Steppin’ Out; Day 3 from Velodrome to Marple bottom lock.

Hi everyone or no one as the case maybe. 9.10 we set off to do 11 locks on the Ashton and then on to the Peak Forest with 10 miles of crusing after the locks. They are deep single locks taking us through some different types of places. I’m glad we were advised to moor up where we did, near the velodrome, they said the moorings after there weren’t really safe and while we had no problem going through I wouldn’t have wanted to spend the night there.

The water just won’t be rushed.

At the 18 lock, our last one for today there was a water point so we decided to fill up but had do some shunting to get onto the mooring where the water was. Steve said it looked as though I knew what I was doing but it felt like I was floundering in this 3 mile wide sea and ready to run aground at any moment then engine cut out with me in the middle of this sea. Aaaaaaaaaaagh oh why didn’t I stay at home, why didn’t I take up knitting, why, why why me. Oh I could try to restart it and yes it fired up again. Mmm well just ignore some of that last bit then. Anyway we got it in and watered up and then a wonderfull cheese and tomato cob, that’s a roll, balm cake, bap or tea cake depending on where you’re from.

After repasting, we’re quite posh, we set off on the easier part of the day. I was very proud to make the very tight turn onto the Peak Forest with out a bump. The first couple of miles are picturesque but in need of cleaning up but once near Hyde the canal is much better looked after.

One happy man.

We eventually hit Woodley tunnel, I use the word “hit” wisely. It’s not very long but it’s ruddy narrow and I was going through fairly well then just bumped the side and took the side part of the windscreen off it’s hinges but we got through and no one died as far as we could make out.  Lovely canal with plenty of trees but lots of S bends and hairpins before we came to Hyde bank tunnel with steve at the helm. This one is a bit wider but we still managed a few bumps here and there but we didn’t lose anyone here either so we’ll chalk it up as a success. Then Marple aqueduct which is a great view and we moored up about 50yds after just before the first of tomorrows 16 locks taking us upto the Macclesfield canal.

A glass of whisky each and Steve cooked up bacon, egg, mushroom and tomatoes with a wholemeal bap. Went down a treat it did.

A glass of cider and another whisky. I never realised how hard this boating life is but I will struggle on.

God bless

Nige

Steppin’ Out; Castlefield through the Rochdale 9 to the Velodrome.

overnight at Castlfield

The overnight mooring at Castlefield which I was a little concerned about turned out to be very nice. Waterfront pubs, a bit Yuppy and mondern for us old fogeys but not blaring music and a fine choice of real ales. I sampled the Happy Daze cider and then the Cheshire Cat blonde beer and then turned them into a Snakebite which was beautiful. Good bitter and good cider together is my drink of choice. Steve had the Nutty Black and which he thought were excellent too. Cashew nuts and salted peanuts too. We know how to live it up.  Party, party, party.

Steve and Heather hard at work.

Slept very soundly and the sun wash shining brightly when we awoke. That didn’t last very long, mind you we are in Manchester. We spied a couple waiting to enter the lock so we scurried over and joined up with a canadian couple Les and Heather who weren’t overly experienced either but we had each other for moral support at least and off we set.

The Rochdale 9, the first one took us about 45 minutes as it wouldn’t fill up. We made a little better progress with the next few but it was a long morning. 9.30 till 1.00 when we stopped for lunch. 9 locks done and about a mile and a bit covered. Now I know how much I don’t know about handling a narrowboat and I know loads more than I did yesterday. We all worked together Steve and Heather did the locking and me and Les the steering. Fair division of labour or what. On the entry to one of the locks Les ran aground and we had to give him a bit of a tow to free him. It was very shallow and bricks had tumbled into one side of the canal. This is not a particularly nice part of the canal system I think.

Steve and Heather need a second mention in this Blog as they worked their little cotton socks off. Really impressed. We’ve only done 3 miles today but we’ve done 16 locks.

We met other boater coming the other way who told us to look soon for moorings as after about four more locks the moorings  were in some dodgy areas. Heather and Steve had push Les off some shallows again and we eventually moored up. We’ve now had a nice salad for dinner and are now having a port supplied by Les and Heather who have come round for a drink. A nice evening in prospect and only eleven locks tomorrow.

God Bless you all

Nige

Steppin’ Out; The maiden voyage, Lymm to Castlefield.

The pic if it’s still there is myself, left, then Harry, Cath and Steve.

Hi everyone the first days cruising on my wonderful boat. I sat with my coffee this morning and realised “oh it’s here”. My dream of several years has arrived and in a few short minutes my co pilot Steve will arrive and Harry and Cath to pick us up. Lo and behold they arrived and after a little packing off we went with sounds of bunting being raised behind us and much cheering.

After a lovely ride through Buxton and Congleton and places in between we arrived at Lymm and Brian showed us the workings and off we set. The first trip wasn’t very far about 200 yds actually so we could moor up off the club site where it was moored and Brian could go home and we could put the kettle on before our friends went home. Nice they brought us up. Brian did ask if I’d bought a big enough boat so maybe I need to get rid of some more stuff. This all seemed more difficult now there wasn’t someone there who knew what they were doing. How do you get the back end in once you’ve got the front end in, well it did eventually.

After setting off again we kept swapping over so we could both get used to steering and thankfully we didn’t see too many boats but there half a dozen scullers out near Sale but I managed not to sink any of them. Pretty uneventful till we got Castlfield basin and had to try and stop, go backwards a little and turn of s*********. We hit the back and then pushed off another boat, all at very slow pace and managed to back up enough to turn and head for a mooring spot near The Wharf pub, we may try it out later.

Time for dinner as it was now about 5.30. Steak pie and veg and while it was cooking we broke open a bottle of Glenfiddich whisky supplied by a couple of young friends who I am helping to learn guitar. Big thanks to Danica and Ethan.

Had a few odd thoughts while cruising about whether I’ve done the right thing and all that sort of stuff but that’s just what happens when ever you try something new and so very different. If I look logically then I have definitely done the right thing and my hearts say so too. So onwards and upwards tomorrow up the Rochdale nine and a few more locks after them. Who know how far we might get.

God bless you and more to come tomorrow night now we’re beginning to get the hang of things. Well I hope so anyway.

Nige

and co pilot Steve.

Steppin’ out; The maiden voyage approacheth, ooh mother what’ll I do now

A little different to the norm.

A big warm scarred and excited hello to everyone as after a couple of years of planning and waiting for the house to sell and looking and waffle, waffle I looked round yesterday and thought oh sh… dear its hear.

About five years ago I had an idea that a dream could be possibly a reality and started working in that direction and now on Sunday at about High Noon it will be a reality. Exciting and scary and oh the sodding paperwork, insurance, license and mooring and well it’s not too bad really. My co-pilot and me will set off on our journey sometime Sunday afternoon after we’ve had an induction on what does what and how to thingy the stern gland, light the central heating which hopefully we wont need, sort the stove, batteries and all the other bits that as  novice boaters we will need to know, and head off towards Manchester. A couple of hours of easy cruising and moor up at Castlefield ready to face the Rochdale nine first thing Monday morning.

The picture shows you she is not your normal narrowboat but maybe that’s part of the attraction for me. The survey results were excellent and he couldn’t find a lot wrong with her at all. He thought her well worth the money so I’m happy on that score. Now just sorting out all the insurance and things so everything legal before setting off in the general direction of Willington Mercia Marina.  Give us a heil if you see us on our way or when I’m home. Plan is Rochdale canal then the Ashton then the Peak then down onto the Mac and back onto the Trent and Mersey.

Hopefully blogging on route each night if I can master a dongle and get a signal. Steve, my crew, and me after a long discussion decided, against our better judgement but in the spirit of intrepid journalists, we would look at what was on offer in some of the waterside Taverns and report back to your good selves as we know you would want this information on which were good hostelries and which had good beer and cider. We shan’t enjoy any of the sampling as we don’t normally like that sort of thing but as stiff upper lip Englishmen we feel it our duty.

Hope to see some of you on the water soon.

God bless you.

Nige

2013 04 21 Newsletter – The Trust Target Illegal Moorers

Living on a Narrowboat News 21st April 2013

I’ve suffered quite badly with wind over the last week. Fortunately for Sally and the dogs not the type of wind that involves a furtive spray up and down the boat with an air freshener. Real wind, the sort of wind that encourages full time boater to stay on mooring rather than cruise.

It’s been a very windy week. On Wednesday night we had gusts of 40mph. Both Sally and I had trouble sleeping. The starboard rear fender hangs close to our bed. In addition to the howling wind, we had the pleasure of the rhythmic squeak of rubber fender on wooden jetty as the boat bobbed on the marina waves.

The following day I had to move several boats around the marina. Calcutt Boats’ Meadows marina is windy at the best of times, but boating on Thursday was a real challenge. Taking boats off their moorings and moving them to the relative calm behind the workshops wasn’t too much of a problem, but returning them to their berths was a real test of nerve.

It’s essential when steering a narrowboat to use the wind rather than fight against it. Because of its flat bottom, a narrowboat doesn’t hold a line, it skates across the surface at the whim of anything more than a gentle breeze. To maintain any kind of control it’s necessary to steer into the wind to slow the boat down rather than with the wind and reduce your ability to stop effectively.

Because the moorings that I needed to get on had the stiff breeze blowing from the port side, I  had allow for the wind and steer the boat, with a considerable amount of throttle, towards the rear of the boat on the adjacent mooring and hope that the wind didn’t drop at the wrong moment. Fortunately the wind blew the bow around until, just at the right moment, it was pointing directly into the boat’s own berth. No bumps, no scrapes, and no need to change my underwear.

Identity Theft – The Gift That Keeps On Giving

As you know, a couple of weeks ago I had my laptop hacked and, among many other problems, my bank account compromised. The account was closed immediately, funds transferred to a new account and a new debit card was sent to me in the post. Unfortunately for me, the bank doesn’t appear to have enough fields in whatever application they use to record addresses. When my new card hadn’t arrived after a week I phoned their call centre to discover that the bank had sent my card to an incomplete address. I corrected the address for them, or rather, told them which parts of the address they already had would need displaying on the envelope to stand a chance of reaching me. They promised to send me another card.

The new card arrived yesterday. It didn’t work. I called the bank to ask why. They told me that the first card had been returned to them marked “Address Unknown”. Consequently, they blocked my account “in case the card was interfered with in the post”. They now have to issue a third card, hopefully to the right address, which won’t reach me before the end of next week. Oh the joys of modern banking!

A New Image For The Site – Tell Me What You Think

At enormous personal expense and after months of design, redesign and revisions, I have a new logo for the site. Actually, the whole process took less than a week and cost very little but I’m very pleased with the result. I gave the designer a blank canvas to work with. I told her that I wanted the logo to look professional but informal, both striking and relaxing and to reflect the rural aspect of narrowboat life. Do you think she’s cracked it? Do you like the logo? Please take under a minute to let me know. Before you go to the survey, please look at the logo at the top of the page.  Is it too large, too small or just right?

 The Trust Target Illegal Moorers

I received an email from site subscriber Roland last week. Like many site visitors he’s considering buying and living on a narrowboat. He’s reached the stage where he’s actively looking for a boat to buy but there’s one thing holding him back; the availability of residential moorings.He sent me an update on the mooring situation in his part of the world. Here’s his email…

“I cycled up the grand union today from the village I live in to Leighton Buzzard. On the way back I saw an old chap painting his boat and stopped to talk with him. What he said was very interesting.  I can’t recall where you are based (Midlands ?), but the world of narrowboating in the south is changing and, it appears, becoming a bit of a nightmare unless you can find yourself a proper residential / long term mooring… and that is becoming a very expensive option.

RCR Engine Servicing

You’ve probably heard about River Canal Rescue or RCR as they’re more often known. They’re the inland waterways’ equivalent of the AA/RAC. With my limited practical skills and with a narrowboat engine which is far from standard, membership is essential. I asked them to carry out a service on my Mercedes OM 636. I don’t know when it was last serviced properly but it’s been many years. My boat, James, came to Calcutt Boats in 1997 after being lovingly maintained and used for twenty years by the London based Illiffe family. After reaching Calcutt, James was rarely used or serviced.

I moved onto James in 2010 and treated the boat as a floating house. As finances allowed I slowly improved the boat . I want to do some proper cruising this year. I understand that my engine is a very good engine but it is thirty six years old and hasn’t been well looked after for the latter part of its long life. It needs some TLC.

One of RCR’s longest serving engineers, Kerry, arrived last Wednesday at 10.30am to carry out the service. From the moment I met him I was confident that he knew his stuff. He couldn’t have been more helpful, even though there was a considerable amount of quiet swearing when he tried to remove the very badly positioned fuel filter.

The expected hour long service actually took Kerry three and a half hours. He was very helpful throughout and explained some basic engine maintenance that I wasn’t even aware of. In addition to being a slightly unusual engine, my Mercedes is also raw water cooled. This means that the engine, rather than using its own water as a coolant, draws water from the canal or river. The water passes through a weed trap before continuing to the engine. I didn’t know the boat had a weed trap, let alone the need to clear it out on a daily basis when cruising!

Kerry also identified several areas where I need to have remedial work carried out. I had been experiencing problems with the engine dropping in and out of drive. I knew that this is a symptom of having low or no oil in the gearbox. I’d had the gearbox oil topped up a few weeks previously but I still had the same problem afterwards. I thought I was going to have to get the PRM gearbox refurbished at great expense. Kerry identified that one of the two gearbox cooler pipes had perished and that the gearbox oil was bubbling out through it when the engine was on. I needed one or both of the cooler pipes changing, and not the gearbox. What a relief.

He found an injector pipe with a minor leak and strongly suggested that the engine’s fuel lines were rerouted. They currently run under the engine and under the engine room ballast. It’s not a good place to route delicate copper fuel pipes. The rerouted fuel pipes would also allow a pre-filter to be fitted somewhere more accessible than the current position where it is almost impossible to change even for an experienced engineer.

Kerry’s summary of my engine was very reassuring. With just over 4,000 hours on the clock – an average of just 111 hours a year over the last 36 years – my Mercedes is still a baby. It’s good for 20,000 hours so there’s a lot of life left in it yet. At £145 for the service, which included an additional £15 for genuine parts, I think I received real value for money. For many of you, the opportunity to spend hours tinkering with your engine will please you no end. For me, with very little aptitude in that direction, RCR’s assistance was invaluable.

Comprehensive Site Article Listing

There are dozens of helpful and interesting articles on the site, but have you found them all? I thought you might appreciate a list of the more popular articles that you can glance through and click on the ones that take your fancy. Here it is.

Popular Forum Posts

There’s a wealth of information on the site in general, but if you’re struggling to find the answer to a particular issue, the forum is the place to find it. I’ve listed some of the more popular posts below but if you can’t find what you’re looking for, ask your question on the forum. If you don’t know how to create a post, or if you can’t log in, please let me know. I’ll be more than happy to get you up and running.

• Checklists – What do you need to check before you set off on a cruise? There’s some very detailed information including a very useful post by fellow Calcutt moorer Graham who has issues with his mobility after an RTA many years ago.
• Television Aerials – If you can’t live without your Corrie, you’ll need a decent aerial for your boat.
• My New Life – I urge you to read this forum thread. If you dream of living on your own narrowboat one day, reading this post, written by a new liveaboard boater, may well prove the catalyst you need. It’s essential reading for any aspiring narrowboat owner.
• Narrowboat Ownership – How do you prove that the person offering a narrowboat for sale is the real owner?
• Tips For Continuous Cruisers – He’s making a bit of a habit of it; Pearley’s back with some great cruising tips
• The Llangollen Canal – One of the country’s most beautiful canals discussed
• Deliveries to your boat – Excellent information from regular forum contributor Pearley
• Mobile Broadband – All you need to know about internet connectivity on board
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that fellow boaters can steal your internet data allowance?
• Boat Planning & Design – Is there any free software available to hel you plan your dream boat?
• A Narrowboat Checklist – What checks do you need to carry out before you set out on a cruise?
• Tunnels – How do you navigate them? Who has priority?
• Windows Or Portholes – Round or square, which is best? Is it just a matter of personal preference?
• Day To Day Questions About Narrowboat Life – How can “newbies” find out the answers to questions about day to day life on a narrowboat? The answer is simple. Find out by reading this post.
• Beds – The pros and cons of fixed doubles and cross beds. You need to read this if you are taller or slightly wider than average.
• Flushing Out a Toilet Waste Tank – Emptying your pumpout toilet holding tank isn’t just a case of sucking out your unmentionables. You also need to flush water through the tank to remove the built up solids. Here’s how to do it.
• Narrowboat Knots – Do you know your bowline from your buntline hitch, your cleat hitch from your clove hitch or your poacher’s knot from your square knot? No? It’s about time you did!
• Free Narrowboat Heating – Is there any such thing? Read this post to find out
• Narrowboat Furniture – Not everyone wants fitted furniture on their boat. Here are a few ideas if you want to add your own.
• Weight on a narrowboat – How many people can you carry on a narrowboat, and how much luggage can they bring with them?
• Narrowboat Finance – A Canadian hoping to move to the UK, buy a boat and cruise the network.
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that you can have your boat’s broadband allowance stolen? Here’s what you can do to prevent the theft.
• Problems Powering An Inverter With A Generator – Why didn’t it work and what’s the solution?
• Diesel Costs – You need it to run your boat and maybe your heating system. How much can you expect to pay for it?
• Stove Top Fans – Are they worth the money?
• Mooring Pins and Piling Hooks – What are they and when do you use them?
• Water Pump Problems – What to do if your water pump appear to have a life of its own
• Fuel Contamination – How do you know if you’ve water in your diesel… and what do you do about it when you have?
• Anchors – What’s the best size and weight anchor for narrowboats on tidal rivers
• Single Handed Boating for Ladies – Can a lady on her own pass safely through locks?
• Different Types of Mooring – What’s the difference between residential and leisure moorings? How long can you stay on your boat with each type?
• Which Ropes To Use? – There are so many different types available. Are the more expensive ones worth using or is it just a case of money for old rope?
• Windows – Why do narrowboat owners tolerate condensation? Why don’t they have modern uPVC windows fitted?
• Best Ex Hire Boats – Are you considering buying an ex hire boat to live on? Should you? Here’s some important information for you.
• Liveaboard Conclusions – Mel Davies has been doing  plenty of research into her hoped for lifestyle afloat. Here are the conclusions she’s reached and comments from a few existing liveaboard narrowboat owners.
• Handling Floodwaters – How safe is a river mooring during and after heavy rain? Can you stay on a river when the level rises? What can you do to minimise danger?
• Narrowboat steel thickness – How thick is your boat’s steel? How long does it last?
• Retro fitting a solid fuel stove – Where’s the best place to put your stove and what’s involved in fitting it?
• Converting from a cassette toilet to a pump out – A pump out toilet is far more convenient to use than a toilet with a portable cassette but how easy are they to retro fit in a narrowboat?
• Gas free boating – If you don’t fancy heaving unwieldy gas bottles into a difficult to reach bow locker, a gas free boat might be the solution
• Winter on the cut – Are you able to cruise all year on your boat or should you find a mooring for the winter?
• Transporting your boat – Sometimes you may want or need to take your narrowboat by road rather than cruise along the canal. Here’s an idea of the cost
• Bike types and preferences – If you don’t have a car parked near your boat, you’ll probably want a bike, but which type of bike is best?
• Towing a butty – I’ve upset someone. I didn’t mean to. Wainbody wanted to know the best way of towing an unpowered second narrowboat (butty). I came across as patronising when I replied. It was unintentional but to make amends I thought I would ask anyone with boat handling experience to reply to his thread with some constructive advice. If you can help him, please reply to the post.
• The best flooring for a narrowboat pets –  What’s the best way to protect your floor from a dirty doggy?
• The best time of the year to buy a boat – Is there a deal to be done by buying a boat in the winter?
• The best length for a liveaboard narrowboat – What’s the best length to buy? What are the pros and cons of different length boats
• ONE tip to offer a potential narrowboat owner – If you are already a narrowboat owner, you can share your experience. If you haven’t bought one yet, you need to read this thread.
• Powering your computer on a narrowboat – Can you power your computer/laptop from the boat’s 12v supply or do you need mains power?
• Must-have gadgets and necessities – The most useful/useless gadgets for life on a narrowboat
• Choosing a stove for your boat – Are domestic solid fuel stoves as good as the ones designed specifically for boats? Which is the best one to buy?
• Diesel heating for boats – How important is a solid fuel stove on a liveaboard narrowboat? Is a diesel heating system OK as a primary heat source?
• Computers on boats – Can a computer be powered from your boat’s 12v system or does it need to be plugged into the mains
• Receiving post on your boat – How does the postman find you when you’re cruising? How do you apply for a driving license, a TV license or a bank statement when you have no official address?
• Bikes on board – Many boat owners do not have cars so they rely on bikes to get them to the shops (or the pub). Some use bikes to collect their cars after a day’s cruising. There’s a huge selection of bikes to choose from. Which are the best for your boat? To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer. Can you point forum member Ainslo in the right direction?
• VAT on narrowboat sales – Does the price of your narrowboat contain a VAT element? Can the VAT be reclaimed?
• Internet access – How do you connect to the internet when you live on a boat?
• Living off property rental income – Do you have a property that you indend to let while you cruise the waterways? Read this before you work out your budget.
• How to find a narrowboat to live on – Here’s an article about choosing a liveaboard narrowboat, and a question about finding a narrowboat with a steering wheel.
• Vertigo – How to deal with walking over lock gates if you’re frightened of heights.
• Long term narrowboat hire – If you aren’t ready to buy a narrowboat yet, what are your chances of hiring a narrowboat for more than a few weeks?
• Residential moorings and single handed boating – How do you handle a narrowboat on your own? What do you do about a mooring if you live on board and only want a mooring for part of the year
• Too tall for a narrowboat? – Is a narrowboat suitable for you if you are above average height?
• Dealing with condensation – Do all narrowboats suffer from damp? What can you do about it?
• Solar panels – More information about portable and fixed solar panels
• Heating systems – Hurricane and Mikuni heating systems discussed

Useful Links

Living on a Narrowboat: The REAL Cost of a Life Afloat – Narrowboat costs explained in detail. My own maintenance and living cost on narrowboat James for a full year. Use this information to work out your own costs.
Find out what parts of the canal are closed and for how long. Essential cruising information for you.
Do you need to find a home for your boat? Here’s a comprehensive list of the narrowboat friendly marinas in the UK
Do you want to see where these marinas are on a map? Here it is.
Here’s a map of all the canals on the system to help you plan your route.
Newsletter Archive – Browse through a wealth of useful content in the newsletters over the last year.

Badger Sett – Unscheduled visit to a dry dock !

Firstly, a huge thanks and recommendation from us for River Canal Rescue www.rivercanalrescue.co.uk and Anderton Marina www.andertonmarina.com both of whom have been extremely efficient and helpful to us over this past week.

The drama started last Saturday, luckily, just after our last son and his girlfriends holiday had finished with us and they were on their way back home. (I’m not really all that hot on grammar, but the way I’ve written girlfriend(s) makes it sound like he came with a couple of them, but no, he isn’t that lucky, he’s just go the one. Here’s a picture of them and you’ll also see Binks in his safe place whilst on the boat.

The plan was to have a few quiet days after a busy couple of weeks when KLONK CLANG (sounds like something out of Bat Man doesn’t it.) WALLOP and that was us, we weren’t going anywhere other than with the current. Luckily we were still up on the Trent and MerseyCanal and hadn’t gone down to the River Weaver that we were planning to do a few days later, so we just gently drifted the ten feet or so to the tow path side of the canal.

I thought a running repair would do so popped up to the Chandler’s for some parts, but a few hours later it became apparent that fixing it wasn’t going to happen by my fair hand and we subsequently found out that we’d managed to bend the prop shaft somehow. We contacted River Canal Rescue on the Sunday morning and they were with us a few hours later as the chaps were already on a call. It wasn’t easily fixable, as I’d thought, so they arranged with Anderton Marina to come down to have a look, price up the work that then saw us get into their dry dock.

I haven’t seen many dry docks, so the one atAnderton Marina may not necessarily be unique, but I think it is an excellent idea nonetheless. For want of another word, it’s like a skip with an entrance at one end. Once you’re in they wind up a door, pump out the water, the skip (dry dock) floats and the boat inside is out of the water – SIMPLES

Dry dock before

Dry dock after

The door at the front

Ready and waiting

Whilst we weren’t planning to black the boat until next year, we thought we may just as well get it done whilst it was out of the water so at least that’s a job done and sort of cheaper as well as we’ve put the cost of the dry dock against the repair of the prop shaft anyway.

Before

After

These last eight days or so has also given our solar panels a good test as we haven’t been able to run the engine and haven’t bothered hooking up to a shoreline either so we’ve been living off the sun alone. Not bad when we’ve been pretty much out of any direct sunlight (when there has been sunlight !) and what there has been has been through a Perspex roof.

Should, with should being the operative word, be down on the River Weaver in a few days time and plan to spend the next two or three weeks down there so stay tuned and we’ll let you know how we get on.

And so in signing off,

Day 178 in the Badger Sett Narrowboat – 311 miles and 102 locks further on from when we started.

(You can view my earlier posts at narrowboatboysontour.blogspot )

2013 04 14 Newsletter – Mobile Broadband Allowance On Narrowboats

Living on a Narrowboat News 14th April 2013

Last week I reported that my laptop was hacked into and my identity stolen. I think I’m back on track now, but there was one further quite scary additional development. I had an email from Google to let me know that my site was producing phishing URLs directing users to a bogus PayPal site.

The company which hosts my site, Liquid Web, one of the largest hosting companies in the USA, has given my site a very thorough spring clean to ensure that any rogue code has been completely removed.  Security to all areas of the site administration have now been changed and improved.

The phishing URLs didn’t affect site users as the URLs were buried deep in the site. I understand that the hacker would have used them as part of a phishing mail campaign where spam emails would have referred recipients to the phishing pages. Talking of security…

Narrowboat Security

I wrote about narrowboat security last week and referred to a thread on the forum.  Forum user Cheeseybits asked about the reality of crime on the cut. He referred to The Water Road by Paul Gogarty. It’s an excellent book about his four month figure of eight journey from London to the far north and back. He mentions carrying a baseball bat for security as he travels alone and of his unpleasant brush with stone throwing yobs in Wigan and then a little later, a charming tale about yobs rolling burning cars into the cut and shooting BW workers with air rifles!

Cheeseybits, in the nicest possible way, accused me of looking at life on the cut through rose tinted glasses and wanted to know whether he’s going to be at risk on his watery wanderings.

I’ve posted my experiences and those of our holiday hirers on the forum. I’ve been doing hire fleet instructions for Calcutt Boats for the last three years so I’ve debriefed hundreds of holidaymakers on their return. Did they experience any problems when they were out and about? You’ll have to read the thread to find out.

If you are a boat owner, please add your comments to the thread. I want the anecdotes in context though. I want to know about the problems you’ve encountered, but I also want to know how often you’ve had unpleasant experiences in all the time that you’ve been out and about on the cut. Have you had issues every time you’ve ventured out, or has it been just once in a blue moon in a geographical area where you might have expected it. If you don’t want to post on the forum, please email me to let me know about your experiences.

Mobile Broadband

I use the internet every day. I spend three to four hours sending and answering emails and researching and writing content for the site. I used to use Three’s PAYG premium package which gave me 7GB of data for £25. My average monthly broadband spend was £40. It was expensive but, because of a poor credit rating brought about by the failure of my business and subsequent bankruptcy, I couldn’t get credit. My inability to obtain credit for absolutely anything meant that I couldn’t take out a monthly phone or broadband plan.

My credit rating has been steadily, if slowly, climbing over the last three years. Eighteen months ago I was able to take out a 24 month contract on a mobile phone and then three months ago switch from Three’s PAYG broadband to a pay monthly tariff. The new tariff gave me 15GB of data each month which was more than enough… until last Friday.

Three weeks ago I bought a new laptop to replace my old Lenovo which had developed a mind of its own and typed text anywhere on the screen it wanted. It was quite quickly driving me mad.

The new Samsung laptop shipped with Windows 8 (Windows Hate would be a more appropriate name – what a terrible operating system!) but no other software. I needed to reinstall all of the applications I use on a daily basis, Microsoft office, Adobe Photoshop Elements, my accounting software, iTunes and half a dozen web site management and editing applications. Then I had to download my backed up data from Google Drive as well as my photo’s and music.

Then two weeks ago my laptop was hacked into so I had to restore the laptop it its original factory settings and do everything again. Yesterday, for the first time, I exceeded my 15GB monthly allowance. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

If you run out of data with Three you can get onto the Three website to check your account but the rest of the internet is off limits. You can check your account to see how much data you’ve used but if you want to change any details, in my case payment details, you need to log into your account using a password. You don’t need a password at any stage when you first start to use your dongle. You just plug it in to your laptop, wait for the automatic driver installation, and away you go. Consequently, you aren’t aware of the need for a password at all.

Of course I couldn’t log in to my account to pay for more data without the password. I didn’t know it so I went through the Forgot Password routine. With any other system that I’ve used, this involves answering some fairly straight forward security questions. Not with Three.

I was asked for both the device and the SIM number. This information is on the SIM which is inside the dongle. My dongle is on the top of a pole on the roof. So on Friday night, in the dark and in lashing rain, I climbed onto the roof to fetch the dongle. Of course I had forgotten that last Sunday I spent seven hours lovingly polishing the boat roof with Carnauba wax. The combination of Carnauba wax on steel and heavy rain should be used on skating rinks. It’s almost impossible to stand on, as I discovered to both mine and Sally’s dismay when I fell over.

I didn’t quite fall off the roof, but it was close. I managed to grab hold of the edge of the port side hatch before I joined the fish in the marina. After retrieving the dongle, I climbed back into the boat to let Sally know what had happened. She wasn’t interested. The shock of me crashing down on the roof caused her to drop what was in her hand – the pressure cooker containing our dinner. She was busy scraping it off the floor.

I copied the details off the SIM  but, before I could find out whether I could log in with them, I had to climb back onto the roof, more carefully this time, to replace the dongle. The device and SIM card number allowed me to log into my account, but I was still unable to top it up.

There was a “helpline” number I could ring, but that involved finding a signal for my phone. I never have one on the boat. So, I went back out in the rain and into my car for a drive around the marina until I could find a signal.

Of course there was the obligatory frustrating automated system to navigate but I was eventually able to make a payment using one of Sally’s debit cards (remember, I don’t currently have a bank account following my hacking attack).

Back on the boat, I joyously connected to the internet… to discover that I still couldn’t get any further than the Three web site.

I jumped back in my car, raced around to where I knew I could get a phone signal and went through the whole painful call centre process again. After ten frustrating minutes I was put through to a real person. He was on the other side of the world, but at least he was human.

He very helpfully told me, from the safety of his call centre 5,000 miles away, that the payment I had just made had been credited to my monthly account but that I couldn’t buy any more data at the normal rate until the next billing cycle began in nine days time. Until then, he told me, I couldn’t use the internet at all unless I purchased data at the emergency rate of 10p per megabyte.

£0.10/MB is a huge amount to pay. To put this rate into perspective, if Three used the same rate for my 15GB monthly allowance, they would charge me £1,500 instead of the £18 I currently pay. Their emergency rate is over eighty three times more expensive than their standard rate!

Even if I wanted to carry on using the internet at that rate, they wouldn’t let me. They allow an emergency use of 200MB (at a cost of £20) before they cut off the account completely until the next billing date.

I used the extortionately priced additional data by mid afternoon the following day – yesterday – so for the first time for as long as I can remember, I was completely cut off from the virtual world I’ve spent years creating.

I didn’t fully understand quite how much I rely on the internet.

I use the web for checking the weather, the news, what’s on television and to more or less instantly find out in depth information about any subject that interests me. I store my photo’s online, I constantly back up my laptop’s documents to my online storage, I use an online To Do list and calendar. I’ve moved much of my life online and, boy, do I miss it when I can’t get at it.

Waiting over a week until my next data allowance cycle wasn’t an option so at 10am today I was in Leamington Spa waiting for the store to open. I purchased a PAYG SIM with 3GB data to get me through the next week until my monthly allowance resumes.

15GB is the biggest data package that Three offer, and Three is widely acknowledged as being the best provider for internet loving boat owners. 15GB is more than enough for a month’s general browsing but if you your laptop for watching TV or video or for regular large file uploads and downloads, you’ll soon use it up.

I hope that the tale of my misfortune will encourage you to think carefully about your mobile broadband options if you plan to spend long periods on your boat and you value a constant internet connection as much as I do. I haven’t enjoyed the problems I’ve had recently, but I’ve learned from them. As far as my internet connection’s concerned, I now have a backup in case of emergencies. Maybe you should too.

This story is really a long winded way of saying sorry for a content poor newsletter this week. I’ve spent so much time trying to sort out the problems I just haven’t had a spare moment to work on the site. I promise to try harder next week.

Read this forum thread for plenty more information about mobile broadband on narrowboats.

Online Moorings Available

I received an email ten days ago but forgot to mention it in last week’s newsletter. It’s from online mooring operator Peter Oakley…

“I’m a linear moorings operator on the Middlewich branch of the Shroppy at bridge 25.  With the pump out toilets, i encourage the (long term) moorers with a  pump  out,  to buy a Patay pump (normally off e-bay) and lay flat pipe.  If they are lucky  they can get it all for £50.    As we are farmers  we have a septic tank for our house  waste. Which is a 100mtr cruise into the next field along.   I ask the moorers to pump their waste into there as it is approximately 30 metres in from the cut.  4 pump outs and they’re saving £££££££.   I have checked with the Environment Agency .  As long as the owner of the vessel does it themselves it’s  acceptable.  If i were to do it for the boater I would need to apply for the relevant waste carrying licenses. I hope this helps a few boaters  in trying to save a few quid here and there.”

Peter went on to say that he has two fully serviced long term moorings (metred water and electricity hook up) available from 2nd September this year. If you are interested in an online mooring in a beautiful part of the country, you need to contact him quickly. Long term online moorings are like hens’ teeth and Peter has just placed an advert in Towpath Talk. Please contact Peter directly.

Comprehensive Site Article Listing

There are dozens of helpful and interesting articles on the site, but have you found them all? I thought you might appreciate a list of the more popular articles that you can glance through and click on the ones that take your fancy. Here it is.

Popular Forum Posts

There’s a wealth of information on the site in general, but if you’re struggling to find the answer to a particular issue, the forum is the place to find it. I’ve listed some of the more popular posts below but if you can’t find what you’re looking for, ask your question on the forum. If you don’t know how to create a post, or if you can’t log in, please let me know. I’ll be more than happy to get you up and running.

• Television Aerials – If you can’t live without your Corrie, you’ll need a decent aerial for your boat.
• My New Life – I urge you to read this forum thread. If you dream of living on your own narrowboat one day, reading this post, written by a new liveaboard boater, may well prove the catalyst you need. It’s essential reading for any aspiring narrowboat owner.
• Narrowboat Ownership – How do you prove that the person offering a narrowboat for sale is the real owner?
• Tips For Continuous Cruisers – He’s making a bit of a habit of it; Pearley’s back with some great cruising tips
• The Llangollen Canal – One of the country’s most beautiful canals discussed
• Deliveries to your boat – Excellent information from regular forum contributor Pearley
• Mobile Broadband – All you need to know about internet connectivity on board
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that fellow boaters can steal your internet data allowance?
• Boat Planning & Design – Is there any free software available to hel you plan your dream boat?
• A Narrowboat Checklist – What checks do you need to carry out before you set out on a cruise?
• Tunnels – How do you navigate them? Who has priority?
• Windows Or Portholes – Round or square, which is best? Is it just a matter of personal preference?
• Day To Day Questions About Narrowboat Life – How can “newbies” find out the answers to questions about day to day life on a narrowboat? The answer is simple. Find out by reading this post.
• Beds – The pros and cons of fixed doubles and cross beds. You need to read this if you are taller or slightly wider than average.
• Flushing Out a Toilet Waste Tank – Emptying your pumpout toilet holding tank isn’t just a case of sucking out your unmentionables. You also need to flush water through the tank to remove the built up solids. Here’s how to do it.
• Narrowboat Knots – Do you know your bowline from your buntline hitch, your cleat hitch from your clove hitch or your poacher’s knot from your square knot? No? It’s about time you did!
• Free Narrowboat Heating – Is there any such thing? Read this post to find out
• Narrowboat Furniture – Not everyone wants fitted furniture on their boat. Here are a few ideas if you want to add your own.
• Weight on a narrowboat – How many people can you carry on a narrowboat, and how much luggage can they bring with them?
• Narrowboat Finance – A Canadian hoping to move to the UK, buy a boat and cruise the network.
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that you can have your boat’s broadband allowance stolen? Here’s what you can do to prevent the theft.
• Problems Powering An Inverter With A Generator – Why didn’t it work and what’s the solution?
• Diesel Costs – You need it to run your boat and maybe your heating system. How much can you expect to pay for it?
• Stove Top Fans – Are they worth the money?
• Mooring Pins and Piling Hooks – What are they and when do you use them?
• Water Pump Problems – What to do if your water pump appear to have a life of its own
• Fuel Contamination – How do you know if you’ve water in your diesel… and what do you do about it when you have?
• Anchors – What’s the best size and weight anchor for narrowboats on tidal rivers
• Single Handed Boating for Ladies – Can a lady on her own pass safely through locks?
• Different Types of Mooring – What’s the difference between residential and leisure moorings? How long can you stay on your boat with each type?
• Which Ropes To Use? – There are so many different types available. Are the more expensive ones worth using or is it just a case of money for old rope?
• Windows – Why do narrowboat owners tolerate condensation? Why don’t they have modern uPVC windows fitted?
• Best Ex Hire Boats – Are you considering buying an ex hire boat to live on? Should you? Here’s some important information for you.
• Liveaboard Conclusions – Mel Davies has been doing  plenty of research into her hoped for lifestyle afloat. Here are the conclusions she’s reached and comments from a few existing liveaboard narrowboat owners.
• Handling Floodwaters – How safe is a river mooring during and after heavy rain? Can you stay on a river when the level rises? What can you do to minimise danger?
• Narrowboat steel thickness – How thick is your boat’s steel? How long does it last?
• Retro fitting a solid fuel stove – Where’s the best place to put your stove and what’s involved in fitting it?
• Converting from a cassette toilet to a pump out – A pump out toilet is far more convenient to use than a toilet with a portable cassette but how easy are they to retro fit in a narrowboat?
• Gas free boating – If you don’t fancy heaving unwieldy gas bottles into a difficult to reach bow locker, a gas free boat might be the solution
• Winter on the cut – Are you able to cruise all year on your boat or should you find a mooring for the winter?
• Transporting your boat – Sometimes you may want or need to take your narrowboat by road rather than cruise along the canal. Here’s an idea of the cost
• Bike types and preferences – If you don’t have a car parked near your boat, you’ll probably want a bike, but which type of bike is best?
• Towing a butty – I’ve upset someone. I didn’t mean to. Wainbody wanted to know the best way of towing an unpowered second narrowboat (butty). I came across as patronising when I replied. It was unintentional but to make amends I thought I would ask anyone with boat handling experience to reply to his thread with some constructive advice. If you can help him, please reply to the post.
• The best flooring for a narrowboat pets –  What’s the best way to protect your floor from a dirty doggy?
• The best time of the year to buy a boat – Is there a deal to be done by buying a boat in the winter?
• The best length for a liveaboard narrowboat – What’s the best length to buy? What are the pros and cons of different length boats
• ONE tip to offer a potential narrowboat owner – If you are already a narrowboat owner, you can share your experience. If you haven’t bought one yet, you need to read this thread.
• Powering your computer on a narrowboat – Can you power your computer/laptop from the boat’s 12v supply or do you need mains power?
• Must-have gadgets and necessities – The most useful/useless gadgets for life on a narrowboat
• Choosing a stove for your boat – Are domestic solid fuel stoves as good as the ones designed specifically for boats? Which is the best one to buy?
• Diesel heating for boats – How important is a solid fuel stove on a liveaboard narrowboat? Is a diesel heating system OK as a primary heat source?
• Computers on boats – Can a computer be powered from your boat’s 12v system or does it need to be plugged into the mains
• Receiving post on your boat – How does the postman find you when you’re cruising? How do you apply for a driving license, a TV license or a bank statement when you have no official address?
• Bikes on board – Many boat owners do not have cars so they rely on bikes to get them to the shops (or the pub). Some use bikes to collect their cars after a day’s cruising. There’s a huge selection of bikes to choose from. Which are the best for your boat? To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer. Can you point forum member Ainslo in the right direction?
• VAT on narrowboat sales – Does the price of your narrowboat contain a VAT element? Can the VAT be reclaimed?
• Internet access – How do you connect to the internet when you live on a boat?
• Living off property rental income – Do you have a property that you indend to let while you cruise the waterways? Read this before you work out your budget.
• How to find a narrowboat to live on – Here’s an article about choosing a liveaboard narrowboat, and a question about finding a narrowboat with a steering wheel.
• Vertigo – How to deal with walking over lock gates if you’re frightened of heights.
• Long term narrowboat hire – If you aren’t ready to buy a narrowboat yet, what are your chances of hiring a narrowboat for more than a few weeks?
• Residential moorings and single handed boating – How do you handle a narrowboat on your own? What do you do about a mooring if you live on board and only want a mooring for part of the year
• Too tall for a narrowboat? – Is a narrowboat suitable for you if you are above average height?
• Dealing with condensation – Do all narrowboats suffer from damp? What can you do about it?
• Solar panels – More information about portable and fixed solar panels
• Heating systems – Hurricane and Mikuni heating systems discussed

Useful Links

Living on a Narrowboat: The REAL Cost of a Life Afloat – Narrowboat costs explained in detail. My own maintenance and living cost on narrowboat James for a full year. Use this information to work out your own costs.
Find out what parts of the canal are closed and for how long. Essential cruising information for you.
Do you need to find a home for your boat? Here’s a comprehensive list of the narrowboat friendly marinas in the UK
Do you want to see where these marinas are on a map? Here it is.
Here’s a map of all the canals on the system to help you plan your route.
Newsletter Archive – Browse through a wealth of useful content in the newsletters over the last year.

Steppin’ out; a few plans and thoughts before the maiden voyage.

Yes I’ve just about recovered from my days outing and I am getting quite excited and nervous as the day of reckoning approaches. The survey is Monday and I really hope it goes through with out any real issues then my crew member and me will go up the following Sunday to bring her back home after parting with a sizable amount of money.

I do realise that it won’t all be simple unadorned nautical travelling with wind assistance but we are both fairly laid back and will take it has it comes. Steve has slightly less experience of boats and canals than I have, we will need blessings from above in abundance, and due to the stoppage near Dutton we shall have to go into Manchester to pick up the Macclesfield and then back to the Trent and Mersey below the stoppage.

The first bit on the map, the Bridgewater canal has no locks, so we should make good time and reach the end by Sunday night. This is the plan anyway, however the next little bit, 16 miles down to the Macclesfield canal seems to have approximately 852,624 locks, so day two may see us gain a little experience on the locking front. Is it possible to do all of them in one day, I think there is 44, or will we need to moor up for the night while going through Manchester.

Does anyone have any suggestions of good places for mooring on this part of the journey? I’m guessing some parts are not always friendly. Information on this would be very useful. Also any hints tips on doing so many locks in such a short space, we will be swapping over frequently and seeing what comes.

I’m beginning to feel like a teenager again and I know when I pick the boat up I’m going to have an enormouse stupid grin but I don’t care. I haven’t felt this excited and enthusiastic about something for many years. My advice to anyone who finds something which makes them feel alive again whether it’s boats or knitting then go for it because I guess we’ve all spent far too long bored and fed up with our lives and the society we have to live. Lets take on the world like we wanted to do when we stupid teenagers, this is the Weston’s organic still cider talking now, two pints counts as one of your five a day. If you have children start behaving in ways that make them nervous and worry, they did it to you.

I will definitely update Monday with the results of the survey so I hope you all have a good weekend and we see a bit of the sun too.

God bless you

Nige

Steppin’ Out; A day out and some locking experience.

Hi to everyone hope you’re enjoying the recent sweltering temperatures? It is nice though now we have a few degrees more warmth. Last week a friend of mine, Richard who is off cruising for the summer, offered me a trip out to do a few locks as he was moving up from Shardlow to Willington to visit friends before he set off properly. I was only too happy to take him up on his offer.

I arrived in Shardlow about 10 am and after a cup of coffee we set off for the first lock. I’d wrapped up well, two t shirts, scarf, sweatshirt, coat, gloves and hat. I’m fairly short and round anyway so with this much clothing on I looked like a ruddy Weeble. If you don’t remember them they were a toy with a round bottom and the cathphrase was, Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down. I don’t care what I looked like as in the sunshine it was fairly pleasant but when the sun hid behind a fluffy cloud the temperature seemed to drop about 4 degrees and it was bl**dy cold. I hate to think how cold it must have been when taking into account the wind chill factor of screeming up the canal at nearly 3 miles an hour.

I was given my first windlass and hopped ashore and opened the gates and we paired up with another boat and a lovely chap named Graham. He had just picked his boat up on the Monday and was heading back to Watford to live on it. He hadn’t done any boating before this week  so he was doing what I hope to be doing soon sailing my own boat back home with little experience. It’s just easier to learn and understand when you physically do something rather than just reading or watching clips on YouTube. Ground paddles first when filling up then gate paddles when level has risen up. It was surprising how easy some gates were to open or close and how stiff others were. The other problem which I hadn’t really expected was after you close one gate and walk round to the other the first one had swung open. OK you all know about this but I didn’t and found it quite amusing. At least I know now to open the ground paddles a little to get a little water flow to keep the gate closed especially if I’m on my own. With 3 of us it wasn’t a problem. A couple of the locks were quite deep and they would give me a little concern if I was on my own but I guess you just get used to them after a while. Oh and how slow the locks fill up if you leave the paddles up on the bottom gate. As Richard said drop the paddles as soon as you’ve done then you don’t forget.

A bit of steering practise and the locking and I’m feeling much better about my maiden voyage. It was a lovely day and just standing and watching the clouds, the countryside and the ducks was wonderful. I’m ready and waiting to sample this life style as soon as I can. I know there will be some down sides to things. No I don’t think down side is the right phrase. There will be some different challenges to meet and get used to. Sewage, filling water tank, collecting gas and coal. These are things that have just happened before and pretty soon they are things I shall have to think about and do. We kept checking the mile posts as we went and another cup of coffee and just kept plodding on and I loved it. It took us about 6 hours to do about 9 miles, well there was nothing spoiling, and after mooring up when we reached Willington I rang and got a taxi back to Shardlow to pick up the car and go home. I was pretty tired, 6 hours of very fresh air, standing all the time and doing a few locks, I shall be fitter in a few months I think which just shows how unfit I am now.

This is going to be a long week waiting for the survey to take place and hoping nothing is found that would stop me buying. Then another week to go and pick her up and start cruising. When you ask God for patience what he does is give you the opportunity to practise patience. This is one of those opportunities and I shall wait patiently. In fact I’m waiting as fast as I can.

Enjoy the sunshine.

God bless you.

Nige

2013 04 07 Newsletter – Narrowboat Security

Living on a Narrowboat News 7th April 2013

I “celebrated” my 53rd birthday last Tuesday. How did I celebrate? A relaxing day on the boat? A fancy meal out? A fancy meal in? No. I worked during the day and then returned to the boat at the end of the day to discover that my online identity had been stolen.

I still don’t know how it happened, other than my laptop was hacked into, keystrokes logged, passwords recorded, all of the important web sites I’m registered with accessed, and passwords changed so I couldn’t get into them.

I had my main bank account contact details changed to an address and phone number in Bristol and an iPad ordered through my mobile phone account. My bank account has subsequently been frozen, soon to be shut down, so I now need to open a new account and go through the painful process of setting up a complete new list of payees. Because the new account won’t be live for another seven days, I am unable to pay bills, receive payments, or withdraw cash.

The account I use to receive payments for sales from the site was suspended. They still allowed money into the account, but I’m still not allowed to take any out. The bank was particularly concerned when they discovered that the hacker had stolen a copy of my passport from my hard drive to upload to their site to prove that they were me. When I phoned, they were in the process of restoring the account to fuull functionality which would have allowed the hacker to transfer some or all of the money out of the account.

I spent a fruitless hour reporting the crime to the police. They showed very little interest, even when I told them that I had the bogus address and mobile phone number that had been added to my bank account. They told me that they receive many hundreds of phone calls from people like me and that, unless they can spot a recurring trend in the reported hacking attempts, I’m unlikely to hear from them. The guy I spoke to even told me that assuming my identity isn’t actually a crime. They have to wait until the person assuming the identity attempts to defraud a company or individual before they can act.

One or two techies I’ve spoken to have heard that devices are being interfered with prior to them being purchased which may explain why the laptop’s pre installed anti virus software, Norton, didn’t pick this up.

I’ve now restored my new laptop to its factory settings to remove the offending code. All I need to do now is spend a couple of days reinstalling the software that took me a couple of days to install last week.

And then I have to wait for the best part of a week before I have a bank account again, and then set up all standing orders and direct debits, change my bank details with everyone I deal with online.

I used to be an angry young man. I’m much calmer these days, especially after moving onto James. However, I would love to spend just five minutes alone with the hacker so that I could explain, very clearly, just how displeased I am with him.

Narrowboat Security

On the subject of crime, my ex wife emailed me yesterday to let me know that her house, my old home, has been burgled for the second time in three months. The thieves escaped with the usual electronics; laptops, mobile phones, a X Box and a Play Station. They were in and out of the house in minutes and caused a considerable amount of physical and a huge amount of emotional damage.

Boats can be burgled too. I’m delighted to say that James hasn’t been burgled. In fact, to my knowledge, none of the boats here at Calcutt have been burgled. The marinas here are too risky for thieves. The main entrance is via a half mile private drive with closed electric gates outside of trading hours. The marinas are difficult for thieves to access from the canal too. We’re on the canal “offside”, the opposite side from the towpath, so anyone wanting to come onto the site from the canal either needs to do so by boat, or by walking over the lock gates.

If you’re going to take on a permanent mooring, from a security point of view, choose one which is on the canal offside. Thieves want easy access and exit. They tend to steer clear of moorings that they can’t sneak up on. There’s one marina in particular nearby where a quiet country lane runs close to the towpath. The thieves can park their vehicle next to towpath and quickly walk to the open gate to the marina next to the canal completely bypassing the marina’s electric gates. I don’t know how many of their boats are broken into, but I know they are.

Of course, the reason you’ve purchased a narrowboat is so that you can use it to cruise some or all of the network. You will be spending  as much time as possible away from your home mooring so you need to be aware of security measures when you’re on the move.

Apply the same common sense that you would to the security of either your home or your car. If you’re away from your care, make sure it’s locked and that the locks on your doors and hatches are secure. Consider fitting a steel locking bar to the bulkhead either side of your front and rear doors and fit a decent security padlock.

Consider storing items from your roof inside your boat including poles. planks and boat hooks. Always remove your tiller bar when you are away from your boat. Shiny brass is irresistible to towpath toerags. Consider carrying a spare tiller bar on the boat. If you don’t think the additional expense is worthwhile, try steering your boat for a while without one. Remember, your tiller bar can be dropped in the water as well as stolen.

Keep your valuables out of site. Close your curtains and hide laptops, tablets and mobile phones.

Consider fitting a timer to a LED lamp inside your boat to give the impression there’s someone on the boat.

Here’s a thread from the forum with some very useful security information for you. Please read it. I know from bitter personal experience what it’s like to be burgled. Prevention is always better than cure. Make sure you take action before it’s too late.

Canalside Dining

Sally and I enjoy the occasional meal out, but we’re often very disappointed. We leave the restaurant feeling that we could have prepared better food for a hell of a lot less if we stayed on the boat. Friday night was an exception.

We took Charlie and Daisy for a walk along the Grand Union at Braunston on Friday afternoon. We stopped for a brief comfort break at the Admiral Nelson on the Braunston flight between locks three and four. We used the loo, bought drinks and crisps and browsed their menu as we sat on a bench outside with the dogs. We liked what we saw both on the menu and in the restaurant area of the bar so booked a table for the evening. It’s a good job we booked.

We returned to the pub just after six wearing a little less mud to find it heaving with both diners and Braunston boatyard workers. One poor girl was running between bar and tables to keep everyone happy and we had to wait longer than we would have liked before we were served. We had to wait a while before our food order was taken and then served but, oh boy, was it worth the wait.

The pub’s steak of choice is Scottish Black Gold 28 matured and unbelievably tasty. The ribeye was served with balsamic roasted vine tomatoes, fondant shallots, Moreton Pinckney portabella mushroom, chunky chips served in an individual dinky deep fat fryer and balsamic dressed watercress. It was so good neither Sally nor I spoke throughout the meal. At £20 a steak it wasn’t cheap but we’ll definitely eat there again.

NB Doublefracture Case Study

Mick and Marlene are committed to their life afloat. They burned their bridges and sold their house to fund the purchase of their liveaboard narrowboat Doublefracture. Weird name, lovely boat! Here’s their story.

I apologise for the shortage of new information this week. I don’t have a great deal of time to spare at the best of times but having to find an extra twenty hours to deal with my identity theft last week has left me just a   little stressed. I’m going to relieve the stress in a minute by spending the day working on my lovely boat. It’s (finally) a beautiful spring day. I’m going to spend the next eight hours washing painting and polishing. I have two bottles of the best boat wax on the market. James if going to get a very serious buffing.

I know that Easter week is a holiday week for many people. If you were one of them, and didn’t have access to your email, you may have missed last week’s newsletter. Here it is.

Comprehensive Site Article Listing

There are dozens of helpful and interesting articles on the site, but have you found them all? I thought you might appreciate a list of the more popular articles that you can glance through and click on the ones that take your fancy. Here it is.

Popular Forum Posts

There’s a wealth of information on the site in general, but if you’re struggling to find the answer to a particular issue, the forum is the place to find it. I’ve listed some of the more popular posts below but if you can’t find what you’re looking for, ask your question on the forum. If you don’t know how to create a post, or if you can’t log in, please let me know. I’ll be more than happy to get you up and running.

• Television Aerials – If you can’t live without your Corrie, you’ll need a decent aerial for your boat.
• My New Life – I urge you to read this forum thread. If you dream of living on your own narrowboat one day, reading this post, written by a new liveaboard boater, may well prove the catalyst you need. It’s essential reading for any aspiring narrowboat owner.
• Narrowboat Ownership – How do you prove that the person offering a narrowboat for sale is the real owner?
• Tips For Continuous Cruisers – He’s making a bit of a habit of it; Pearley’s back with some great cruising tips
• The Llangollen Canal – One of the country’s most beautiful canals discussed
• Deliveries to your boat – Excellent information from regular forum contributor Pearley
• Mobile Broadband – All you need to know about internet connectivity on board
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that fellow boaters can steal your internet data allowance?
• Boat Planning & Design – Is there any free software available to hel you plan your dream boat?
• A Narrowboat Checklist – What checks do you need to carry out before you set out on a cruise?
• Tunnels – How do you navigate them? Who has priority?
• Windows Or Portholes – Round or square, which is best? Is it just a matter of personal preference?
• Day To Day Questions About Narrowboat Life – How can “newbies” find out the answers to questions about day to day life on a narrowboat? The answer is simple. Find out by reading this post.
• Beds – The pros and cons of fixed doubles and cross beds. You need to read this if you are taller or slightly wider than average.
• Flushing Out a Toilet Waste Tank – Emptying your pumpout toilet holding tank isn’t just a case of sucking out your unmentionables. You also need to flush water through the tank to remove the built up solids. Here’s how to do it.
• Narrowboat Knots – Do you know your bowline from your buntline hitch, your cleat hitch from your clove hitch or your poacher’s knot from your square knot? No? It’s about time you did!
• Free Narrowboat Heating – Is there any such thing? Read this post to find out
• Narrowboat Furniture – Not everyone wants fitted furniture on their boat. Here are a few ideas if you want to add your own.
• Weight on a narrowboat – How many people can you carry on a narrowboat, and how much luggage can they bring with them?
• Narrowboat Finance – A Canadian hoping to move to the UK, buy a boat and cruise the network.
• Internet Data Theft – Did you know that you can have your boat’s broadband allowance stolen? Here’s what you can do to prevent the theft.
• Problems Powering An Inverter With A Generator – Why didn’t it work and what’s the solution?
• Diesel Costs – You need it to run your boat and maybe your heating system. How much can you expect to pay for it?
• Stove Top Fans – Are they worth the money?
• Mooring Pins and Piling Hooks – What are they and when do you use them?
• Water Pump Problems – What to do if your water pump appear to have a life of its own
• Fuel Contamination – How do you know if you’ve water in your diesel… and what do you do about it when you have?
• Anchors – What’s the best size and weight anchor for narrowboats on tidal rivers
• Single Handed Boating for Ladies – Can a lady on her own pass safely through locks?
• Different Types of Mooring – What’s the difference between residential and leisure moorings? How long can you stay on your boat with each type?
• Which Ropes To Use? – There are so many different types available. Are the more expensive ones worth using or is it just a case of money for old rope?
• Windows – Why do narrowboat owners tolerate condensation? Why don’t they have modern uPVC windows fitted?
• Best Ex Hire Boats – Are you considering buying an ex hire boat to live on? Should you? Here’s some important information for you.
• Liveaboard Conclusions – Mel Davies has been doing  plenty of research into her hoped for lifestyle afloat. Here are the conclusions she’s reached and comments from a few existing liveaboard narrowboat owners.
• Handling Floodwaters – How safe is a river mooring during and after heavy rain? Can you stay on a river when the level rises? What can you do to minimise danger?
• Narrowboat steel thickness – How thick is your boat’s steel? How long does it last?
• Retro fitting a solid fuel stove – Where’s the best place to put your stove and what’s involved in fitting it?
• Converting from a cassette toilet to a pump out – A pump out toilet is far more convenient to use than a toilet with a portable cassette but how easy are they to retro fit in a narrowboat?
• Gas free boating – If you don’t fancy heaving unwieldy gas bottles into a difficult to reach bow locker, a gas free boat might be the solution
• Winter on the cut – Are you able to cruise all year on your boat or should you find a mooring for the winter?
• Transporting your boat – Sometimes you may want or need to take your narrowboat by road rather than cruise along the canal. Here’s an idea of the cost
• Bike types and preferences – If you don’t have a car parked near your boat, you’ll probably want a bike, but which type of bike is best?
• Towing a butty – I’ve upset someone. I didn’t mean to. Wainbody wanted to know the best way of towing an unpowered second narrowboat (butty). I came across as patronising when I replied. It was unintentional but to make amends I thought I would ask anyone with boat handling experience to reply to his thread with some constructive advice. If you can help him, please reply to the post.
• The best flooring for a narrowboat pets –  What’s the best way to protect your floor from a dirty doggy?
• The best time of the year to buy a boat – Is there a deal to be done by buying a boat in the winter?
• The best length for a liveaboard narrowboat – What’s the best length to buy? What are the pros and cons of different length boats
• ONE tip to offer a potential narrowboat owner – If you are already a narrowboat owner, you can share your experience. If you haven’t bought one yet, you need to read this thread.
• Powering your computer on a narrowboat – Can you power your computer/laptop from the boat’s 12v supply or do you need mains power?
• Must-have gadgets and necessities – The most useful/useless gadgets for life on a narrowboat
• Choosing a stove for your boat – Are domestic solid fuel stoves as good as the ones designed specifically for boats? Which is the best one to buy?
• Diesel heating for boats – How important is a solid fuel stove on a liveaboard narrowboat? Is a diesel heating system OK as a primary heat source?
• Computers on boats – Can a computer be powered from your boat’s 12v system or does it need to be plugged into the mains
• Receiving post on your boat – How does the postman find you when you’re cruising? How do you apply for a driving license, a TV license or a bank statement when you have no official address?
• Bikes on board – Many boat owners do not have cars so they rely on bikes to get them to the shops (or the pub). Some use bikes to collect their cars after a day’s cruising. There’s a huge selection of bikes to choose from. Which are the best for your boat? To tell you the truth, I don’t know the answer. Can you point forum member Ainslo in the right direction?
• VAT on narrowboat sales – Does the price of your narrowboat contain a VAT element? Can the VAT be reclaimed?
• Internet access – How do you connect to the internet when you live on a boat?
• Living off property rental income – Do you have a property that you indend to let while you cruise the waterways? Read this before you work out your budget.
• How to find a narrowboat to live on – Here’s an article about choosing a liveaboard narrowboat, and a question about finding a narrowboat with a steering wheel.
• Vertigo – How to deal with walking over lock gates if you’re frightened of heights.
• Long term narrowboat hire – If you aren’t ready to buy a narrowboat yet, what are your chances of hiring a narrowboat for more than a few weeks?
• Residential moorings and single handed boating – How do you handle a narrowboat on your own? What do you do about a mooring if you live on board and only want a mooring for part of the year
• Too tall for a narrowboat? – Is a narrowboat suitable for you if you are above average height?
• Dealing with condensation – Do all narrowboats suffer from damp? What can you do about it?
• Solar panels – More information about portable and fixed solar panels
• Heating systems – Hurricane and Mikuni heating systems discussed

Useful Links

Living on a Narrowboat: The REAL Cost of a Life Afloat – Narrowboat costs explained in detail. My own maintenance and living cost on narrowboat James for a full year. Use this information to work out your own costs.
Find out what parts of the canal are closed and for how long. Essential cruising information for you.
Do you need to find a home for your boat? Here’s a comprehensive list of the narrowboat friendly marinas in the UK
Do you want to see where these marinas are on a map? Here it is.
Here’s a map of all the canals on the system to help you plan your route.
Newsletter Archive – Browse through a wealth of useful content in the newsletters over the last year.