

Martin

[Athy]

It may be worth asking the marina (or whatever it is) what "just leisure moorings" means; if, for example, they stipulate that you can't live there for more than 48 weeks per year, that might suit you.

Have you considered Ely (quickest journey time by train about 29 minutes)?

Edited February 25, 2018 by Athy

[Martin44]

3 minutes ago, Athy said:

It may be worth asking the marina (or whatever it is) what "just leisure moorings" means; if, for example, they stipulate that you can't live there for more than 48 weeks per year, that might suit you.

Thank you Athy,

the boat will be my sole residence, so I need a full residential. But I might try it anyway, when I am desperate. 

Cheers

Martin

 

[Athy]

6 minutes ago, Martin Trnecka said:

Thank you Athy,

the boat will be my sole residence, so I need a full residential. But I might try it anyway, when I am desperate. 

Cheers

Martin

 

Yes, but you can move your boat from its mooring for a period of time - many people do this. (Indeed, if you are not going to move it at all, some may wonder why you want a boat).

[Martin44]

I will definitely move around during holidays and on week-ends. 

Unless I have misunderstood when I was looking into the types of mooring, I think you had to leave the boat where it is but move out for certain number of weeks as to prove you don't actually live full time aboard. Something to do with planning permission perhaps? It might differ in practice from place to place of course.

I will contact them anyway and hear what they say.

Thank you

Martin

[Alan de Enfield]

35 minutes ago, Martin Trnecka said:

I intend to go solar as well, and am easy on what facilities will be available for me.

Solar at this time of year is totally non-productive and will not start producing anything significant (probably) until April.

I would plan of finding somewhere with a mains-hook-up for the next few months during which time you can undertake a power-audit and work out how much solar you will need for the 6 'productive' months, and how you are going to generate sufficient for the other 6 months - remember the 6 months when Solar is almost worthless is the 6 months when you have the highest electrical usage (long dark, cold nights = more TV, more lights on etc etc)

If you are out at work 8 hours a day + (??) hours commute then you will not have enough time to recharge your batteries using either a generator, or the engine.

PLEASE accept a longer commute if it means you get a hook-up, otherwise you will very soon become disillusioned with boating.

You will need somewhere to get gas and coal, empty the toilet tank and refill the water tank - (which will entail you moving the boat to a Marina / sanitary station anyway) - not easy at this time of year particularly if you have never had a boat before and are working full time.

 

[Martin44]

Thank you Alan,

very true and will try Ely and such to start with if nothing else comes up.

As for the solar, not having experience with it I wasn't planning to go off grid until I know more about it (in 2-3 years down the line).

Cheers Martin

[Alan de Enfield]

11 minutes ago, Martin Trnecka said:

Thank you Alan,

very true and will try Ely and such to start with if nothing else comes up.

As for the solar, not having experience with it I wasn't planning to go off grid until I know more about it (in 2-3 years down the line).

Cheers Martin

That then pretty much rules out 'wild mooring' - you need to find somewhere with facilities, irrespective of the additional commute. 

There are so many people coming to boating now (particularly live-aboards) that we may be getting back to where we were (maybe) 10 years ago where the advice was always to find a mooring BEFORE buying a boat.

Good luck with the hunt.

[Martin44]

24 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

There are so many people coming to boating now (particularly live-aboards) that we may be getting back to where we were (maybe) 10 years ago where the advice was always to find a mooring BEFORE buying a boat.

That was my plan! I read it so many times across different sites and was resolute to follow upon that advice, but then came about the perfect boat for me...

Thank you

Martin

26 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

[OldGoat]

1 hour ago, Martin Trnecka said:

I will definitely move around during holidays and on week-ends. 

Unless I have misunderstood when I was looking into the types of mooring, I think you had to leave the boat where it is but move out for certain number of weeks as to prove you don't actually live full time aboard. Something to do with planning permission perhaps? It might differ in practice from place to place of course.

I will contact them anyway and hear what they say.

Thank you

Martin

(above) No you don't move off the boat for a period it's you and your boat go out of the marina together for whatever the rules state (the rules change from marina to marina) - and that is what you declared you wanted to do anyway! Thus a win-win situation.

The 'law' is about determining a permanent fixed location - go away for a day and it's not fixed. Just to confuse matters more local councils put  a different interpretation on the rules and hence that's why some say a weekend / week / month is what's required. You have to look at their contract terms for an answer.

[Martin44]

Thanks for reply.

Yes, I will have to look into it again. Talk to the respective marinas what rules they apply.

What I don't understand, why would they ask me to leave with the boat, wouldn't they be loosing business for that period,

or do I still pay for the mooring even if on compulsory leave?

Best

Martin

 

[Athy]

Martin, reading through this thread I can see that there are certain comments (including my own) which you may see as negative. I think everyone is trying to be helpful and to point out potential pitfalls before they happen, and I hope you can accept them in that spirit.

1 minute ago, Martin Trnecka said:

 

What I don't understand, why would they ask me to leave with the boat, wouldn't they be loosing business for that period,

or do I still pay for the mooring even if on compulsory leave?

Best

Martin

 

Yes you do. We pay for a mooring for our boat (now bankside but we used to be in a marina) and we pay the fees whether we're there or not - just like rent for a house or flat. 

[Martin44]

Thank you Athy,

I haven't noticed any negativity and hopefully I wasn't sounding fed up. I am not.

My situation is not desperate given that I will be still for the next few months living in a house. 

I will have to find somewhere just to park it close enough for regular check-ups and week-end cruising.

Meanwhile I will carry on looking

Best Wishes

Martin

Just to add

I find this forum extremely helpful and used it & followed lots of advice when choosing my boat.

Thank you all for that

Martin

[mrsmelly]

Martin

Dont worry about the residential status of a mooring. Your best bet for all these answers rather than on an open forum is to find someone  in your area on this forum or somewhere else and bribe them with offer of beers in a pub and that way find out the realities of life aboard. Try andfind someone with extensive experience if possible.

[Martin44]

Cheers

[OldPeculier]

Quote

 

You could try Little Ouse Moorings on Brandon Creek - they have a few with electrics.  Or the moorings on the other side.  Lots of residential boats there, most run generators. 

Edited February 26, 2018 by OldPeculier

[Dave_P]

19 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Solar at this time of year is totally non-productive and will not start producing anything significant (probably) until April.

I would plan of finding somewhere with a mains-hook-up for the next few months during which time you can undertake a power-audit and work out how much solar you will need for the 6 'productive' months, and how you are going to generate sufficient for the other 6 months - remember the 6 months when Solar is almost worthless is the 6 months when you have the highest electrical usage (long dark, cold nights = more TV, more lights on etc etc)

If you are out at work 8 hours a day + (??) hours commute then you will not have enough time to recharge your batteries using either a generator, or the engine.

PLEASE accept a longer commute if it means you get a hook-up, otherwise you will very soon become disillusioned with boating.

You will need somewhere to get gas and coal, empty the toilet tank and refill the water tank - (which will entail you moving the boat to a Marina / sanitary station anyway) - not easy at this time of year particularly if you have never had a boat before and are working full time.

 

I can't help but disagree with this.  For around 8 months of the year, I get enough power from my solar (500w) to provide pretty much everything I need.  I then get another 1-1.5 months where I'm still getting a decent top up from solar.  So actually it's only about 3 months of the year when solar isn't providing a useful amount of energy.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

19 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

I can't help but disagree with this.  For around 8 months of the year, I get enough power from my solar (500w) to provide pretty much everything I need.  I then get another 1-1.5 months where I'm still getting a decent top up from solar.  So actually it's only about 3 months of the year when solar isn't providing a useful amount of energy.

 

I know we have had this discussion before - circumstances will play a big part.

Do you ever move the boat / start the engine during Oct-Feb ? if so you will be getting some input from the alternator.

The OP is working (presumably) full time from (say) 9 till 5 and will have some period of commute to add onto that, he is going to have little time to run his engine before the 8pm cut-off so will be relying 100% on solar.

The OP has already stated that it will be a couple of years before he gets solar, so it is really just an interesting comparison of differing ideas / experiences and mine differ to yours - neither of us is 'wrong'.

[Martin44]

Hi Dave and Alan,

whilst I don't have any direct experience with solar, I am a bit of a down-sizer and realise that to be able to live off-grid, I would have to shed off

few appliances like fridge or microwave. Also, depends to my knowledge what wattage the respective panels would have  and how a big bank of batteries would be on the boat.

I think it's doable, although not to everybody's taste. Fair point, that it would be to soon for me, as getting to know how to live on a boat will occupy me for a bit.

Best Wishes

Martin

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, Martin Trnecka said:

I would have to shed off

few appliances like fridge or microwave. Also, depends to my knowledge what wattage the respective panels would have  and how a big bank of batteries would be on the boat.

I realis that it is (partly) in the future, but you do need to 'go about this' the correct way around - you don't start with how many batteries are on the boat.

First step is to undertake an audit of what electrical appliances you want on the boat (and there is no reason why you shouldn't have an Electric toaster, as washing machine, microwave etc if you want them)

Split the audit up into 2 sections (230v AC appliances and 12 volt DC appliances) and tally up your daily planned usage.

Lets say it comes to 150Ah at 12 volts DC.

You now need to look at how you can 'store that' (batteries are only buckets that store electricity) and how much 'spare' you need.

As the general advice to maintain the best cost / usage ratios is not to discharge your batteries by more than 50%

That would suggest that you need 300Ah of battery capacity for a days usage.

It would not be uncommon or unreasonable to have '3-days' capacity of batteries so we are looking at having at least 900Ah. Battery capacity does reduce with age and batteries only have a limited number of cycles (charge - discharge cycles) so you can either plan on 'building in' some redundancy from the start, or plan to replace your batteries on a regular (2 yearly ??) basis.

The next important aspect to consider is "how can I replace 150Ah - plus say 10%-15% extra to cover losses".

A) Run the engine (maybe) 4-5 hours per day.

B ) Solar panels - how big, how many, and for what period of the year ?

C) Generator (maybe 4-5 hours per day

D) Land line / Hook-up

 

The whole process starts with "what electrical appliances do I want now, and in the foreseeable future, how long per day will they run and what is their power consumption".

Only YOU can provide that information - give the information and the 'forum members' will work out the rest for you.

[Martin44]

Thanks Alan for very informative post.

Yes, figuring out what appliances and how many I would have, is the first thing to do. I was already looking into it just to know what solar panels to get and don't have a definitive answer for that at the moment.

I will start probably a new topic in the future.

All I know or think I know is that if someone wants to live just of solar, fridge and washing machine are not feasible for starters.

 

Best Wishes

Martin

 

[Dave_P]

3 hours ago, Martin Trnecka said:

Thanks Alan for very informative post.

Yes, figuring out what appliances and how many I would have, is the first thing to do. I was already looking into it just to know what solar panels to get and don't have a definitive answer for that at the moment.

I will start probably a new topic in the future.

All I know or think I know is that if someone wants to live just of solar, fridge and washing machine are not feasible for starters.

 

Best Wishes

Martin

 

Fridge is feasible. Just install a gas fridge. 

[Martin44]

OK. Will look into that.

Cheers

[David Mack]

17 hours ago, Martin Trnecka said:

 

All I know or think I know is that if someone wants to live just of solar, fridge and washing machine are not feasible for starters.

Electric fridge with solar is feasible in the summer months, and in the winter you can manage without a fridge - have a cool storage compartment outside the heated cabin. Run washing machine only when the engine is running, having prefilled with (gas or diesel heated) hot water.

Edited February 27, 2018 by David Mack

[Martin44]

That's a good point.

Cheers Martin