A Case Study Of Liveaboard Narrowboat Far Star

Meet Jan, her partner Ian and Pepper the blue merle border collie (don’t know what kind of dog that is but it sounds posh). Jan, like many liveaboards, has forsaken her stressful full time job to lead a life of tranquility while she paints canal artwork and does a little gardening in the warmer months. Not a bad life, is it?{{{0}}}

Who are you? (and your significant other and, of course, your dog if you have one)

Tell me a little about yourself and why you decided to live a life afloat

With Dad in the army, I had grown up moving around every 3 years or so and this continued into my adult life – becoming restless after being in one spot for a couple of years. Both Ian and I had lived in caravans in a former life and when we got together we first lived in a flat then a larger house with garden. 5 years of the house and complete renovation, we decided a life afloat would be for us. At that time I was in a very stressful job and life afloat gave me the opportunity to turn my back on that as we would be able to survive on one salary.

What is your boat called and why did you decide on that name?

What is your boat length and style?

She is a 70 foot long trad narrow.

How long have you been a narrowboat owner?

We have had Far Star for 5 years now.

How did you finance your boat?

We were very lucky to sell our house at the top end of the market. Having worked so hard on the renovation, we cleared the mortgage and bought Far Star outright, with a little left over for a rainy day fund!

How much time do you spend working on your boat each year?

Are you still working? (If so, what do you do?)

Having retired from my stressful administration position, I now spend my days painting canal artwork – small projects of household goods, including Buckby cans. From spring to early winter I also work as a part time jobbing gardener – tending gardens for folk who can no longer manage it. It is very satisfying work, but would not make me a living. I am very lucky that with Ian working, I am able to do this.

What do you like least about narrowboat life?

I guess one of the biggest moans of ours – and that of many others – is the amount of dog mess on the towpath. Arriving somewhere new and putting the ropes out, only to find that either your foot or the rope have landed in a lump of smelliness is very frustrating. Especially having a dog of our own and knowing how few dog dump bins there are on the towpatch – but we always manage to take our ‘family’ mess home with us to dispose of.

What do you like most about narrowboat life?

Tranquility – that’s it in a word. There is of course, the wonderful community – I’ve never lived anywhere where folk are so helpful and friendly – we very soon felt part of it, whilst also maintaining our privacy and peace and quiet.

If you could change just one thing about your boat, what would it be?

There is always maintenance to be done, and odd little changes along the way, but I don’t think there are any major changes that I would make.

When you are cruising how do you resupply (How do you get to the supermarket without a car)?

Make canalside purchases where possible – people often sell their own eggs, veggies etc. Buckets of apples often for free etc. Pubs are a great source of information for local purchases. But shanksies pony is the ultimate answer. After all, how can you beat a stroll in the countryside with your dog – come rain or shine?

How do you do your washing when you are cruising?

Ah! We have no washing machine, so I search out local launderettes. Failing that, it just piles up.

How do you connect to the internet when you are on your boat and are you happy with the service you receive?

Connect 3 dongle – usually a satisfactory connection, although some spots will require me to sit out in the cratch for anything like a decent signal. (not having an extra long cable that will reach through the mushrooms onto the roof.

What is your favourite canal or section of canal?

K & A is our only experience. With Ian still working, it has not been possible to go further afield – yet. Favourite area here is Bishops Cannings – but don’t tell anyone – it’s so quiet.

How do you generate electricity when you are cruising and how much do you use?

Power is generated by the engine, inbuilt genny and solar. Depends where we are and what kind of day it is on which source creates the power. How much do we use – again, depends what we are doing. We don’t have a great deal of mod cons – no washing machine, freezer etc. We do have a 12 volt fridge, 6 volt radio and 12 volt tele, so power consumption is quite low. Nevertheless, we still run out of power occasionally. But, there is always bed with a book!

What advice can you offer someone considering living on a narrowboat?

Be prepared to step back in time. It’s no good thinking you can watch tele all day or leave everything on charge/standby. Summers can be very hot with plenty of flying creatures – you are on the water! Winters can be very cold – though the fire is really cosy, go too far from it and it will be cold, rather like living in an old house in the 50’s with no central heating. Life is a lot easier in a marina, if you can find one that will allow liveaboards. But, I would recommend constant cruising – you will really get to know people out there. Be prepared to do without ‘stuff’. If you’re moving from a house – give things away. Don’t feel tempted to store – it’ll cost a fortune, and you may never need it again. When we moved on board, our local charity shops did very well out of us – boxes and boxes of books, ornaments etc etc

Blanket of snow to keep us warm

How warm is your narrowboat in the winter?

.We do keep fairly snug with the fire going 24/7 and central heating to back that up if necessary. We generally put a hot water bottle in the bed before retiring, to warm things up a bit. The last 4 years have been pretty bad – minus 16C sometimes with thick ice on the inside of the windows. Nothing that another jumper and pair of socks and fluffy slippers wouldn’t solve.

What obvious qustions are missing from this list?

There is a kind of boaty obsession with toilets – do you have pump out or cassette? Actually, we have both. After getting frozen in for weeks on end during our first winter, we pretty soon discovered that a pump out is no good when you can’t move. So a cassette proved the best option, most of the time – although even the Elsan units can freeze over sometimes. We now use the cassette all year round and keep the ‘proper’ (pump out) toilet for guests only. This means less pump outs, saving money.

Are you one of the lucky few who lives the dream on board your own narrowboat full time? Would you like to share your experience with some of the thousands of potential floating home owners who visit this site? If you can spare the time to answer a few simple questions, I would love to hear from you. Just let me know so I can email the questions to you. I’ll create a post like the one above complete with a link back to your own blog or web site.

Is A Narrowboat Cold In Winter

On a regular basis every narrowboat owner is asked the question “Is your narrowboat cold in winter?” The standard response is laugh, a smile and the assurance that the boat is toasty warm. That’s not always the case though. Here’s what you need to know to keep you warm in winter. {{{0}}}

There are a number of factors that dictate whether you shiver your way through a winter’s evening or strip off to your boxer shorts and throw all the doors open to let the heat out.

Insulation

Is a narrowboat cold in winter

I have been living on board James, pictured on its mooring at Calcutt Boats Meadows marina in early February 2012, for two years. My first winter was a baptism of fire. It was the coldest winter for 100 years. The canal and the marina was covered by four inches of ice from the last week of November 2010 to the first week of January 2011. One night I recorded a rather chilly minus eighteen outside. It was so cold that I woke up the following morning to discover a quarter an inch of frost inside the engine room (which had one poorly fitted ply panel separating it from the main bedroom where I sleep). The temperature in the bedroom was just above freezing. There was a spell when the daytime maximum was minus six. It was a cold, cold winter.

The following winter, the winter of 2011/2012, has been much more pleasant. Why? Two reasons. The winter has been fairly mild compared with last year and, more importantly, I have had some work done to the boat. James, at 35, is quite an old boat. The cabin sides and roof wer Masonite, an oil treated ply. There were four seams in the roof construction were the ply sheets joined. The seams, at some point in the boat’s history, had started to leak so had been taped over. The tape wasn’t very effective so the seams allowed water into the cabin every time there was a heavy shower. The water would find its way through the gaps in the roof and along the inside of the internal cladding before finding a weak point to drip though into the cabin. When I heard the sound of rain drumming on the roof, I would gather together a collection of pots and pans to place carefully under the drips.

Not all of the water found its way into the cabin. Much of it lay on the underside of my beautiful piranha (?) pine, slowly discolouring and staining the grain. To a lesser extent, the cabin sides let in the water too. The prevailing south-westerly wind meant that the port (left) side of the boat was scoured by the wind and the rain. Where the neglected paintwork peeled along the ply joins, the water found its way in.

In November last year I had the opportunity to ship James off to a local boat builder to have the cabin sides and roof and the front and back doors overplated. While they were doing the work, I asked them to sandwich insulation between the old Masonite and the new steel. I used 1″ polystyrene for most of the surface area and Rockwool for the areas where they were welding. In hindsight, rather than saving a few bob by using the cheaper polystyrene, I would have used Rockwool on all surfaces as it is a more effective insulator.

The additional insulation has made a significant difference, as has the fact that the roof and cabin sides are no longer holding water for much of the time. The boat, with the same heating inside, is both warmer and less damp.

Heating System

James has a solid fuel stove with a back boiler installed right at the front of the boat. The back boiler feeds three radiators along the starboard side. The furthest radiator is forty feet away in the main bedroom. The system struggles to push heat down to the far end. I can’t find out the make of the stove but I understand that it’s as old as the hills – as old as James anyway – and isn’t very efficient.

I know a number of liveaboards who have, and swear by, Morso Squirrel stoves. I’ve heard stories of coal that will carry on burning for up to two days if the fire is “damped down” (has the air flow reduced so the coal just smolders). The longest I can achieve with the stove on James is about twelve hours.

Rather than a solid fuel stove, I could install a diesel heating system. I could then have the convenience of waking to a warm boat but I (a) can’t afford to at the moment and (b) don’t like a lot of them because of the noise. Some (particularly the Hurricane diesel heating system we sell so successfully at Calcutt Boats) are very noisy. The Hurricane sounds like… a hurricane actually. There is a boat moored on the opposite side of the marina from me that has one fitted. I can clearly hear it from James.

The diesel Bubble stove is very quiet. Allan on Pengalanty has one. His boat was very cosy when I visited with hardly a sound from the stove.

Draughts

There’s no point filling a bucket with water if it’s full of holes. The same applies to filling your boat with heat. Draughts can very quickly make the boat feel cold. The new steel front, rear and side doors on James weren’t a perfect fit. I’ve added ply panels to the doors’ inside faces to insulate them a little but there’s still a bit of a draught. I’ve fitted draught excluder around the front and rear doors and around the centre doors and hatches. There’s still a draught from the centre door hatch on the weather side so it can be a bit chilly there when there’s a stiff breeze.

Mooring

James is moored at the far west of the marina. The prevailing wind is south-westerly and, as Calcutt Boats is situated on wind “corridor” (the old working boatmen used to refer to the pound below Calcutt Bottom Lock as “windy corner”) there’s usually a stiff breeze. The boat then is buffeted by the wind on a daily basis. On the few occasions when there is little or no wind, James feels very much warmer. Of course the wind always finds the draughts.

So when I’m asked if a narrowboat is cold in winter I should say, “Well, it depends on the heating system you use, how well insulated your boat is, whether you have any draughts and what the weather is like”. But I won’t. I’ll smile and assure them that I’m toasty warm. And this morning, as I write this, with an outside temperature of minus five but no wind, and the coal fire roaring, I really am toasty warm.

Beware The Ebay Buyer Protection Narrowboat Scam

A few days ago, I receceived an email from subscriber Sylvia Archer-Longden. She and her husband have been trawling the internet looking for narrowboats. They found one advertised on the Boats & Outboards web site that they liked the look of. The advert was a free listing on Boats & outboards, but the photo’s of the boat were on photobucket.com. In fact, they still are. It looked a fantastic deal, but was it real?

They contacted the “seller” to confirm the price. They wanted to confirm the price because, quite frankly, they didn’t believe it. After you see the photo’s you won’t either. The narrowboat being offered for sale was three thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds. I’ve written the price in full so that you don’t think I’ve simply put the decimal point in the wrong place. Now have a look at the photo’s but please come back. You need to hear the rest. Narrowboat photo’s

Ebay Buyer Protection Scheme Scam

What did you think? Not bad for the price is it? I’m not keen on the decour inside but I could live with it for that price. That’s what Sylvia thought too. She emailed the seller asking for more information. Here’s the reply she received…

“Hello,

Its still for sale. Immaculate condition, no damages, nothing to worry about. All necessary documents available. My current location is Scotland due to my work commitments,If this is going to be a quick sale, I will let it go for ?3,850 delivered at my costs. Are you familiar to eBay? I will list the boat on eBay Motors for the ?3,850 buy it now price and I will send you a link to my auction, so you can buy it immediate.

As soon as you will confirm the payment to eBay, I will proceed delivery without any additional costs for you.

In case you are not familiar with them, please read their Buyer Protection and will see that they cover 100% the transaction done through them up to ?50,000. You will receive the boat with all the documents. As you know eBay is the best company of online transactions. If indeed interested in buying it and have the funds, I will list it on eBay, as I have a 100% positive feedback with them.

Please let me know your decision.

Thank you.”

Sylvia was intrigued but still suspicious. She asked the seller for more information. Here’s the reply…

“I have requested personal support and I was approved to use Buyer Protection Program. Here is how the process works through the Buyer Protection Program:

– I make the private listing on eBay for you,
– you go and buy it through their website,
– you have to pay for the item to eBay to secure the funds,
– they confirm me that they received the funds,
– I deliver the boat,
– you receive the boat,
– they send me the money,

Everything is covered by eBay. I will get paid only after you confirm that you received the boat in good order.
Let me know if this is acceptable. Thank you”

Sylvia, fascinated, suspicious (and just a tiny bit excited) asked for clarification of the deal…

“Hello Debra, my husband and I are VERY INTERESTED in perhaps purchasing the boat BUT………… let us get this correct. You want ?3.850 {three thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds } AND you will deliver at that price ?