Building An Aluminium Narrowboat – Part 4

Continued from part 3

I return again with my wife, because today is the day for choosing carpets, seat materials, and curtain colours, so lots of decisions to be made.

Paul had also previously asked about how I wanted the boat painted.  Today I give him a photograph of my old boat, which had red side panels with a yellow coach-line around, the rest of the sides green, and with red hand-rails and a green (anti-slip) top.  I liked the colours of that boat, and I still do.  “Like that”, I say.  Easy.

My new boat had been moved to a more convenient position closer to Nigel the joiner’s work-bench, parallel to another two boats under construction.

Mine is the furthest away, and before you ask, I haven’t specified a lookout’s bench, that’s just a handy place for Nigel to keep his steps.

When I look at that photograph closely I see that the top hand-rails don’t meet in the middle on any of the boats.  The reason I’m given is that it is so the ropes from the central bollard can pass through the gap.  Couldn’t it just pass under a joined-up rail?  I never see the logic in that !

Today the construction of the tops of the dinette under-seat storage units was nearing completion.

The units will later be raised by about 7 inches when the false floor of the entire “raised pullman dinette” is installed, thus increasing substantially the storage space underneath, including a wine-store under the raised floor between the bench-seats, accessible by raising flaps.

Note the silver-topped box between the two dinette seats, and next to the drill.  This is a rubbish bin which Paul has sourced, and will be fitted under the nearest dinette seat, and will pull out into the corridor, on rollers.  It actually contains TWO fair-sized rubbish bins, a useful concept in these days of recycling.

The cardboard box on the far dinette seat contains a Dimplex fan heater which I had brought with me.  I have asked for it to be fitted in a bow-facing central location in the front of the seat on which it is perched, and will be a backup source of quick heat for the lounge when on shore-power.

Something has appeared in my boat which wasn’t there last visit:-

This beast is a 350 litre (approximately) stainless-steel water-tank and is to be fitted in the similarly-shaped space underneath the bow-deck.  It was pressure-tested after manufacture.  The fill pipe is on the right, and then there are two others close together.  One is the breather (B) and the other Flow (F)

What we can’t see are the strengthening baffle plates within the tank (which also reduce water-surging) and an additional outlet for the water gauge pipe.

One thing I wondered about ever since I read the build specification of a modern Sea Otter Boat…… when everything metal is made of aluminium, why is the water-tank made of stainless steel ?  If you know the answer to this already, I take my hat off to you.  If you don’t here’s a clue to the answer :

Earlier Sea Otter Boats WERE fitted with aluminium water-tanks !  But if the boats were left for a while without being used, sometimes white crystals up to 5mm wide were found in the water-pump inlet filter, and sometimes they built up and completely blocked the pump filter.

Answer.  The crystals were aluminium chloride, produced when Chlorine (introduced into the tank as a constituent of drinking water) reacted with the aluminium that the tank was made from.  So that’s why they changed to stainless steel for the water tank.

Something else has appeared in the bow of my boat.  Just in front of the water-tank you may notice a raised square-shaped aluminium structure.  I’m told this is the lower part of what will be a “coffer-tank”.   I’m not sure what one of those is, but the answer was forthcoming from Paul :-

An aluminium tank designed to hold water will be built up from that frame, to a height of perhaps a foot or so, and inside that tank my bow-thruster will be located.  Whatever the exact measurements are, the top of the tank will be designed to be above the level of the water outside in the canal.  (That’s the clue.)  So, if anything goes wrong with the bow-thruster or the associated seals, causing water to leak, that water will stop flowing by the time it reaches the top of the “coffer-tank”.  In other words, it could save my boat from flooding.

Just before I leave my boat I notice a new flap at the stern.

This is the bilge access point which I mentioned in my last report.  It isn’t very deep, but the aluminium plate below is the base-plate of the boat, and this is the lowest point in the bilge, though as my reader will know, there is a v-shaped hull below that base-plate.

You may notice the black heat-trace wire securely sandwiched between the hot & cold water pipes.

On the way to the office from the boat I’m shown a cooker which is about to be fitted to one of the other new boats.  I’ll be having the same model.  No problem, it ticks all my boxes, such as electric ignition to oven as well as hob, pan storage beneath (thus providing more space in the kitchen cupboards for other things) and a (mirrored) glass top which looks good and provides an additional kitchen work surface when the hob is not in use.

There are samples of seating material laid out in the office.  We quickly choose our favourite (we had a preview of them on out very first visit to Sea Otter Boats) and choose a contrasting coloured material for the curtains from another sample book.

I ask for the seats (for the lounge & dinette seats) to be covered in the chosen material on both sides, so if a stain occurs the seat can simply be turned over.  I also ask for some spare material.

We then visit Paul’s carpet supplier to choose a suitable colour and quality.  We end up NOT choosing a rubber-backed one because we didn’t like any of them, but we’ll be having suitable underlay fitted anyway.

This might sound very obvious, even naïve, but one thing I learned this day was to look at the carpet samples outside !  Some of those that we liked “inside” appeared a totally different colour when viewed in the natural light of day.

On the way in his car we discuss the ventilation of boat cupboards.  I have read that some other boat-builders provide air-grills in all cupboard doors, presumably to avoid condensation & subsequent dampness problems.  Paul tells me that they have never had an issue with dampness in any of their boat cupboards, perhaps due to the care they take with the insulation of the sides & roof & floor areas.  I decide to go with the flow on this, and will only fit them myself later if I experience any problems. [I did and I did ! ]

 15th of February 2011.

The first thing I notice is that my water-tank has been re-located to its permanent home under the bow-deck.  The top fill pipe has been connected to the filler cap assembly above.  The breather (“B”) is connected to the outside, and a tap has been added to the outlet (“F” for flow).  And another connection is for the water gauge.

I am impressed with the location of the water level gauge.  I took this photograph from inside the boat, and I’m looking through what will be the portside window in the forward lounge bulkhead.  (The bow door is on my right).  The level is clearly visible from inside the boat, and it is of-course also clearly visible to the person outside filling the tank.

At first I wasn’t so impressed with the position of the water filler cap.  That’s it, covered with masking tape, and in the centre of the photograph.  I expected it to be tucked away in a locker.  Won’t it gather dirt and be difficult to clean off before filling up ?

But when I think about it, whenever I had to gain access to the filler in my previous boat, I had to half empty the locker of its contents first.  And then many-a-time I ended up flooding the locker.  And, as you prepare to fill up, seeing as how you’ve got a water-hose in your hand anyway, it’s an easy enough job to clean any accumulated dirt from around the filler first.  And it is raised up from the surface of the floor to stop bits getting in.  It’s beginning to grow on me.

I had been so pre-occupied with the bow end of the boat that I hadn’t noticed that the floor of the boat was now covered with vinyl / lino.

This prompted us to consider how many layers will be underfoot in my boat !  The answer we come up with is  9 !

1)     First there’s the external frame of the v-hull (6mm)
2)     Then a layer of semi-trapped water within the V-shaped hull
3)     Then the flat aluminium base-plat (8mm)
4)     Then an air-space with strengthening rails & possibly concrete ballast on the starboard side
5)     Then the ply-wood flooring (18mm)
6)     Then this layer of vinyl
7)     Then there is to be a layer of carpet underlay
8)     Then the carpet
9)     And, knowing me as I do, a protective rug or runner (or two) on the top.

I don’t like cold feet.

Masking tape had been stuck to the lino to mark out the floor-plan.  The two vertical aluminium panels represent the bulkheads either side of the kitchen.  We can make sense of the plan from this photograph up to the kitchen.  The mid-line can be ignored for this purpose.

I was standing in the lounge when I took the photograph.  The nearest horizontal line (as it appears on the photograph) represents where the settees will go up to (one on either side of the lounge).   The space between the first & second horizontal line represents the space required to change the corridor from the starboard side (on the left looking at this photograph) to between the aforementioned settees in the lounge.  (On the portside this space will also allow access to cupboards under the forward dinette seats, and for guests to store their bags)

The space between the next two lines will be the forward seating area of the “Pullman dinette”, the next will be where the table will be, and the next, the far dinette seats.  Then there’s the kitchen area, in which the positions of the kitchen cabinets can be made out.

As you know I’m having carpet up to the gunnels, but those vertical aluminium strenghening box-sections on either side of the boat will not be carpeted, but instead boxed in with wood, which will hopefully contrast quite nicely with the adjacent carpet.

Before I leave Sea Otter Boats today, I’m shown to an upstairs workshop in which my furniture is being made.   This is to be the corner “TV cabinet” in the lounge, and the end of the bed frame just appears on the right of the photograph.   Good quality plywood throughout.  No MDF.

As I leave Paul slips me two free tickets for the Birmingam boat show, and we arrange my next visit for two weeks time.

Continued in part 5

Building An Aluminium Narrowboat – Part 3

Continued from part two

20th of January 2011

Again I’m impressed by the progress made since my last visit just a few weeks ago, particularly considering the festive period fell within that time.

The most obvious difference from the outside is that all ten of the curved-top holes for the windows have been cut out, as have the two round holes for the large portholes.  The side-hatch doors (later to be glazed) have been fitted.

As I step onto the bow I realise how much work has been done in this area too.

The deck is in, and so too are the lockers. The shapes of the bulkhead windows (on either side of the bow doors) have been cut out, and the bow-doors installed.  As discussed in the planning stage, “stable-doors” had been constructed for me.  The lower sections will be useful when my grand-daughter reaches that dangerous crawling stage, and the upper sections can be opened right back against the bulk-head  They can be leant back against, whilst sitting on top of those lockers.  Just what I ordered.

As I step through the bow door, I see that, even with the roof now on the boat, and still being under the roof of the factory, the boat is impressively light inside.

The internal wooden surrounds to all the windows & portholes are fitted neatly, (the final panelling and internal polished wooden window frames will be installed later) and the foam insulation sheets are in place throughout the inside of the boat.

The wires that run from stern to bow (such as those for the bow-thruster) have already been safely installed within that aluminium box section visible half-way down the side of the boat.  There’s no chance of a stray screw piercing them.

The pipes that carry cold & hot water from the bow water tank and from the calorifier respectively are in place.  Sea Otter use flexible plastic pipe, for most purposes, not HEP.

In the photograph above of the porthole and pipe-work in what is to be the bathroom, you’ll see that the newly cut ends of all the water pipes have been covered with masking tape.  This is to avoid small pieces of insulation (and there’s plenty of those about ! ) getting trapped in the pipes, which would cause plumbing problems later.  They’ve learnt that from a past experience !

I’ve mentioned trace-heating.  It’s a wire that warms up as 240v is passed through it.  It is used in conjunction with a thermostat, and it keeps the water-pipes warm in freezing conditions.  I had ordered that from my supplier previously, and I have brought it with me.  I did intend fitting it myself, but they weren’t quite ready for that, so it was decided that John would fit it the following day.  I leave them to it, and I’m due back in 5 days time.

25th of January 2011.

John the electrician has been very busy !

Wires are hanging down and sticking out from everywhere !  Apparently I’ve specified so many 240v sockets there’s got to be three ring-mains.

More of the additional wiring is being fitted by electrician John during my visit.

I’m pleased to see that the trace-heating has been fitted, and in a very sensible way too.  Where there is a single pipe (such as the blue cold-water pipe from the water tank to the kitchen) then the heat-trace wire has been taped to it.  Where there is a hot & cold pipe together (such as the route from the calorifier to the bathroom) then the heat-trace has been taped in position between both the pipes.  This reduces the length of the heat-trace wire required to a minimum.

The following photograph shows the black heat-trace wire attached to the pipes in what will be the kitchen.  In other areas more “spare” heat-trace wire has been left, for example, to wrap around the shower pump at a later stage.

A few other things were discussed that day.

I’m a bit fussy when it comes to diesel filler caps.  I obviously want a lockable one to help protect the valuable contents of my tank from thieves, but I also want to reduce the chances of water ingress through it.  (We read more & more about problems caused by diesel bug caused by water in the tank.)  I’ve seen some poor examples of lockable fuel filler caps sold for boats, some of which come complete with a clear warning that they aren’t waterproof ( by offering the advice that an additional water-trap should be fitted in the fuel-line after fitting ! )   I have a few ideas of my own, but I’m shown the type that Sea Otter Boats normally fit, and it ticks all the boxes.  The external top cover has no hole in it, and is domed so that water will run off, and completely covers the screw-holes with which the whole assembly is fitted.  It has two good seals.  The cap is positioned under a rod which fits through holes in the normal upturns around the fuel filler, and locked in position with a standard but good quality padlock.  That will do nicely.

As usual I leave very content with the progress and the discussions we’ve had, and will return in 8 days.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In between visits I choose my multi-fuel stove from the range on display at Midland Chandlers, Preston Brook Branch.  It is a Morso Squrrel 1410, which is the more “traditional” of the range.  It is also the cheapest of the Morso stoves that I see.  It has the lowest heat output too.  (That suits me because from my experiences of man sharing boat with stove on well-insulated boat, the biggest problem is man overheating.)  It is NOT one of the new “cleanheat” range.  (I’m told that the flue in a narrowboat cannot be long enough for the “cleanheat” system to work efficiently.)  It hasn’t got the biggest front glass, or a lattice door, so it will be easier to keep the glass clean.  I’m told that it is one of the most easily controlled (because of the two variable air-vents regulators) and so a low combustion rate is easier to maintain through the night.    But, best of all it’s got a squirrel on both sides (they don’t all have) and I like squirrels.

As usual the staff at my Midland Chandlers branch are very helpful. They put a “fiiting kit” together for me, including flue, roof collar, chimney, rain-hat, bolts, sealant, lagging etc.  And two “lockgate fixing feet”.  Apparently these replace the back two feet that come with the stove.  These  have pre-drilled holes enabling the stove to be bolted down.  The stove, once secured, then complies with one of the latest boat safety rules.  I even treat myself to a companion set for when I’m on the boat alone.

I pay cash for everything, but Otter Boats previously negotiated the trade prices that I pay, so I’m happily acting as a courier and will deliver the stove to Sea Otter Boats at Chesterfield the very next day.

2nd of February 2011.

My trusty Mazda 323 knows it’s own way to Staveley (Chesterfield) now, and has even worked out a few short cuts.

Today we discuss bilge access.  They tell me that they provide this as standard on all their boats.  They show me a little flap near the stern steps in another boat being built, which provides access to the lowest point of the bilge, where leaking water from anywhere inside the boat will collect.  I should have known they’d have thought of that.  I intend dropping a simple battery operated water detector probe into this space later, so I’ll receive a very loud audible warning if it gets wet down there.  I’ve used these water detectors before (and I sell them to RCR) and I think everyone should have at least one !  They’re a very affordable early warning device.

I know a bit about fridges, as in an earlier life I wholesaled spare parts for them.  I know the working bits produce heat, and normally that heat is trapped behind the fridge because there’s usually very little space behind it for the heat to escape.  So gradually the space behind the fridge gets warmer and warmer, and the fridge has to work harder and harder, and use more and more electricity (be it 12v or 240v), to cools itself inside.

The way to increase the efficiency of an overheated and overworked fridge is to provide the back of it with some ventilation.  I ask Anthony to make a note to drill me some holes through the floor and into the bilge, behind where the fridge will be.  And I ask for some more holes to be drilled through the wood at the side of the fridge. This will provide some useful ventilation.  But the ventilation can be improved considerably by the fitting a small fan to draw air into (or out of) the space behind the fridge, thus creating a draught. (A computer fan is ideal and can be bought cheaply from Maplin or on Ebay.)  Many 12v fridges have two very useful contacts on the compressor, to which the wires from the fan can be connected.  Wired this way the fan only operates when the compressor is working, thus saving valuable battery power.

A by-product is that the draught thus created can also help to keep the bilge aired.

I’ll likely pop another of those water-detectors down one of the bilge access points behind the fridge at a later time. [Eventually I fit 11 water detectors to my boat, but not soon enough !]

Our discussions are over for another day and I see my boat.

Nothing much has changed externally in the 8 days since my last visit, but inside, the internal panelling is almost complete.  There are two types of plywood panels being used. (No MDF whatsoever on a Sea Otter Boat)  If the panelling will be on view, they use “quality A”   If it’s not to be on view, they use “quality B”.

Starting from the roof there WILL be a central area of “quality A” panelling, which hasn’t been fitted yet.  On either side of that, just fitted and still being supported, we have an area of brown “quality B” panelling.  During my last visit I watched as all these browner panels were being sprayed in the paint-shop.  They will all eventually be covered with a cream vinyl headlining, and it is through this that the lights are fitted.   The foam roof insulation at the top front left is just about to be covered by another panel of “quality B”.

Moving vertically down the side of the boat there is a layer of “quality A” panelling surrounding the windows and portholes.  This has a very nice light ash veneer, and has been previously sprayed with varnish to a very shiny finish.  Every panel has been chosen so that the grain matches that of its neighbour.

Below that we have the gunnels, and below that a layer of “quality B” panelling.  If you have read all my progress reports, you’ll know I’m going back in time and having carpet fitted up to the gunnels.  It would therefore be somewhat of a waste to use ”quality A” panelling when its going to be covered in carpet.  Sea Otter Boats are not going to charge me for the extra carpet they’ll need, because they save money by fitting the cheaper “quality B” panelling in this area.  Another mutually beneficial arrangement.

You’ll see two aluminium plates sticking out from the left hand (portside) wall.  These represent the bulkheads on either side of the kitchen.  Towards the camera from the nearest aluminium plate, you’ll see the water-pipes for the wash-basin, and you’ll observe the black “heat-trace” wire coiled up amongst them.  The reason there’s so much “spare” there is because it will need to stretch to the shower pump, and coil around it, to protect the contents from freezing in the winter.  Closer still to the camera are the water pipes for the shower.

I leave for home after another satisfying visit, and will return in 6 days.

Continued in part 4

Winter pleasures

My first winter afloat and  so far it’s not been a really cold one but still it is a test of coping with the dark nights in a confined space and keeping warm.

Keeping warm? Friends still ask if it’s cold on a boat and I suppose it’s a fair question seeing how we are sat upon the water in a steel tube but the truth is from the other direction. I’m sat here with my fire just ticking over and it’s showing 21C on the thermometer. I must admit when looking at boats I wasn’t to bothered if it had a coal fire or not but now I’m in the midst of winter and have got the hang of keeping the fire in for 14 hours or sometimes a little more when I’m at work and how much better it warms up the boat than the gas central heating I would certainly recommend one to anyone buying a boat to live on.

I know there haven’t been too many frosty mornings but when you step out or open the curtains and the jetties are covered in frost and the sunrise is lighting the sky it is really a joy to behold. Even opening the canopy at 5 am to go to work there have been mornings when I’ve looke up at the stars and the moon shining on the water and realised I am one lucky man and it’s still a pleasure and a privilege come home sometimes and just stop and look out over the marina and think “I live here. This is my home”.

I nearly got knocked over by a kingfisher as I was walking on the jetty to my boat and it just flew past me and shot off. They really are a wonder to behold and this one is a regular visitor to the marina. The colours are just so vivid.

I don’t think there has been much that has got me down, maybe a little down with being in a small space with the curtains closed and seeing no real daylight when I’m working. I work 4 on and 4 off doing 12 hour shifts. However the days off are great to get a few jobs done. I’ve just installed a new LED light fitting to replace one of my old 2D flourescen tubes which are starting to act up a little and be a bit dim. They might be the original fittings I think from 20 years ago when she was built.

It’s a bit frightening really this DIY stuff has I’ve avoided it and never wanted to have anything to do with it till now and yet I’m starting to look at jobs and think well I might have a go at that and then spending time thinking how to accomplish it. I talk to people about these things and learn what I can from their wealth of good ideas.

I’ve learned more this year about engines and stoves and windows and lighting and other mysterious stuff than I ever did in 10 of my previous years. It may continue too as it does also save you some money. Never a bad thing is that.

Right time to pout another whisky and then an early night and see what tomorrow brings.

Take care out there.

Nige

2014 02 09 Newsletter – Building An Aluminium Narrowboat

I’m sending this newsletter out today courtesy of an internet cafe at the rear of a general grocery store in La Carlota on the island of Negros about 500km south of Manilla.

I’ve been on the island since Monday after spending a couple of days in frantic, filthy Manilla. In contrast with a city housing in excess of ten million people and all the noise and overcrowding which accompanies so many people, my current home is a million miles from anywhere and tranquil too.

As I write this I can hear branches, collected this morning from the forest which borders the house, crackle and spit as they heat water for our evening shower. I can hear the mountain stream tumbling down the rocks at the bottom of the garden, water from the same stream bubbling into a plastic dustbin which serves as the home’s water tank in the “bathroom” and quiet Tagalog from Sally and her two sisters as they sit chatting in the balmy darkness.

The family are poor and lead a simple life devoid of many of the essentials we take for granted in the west. They have a television but it only receives one channel, a channel so hazy that no one watches it. The house water supply is piped directly from a mountain stream. There’s no hot water and no kitchen inside the house.

There is, of course, no internet. No one in the family has a computer, nor any interest in owning one. Most of the family have mobile phones. You would recognise them. They’re the ones you threw away five years ago. A “smart” phone here is one which can actually find a signal.

There’s no internet here so I have had to travel to the local town to use the services there. The distance is 20km and the transport is a motorbike and side car. How many paying passengers do you think you can get on and around a 150cc motor bike?

Two? Three? How about twelve. I kid you not.

There are ten work stations in the internet cafe. They’re currently all in use, all by local Philippinos who like to make visits to the internet cafe a family affair. At the moment there’s a little girl sitting on the arm of the chair being used by the lady next to me. She’s just finished eating a very sticky cake. Now she’s trying to fit her finger, and the remains of the cake, in my left ear. I’ll try to finish this bit of the newsletter before she succeeds.

Because each visit to the internet cafe involves a one and a half hour round trip and because the connection on the computers in the cafe is so slow I can drink a coke and eat a packet of peanuts before a page loads, I’ve struggled to add all the content to this week’s newsletter I originally intended.

I suspected that I might face connectivity problems before we left for the Philippines, so like the good boy scout I never was, I prepared some content in advance but I’ve also been recording my experiences each day I’ve been here.

I know a holiday in the Philippines has nothing to do with narrowboats, but it has quite a lot to do with the way of life. Many people who visit the site looking for information about living afloat are doing so, not necessarily because they love the thought of life on the water, but because they want to escape the stressful life they lead in their traditional bricks and mortar home in the UK.

I suspect that there are just as many people looking for a low cost alternative lifestyle in third world countries as there are looking for a floating home on the UK’s inland waterways. If you’re one of them, maybe you’ll find my holiday blog useful. If not, I hope you find it an interesting read anyway.

Here’s the blog so far.

MaxMon Boat Monitoring

I’m going to try to give you as much information as possible here but I suspect I’ll need to make this section quite brief. I wrote as much of the newsletter as I could offline knowing that working in a crowded and very noisy internet cafe would be a challenge. I’m not at the internet cafe I started at. It’s a Sunday and it’s closed for the day. I’ve had to move to one which serves as gaming stations for some overexcited, and very loud, little boys. I’m about either strangle the one who is shouting in my ear, or leave. I don’t know which at the moment.

I’ve been receiving regular daily reports from the MaxMon application. They are immensely reassuring. I know that the boat is where I left it, but I expected that. The reports I received indicated that I still had power to the boat. The reports also showed that, most importantly as far as I’m concerned, the temperature inside the boat has been high enough for me not to worry about any frost damage.

I received an alert on Thursday. I emailed Caclutt and was told that the power outage was site-wide so there was nothing to worry about. The I stopped receiving MaxMon reports completely.

I emailed Calcutt Boats again. Their WiFi is down at the moment. I’m waiting for a reply to find out when it’s back up and running. I’m going to have to go in a minute. The noisy little s**t next to me has brought in reinforcements. I was wrong. He does have parents. They’ve just arrived and are every bit as vocal as he is. I wonder what the penalty is here for mass murder.

Just before I go in search of an axe, I’ve added two of the graphs which are included with every MaxMon report. The first is the humidity. You can see that it’s pretty stable at just over 50%. The other is the temperature. Again, and reassuringly, it’s pretty stable at about ten degrees.

That’s it. I can’t stand any more. I’m off!

Sea Otter Build Blog

Here’s some of the content I prepared earlier.  Newsletter subscriber Brian Colling has a 57′ narrowboat he’s had built from scratch. It’s slightly unusual because it’s made from aluminium. It’s the second narrowboat Brian’s owned. He felt that he spent too much time and too much money protecting the first one from rust. He chose an aluminium boat to remove rust as an issue.

Brian has kept a very detailed account of the build. Here are the first two parts. I hope you find them as interesting as I have.

Helpful Hints

A Month In Paradise

An Unpleasant Arrival

We left for the airport with remarkably little luggage. I suppose one of the benefits of living on a narrowboat is that you get used to needing very little and have few aspirations to “live it large” if you ever go away. All we had with us was a sports bag sized holdall and a carry on bag each. Sally’s carry on bag had all of the usual things you need when you’re travelling from one climate to another; thick fleece and hat for the UK, sun tan lotion and shades for Manilla, and a book for Sally plus a Kindle for me (loaded with half a dozen recently acquired books and guides on the Philippines).

The journey was everything I expected it to be; tiring, uncomfortable, cramped and boring, but the planes were on time and the stopover at Hong Hong brief and without incident. We lost eight hours somewhere along the route so after a journey mostly spent trying to get some sleep, we arrived in Manilla just before bed time.

I don’t like Manila. It’s everything I love being away from on the boat.

Manila is incredibly crowded and it’s very, very noisy. Every car driver and every motor cycle and scooter owner know where their horn is and they know how to use it, The blare of horns would be annoying enough, but you can’t really hear them over the vehicle and people noise.

The streets swarm with public transport. Traditional taxis are everywhere but they compete with privately owned jeepneys and tricycles. The jeepneys are modelled on second world war long wheelbase jeeps. They’re often hand decorated, old and battered and have an open entrance at the rear and a bench seat either side backing on to glassless windows. The tricycles are bicycles or motorbikes with covered side cars displaying hand written decorations. All of the vehicles for hire weave erratically from lane to lane with little regard for each other or for pedestrians.

In addition to being noisy, Manila is also both scruffy and dirty. Toothless crones and stick thin men walk along lines of traffic-stopped cars offering wares which no one wants. I saw several invalid beggars lurch towards waiting cars at traffic lights extending twisted hands, hoping fruitlessly for a peso or two. No one paid them any attention.

At night homeless children sleep on dirty blankets spread on the filthy pavements beside dropped litter and discarded food. Tricycle owners sleep in their side cars. Bare, dirt encrusted feet poke out of the glassless windows of the owners’ tiny shelters.

Manila doesn’t give a very good first impression of the mostly beautiful Philippines.

Sally had booked the Rothman hotel for the night. She always stays a night in Manila when she returns home. It’s a chance to recover from the tiring flight from the UK. On this occasion she booked a hotel for two nights so she could show me the sights.

After a couple of post flight San Miguels in the hotel café and a catch up on my emails courtesy of the café’s free WiFi, we had an early night to compensate for two hour’s sleep during the overnight flight.

In the morning I enjoyed my first Filippino breakfast. The breakfast included two fried eggs. The eggs were the only link to any other breakfast I’ve ever had. The other components were garlic rice, sweet and lightly spiced sausages and thin strips of beef in a garlic, chilli and ginger marinade. It was delicious but normally something I would expect to eat at the end of the day.

After breakfast we spent the day at the Mall Of Asia. It’s the nineteenth largest shopping mall in the world and was just half an hour’s taxi ride from our hotel in central Manilla.

The highlight for me was the SM superstore. I don’t generally enjoy clothes shopping but the SM store was enormous and full of brightly coloured and very well made clothing. Everything was ridiculously cheap. I bought five very high quality shirts for just forty five pounds. They would have cost at least three times as much in the UK.

The following morning we flew forty five minutes from Manila’s domestic airport to Bacolod on the island of Negros

We traveled back from the airport with Sally’s sister Corizon and her husband Gill (pronounced “Hill” in the Spanish fashion) and Soy who drove the jeep which Corizon had hired for the day.

What a difference from Manilla. The airport is surrounded by sugar cane fields and very little else. In fact, much of the traffic we passed as we drove away from the terminal was trucks overloaded with freshly cut cane.

The same rules of the road apply on Negros as they do in Manila; you drive on the right… most of the time and use your horn to indicate to traffic around you what you are doing. A quick toot of the horn means that you’re about to overtake a slowly moving heavily laden truck in the face of oncoming traffic on a bend while going uphill. A long blast of the horn means that both you and the oncoming vehicle realise you aren’t going to make it and that you need to take immediate evasive action.

The system seems to work. At least it did for us on this particular journey but I understand that many, many Filippino drivers aren’t quite so lucky.

We passed mango orchids with trees bowed down under the weight of ripe yellow fruit, weathered and skeletal farm workers staggering under the weight of impossibly large loads of sugar cane, banana and coconut trees by the thousand, rambutan and papaya and a grove of trees with odd looking fruit like elongated pears which I couldn’t identify.

We had been traveling for about an hour when we were stopped by a policeman who, as usual, was equipped for war with both a pistol and a pump action shotgun.

He told us that the road ahead was closed and that we would need to follow a diversion. He pointed down an unmade track just large enough for our jeep and not quite large enough for the coach in front of us.

With some pretty nifty manoeuvring by the driver, and some equally nifty footwork by the street’s residents whose corrugated iron shacks were inches from the coach’s wheels, the coach inched along the lane until it came to the low hanging power lines crossing the road.

Naturally, I expected chaos as the bus driver realised the danger of trying to move any further forward. Normal rules don’t apply here though so the conductor simply climbed onto the roof, lifted the cables above the coach roof with a branch he’d found at the side of the road and stamped his foot to indicate that the way was clear!

Shortly afterwards we stopped for something to eat at a roadside café. Filippinos have rice with everything so we had chicken and pork kebabs with a dollop of boiled rice and a glass of iced tea.

I was just getting over the surprise of seeing most of our party eating dinner, including the rice,  with their fingers, when I noticed one of the young café workers heading our way with a mop bucket cradled protectively under his arm. Nothing wrong with keeping the place clean I thought to myself… just before he reached into the mop bucket with his glove covered hand, had a quick fiddle, and plopped a nicely rounded ball of still steaming rice on my plate.

We continued to La Carlota through a beautiful landscape of low hills and fields full of rice and sugar, regularly passing corrugated roadside stalls offering fresh fruit for sale, stalls which doubled as homes for the vendors.

We stopped of at La Carlota to buy some food for the next few days, and to stock up on rice. Buying rice is a bit more of an ordeal in the Philippines than it is in the UK. Whenever I’ve bought rice in the past, it’s been a pack of Uncle Ben’s boil in the bag sachets and I can honestly say that getting it home hasn’t really taxed me physically.

I couldn’t understand what was being said in the jeep because everyone was speaking Tagalog but I knew something was afoot when Gill kept glancing in my direction and giggling. Sally translated for me. She said that Gill wanted to know if I could carry the rice to the jeep for him. Of course, I agreed. What I didn’t know was that their bags of rice are a little bigger than ours.

The bag of rice weighed 50kg, 110lbs or eight stone. No problem I thought, the rice sack was only a couple of feet from the jeep boot so lifting it wouldn’t be too painful. I bent down to pick it up but Gill stopped me. The man mountain shop owner picked it up instead and slung it in the back of the vehicle.

Gill was still winding me up on the rest of the journey to the house. He pointed out that lifting the rice was no problem for him because he spent all day, every day lifting huge and weighty bundles of sugar cane. My manly pride was taking a battering so I offered to carry the rice in to the house for him. He laughed even louder and agreed.

Now I have to admit at this stage I had probably made a schoolboy error. I hadn’t actually been to the house before. I assumed that we’d pull into a driveway which would be a couple of feet from wherever the jumbo sack of rice needed taking.

The car stopped next to an alley. Corazon pointed down the alley indicating that the house was there somewhere so, with all the occupants of the car and a handful of local residents watching, I hoisted the dead weight onto my shoulder and tried not to stagger as I negotiated the alley’s mud and rock floor.

I walked down the alley, round a corner and round another to where the alley opened up and became a steep, muddy and very slippery track.

The house was actually 300m away from the road. By the time I was within sight of the house, my face was bright red, I was panting like a steam train and my legs were shaking so badly I thought they were going to give way.

Gill’s son came to the rescue. He’s fourteen and built like a whippet. He casually took the sack from me with one arm and skipped the rest of the way to the house without raising a sweat. These little Filippino fellas are stronger than they look. It’ll be a while before I underestimate one again.

Sally’s Place – 1st Impressions

When the stars before my eyes finally receded I was able to see the place which will be home for the next two and a half weeks.

It’s beautiful. It’s odd. I love it.

For a start the house is painted vivid orange but it really suits the semi tropical location. The main part of the house is just two bedrooms and a lounge area, beautifully tiled and spotlessly clean. Twenty feet from the house is the kitchen, the “dirty kitchen” as it’s known.

It’s timber and bamboo construction with a corrugated steel roof. There’s a large dining area with an adjoining kitchen. Cooking is done with traditional pots and pans but the heat is provided by a real wood fire. Fuel for the fire is collected from the forest which borders the property.

The property has a plentiful supply of crystal clear ice cold mountain water, but no hot water. Hot water for washing people and dishes is provided courtesy of a cauldron heated over the fire for at least half an hour.

Corazon, Gill and their three teenage sons don’t bother with hot water for washing. They aren’t as soft as European me and Europe softened Sally. They bathe in ice cold water all year round.

There isn’t actually a bathroom in the property. Behind and below the kitchen is a corrugated shed which is fed by the cold water supply which comes into the property in the kitchen. When the family want water in the kitchen, they pull the pipe apart which runs from the kitchen to the bathroom, which allows water to flow continuously into the kitchen sink. When they want water in the bathroom, they rejoin the pipe which allows water to flow into the bathroom but cuts off the kitchen.

The bathroom has a conventional toilet but the cistern needs to be filled with a jug from a plastic dustbin which is kept topped up by the cold water pipe running from the kitchen.

In order for Sally and I to have a hot “shower” the dustbin is half emptied then topped up with scalding water from the cauldron. The shower is achieved by using the same jug which is used to top up the toilet but rather than topping up the cistern with cold water, it’s dipped into the now nearly hot water in the bin and poured over your head.

Night time toilet visits are a bit of a challenge because they involve negotiating an unfamiliar house in total darkness (and I do mean total darkness) to find the front door, then negotiate  an uneven and steeply sloping mud and stone pathway thirty feet to the bathroom.

I love it.

After an early evening meal of chicken and rice and a solitary bottle of San Miguel for me, no one else drinks so I couldn’t raise the enthusiasm to drink any more, we had another early night.

I lay in bed listening to the unfamiliar night time noises; the ever present barking of numerous semi domestic dogs nearby, cocks continuously crowing, rushing water through the stream at the bottom of the garden and the unusual sound of a Filippino frog.

Ever since I met Sally nearly three years ago she’s been telling me that frogs in the Philippines speak differently from those in the UK. Rather than Rib-Bip, Rib-Bip, they say Cock-Cuck, Cock-Cuck. I’m afraid to admit that I didn’t believe her… until last night.

She’s absolutely right and what a wonderful sound it is. If Gill and Corazon have their way though, they won’t be making that noise for much longer.

They want me to try the local frogs. They’re a delicacy. They regularly catch, kill and cook the local  frogs which are about ten times the size of the UK variety. I’m going down to the stream this evening when no one’s looking to scare them all away.

On Wednesday morning we had breakfast, the leftovers from the night before plus another couple of mounds of fresh fluffy rice, before planning to go out for the day.

Sally and I planned to hire a tricycle to take us into La Carlota so I could use an internet cafe and Sally could do some shopping with her sister. Before we left though Sally and I needed to have our morning constitutional, which presented us with a bit of a problem.

The family are poor, so they don’t waste money on things they don’t really need. One of the things they don’t need is toilet paper. I haven’t yet got to the bottom of their solution (excuse the pun) to cleaning up afterwards, but I can’t imagine it’s something either Sally or I want to embrace while we’re here.

Sally sent a grinning teenager to go out in search of some toilet paper for us. He returned twenty minutes later with a single roll. He had been to three of the local shops. Two didn’t stock it at all. The single roll was the entire stock from the third shop.

All the family crowded round to examine the toilet paper and marvel at the westerners who were prepared to squander money so readily.

A Communal Shopping Trip

I needed to go into La Carlota to spend a couple of hours in an internet café. Sally wanted to come with me so she could enjoy some low cost pampering having her nails done. As her sister doesn’t have a car, we had to rely on public transport. The only public transportation available from the village are tricycles. They’re plentiful, reliable, extremely cheap and an unrivalled opportunity to get very close to a cross section of other villagers.

The tricycles are 100-150cc motor bikes with glorified side cars. When Sally initially suggested using one, knowing that Sally’s sister wanted to come with us, I asked her how we would be able to fit three of us in addition to the driver on a small motor bike. She just grinned and said that she thought we’d all fit in.

What an experience!

For a start, the driver can never be described as being in a hurry. Ten minutes after we had climbed on board he was still honking his horn looking for more customers. There was certainly no shortage of them and he didn’t turn any away. Before we left the village there were actually ten of us crammed on and around him. It’s an opportunity to get closer to strangers than you’ll ever get on the London tube, even at rush hour.

Petrol isn’t cheap so the drivers do what they can to save money. The most obvious saving for them when starting a journey from the top of a steep hill is to keep the engine turned off and let gravity do the hard work. Unfortunately that means that they then only have a couple of worn out brakes to help keep ten passengers and their bike on a winding and rutted road.

Fortunately we didn’t have to free wheel all the way down the hill. We broke down. A number of excited pedestrians pointed out to the driver with great enthusiasm that we had a flat tyre. The driver pulled over to the side of the road. He tried to rectify the problem with a couple of kicks but it didn’t work.

We flagged down an empty passing tricycle, paid the driver two pesos for the two or three miles he had carried us and climbed on to our new transport. The full fifteen mile journey cost twenty pesos each (about 25p).

It was a was a wonderful journey through a rural landscape of low hills, a volcano mostly obscured by mist, mango orchards and acres and acres of sugar cane,

The sugar cane harvest was in full flow. High sided trucks were parked next to fields full of mummy wrapped men hacking at cane with machetes and piling jagged bundles into open backed carts pulled by water bison ridden horse like by their drivers.

Wednesday Evening

We had visitors on Wednesday evening. Sally’s sister Cora arrived with her husband Morito. They had come to see Sally for the first time in four years.

In the Filipinno tradition the ladies huddled in one corner after the evening meal and left the men to talk man stuff. The men on this particular occasion were fifty year old Morito and two of our host Corazon’s sons, twenty eight year old Syrel and nineteen year old Hilson.

Nearly all Filipinnos can speak some English. Most speak it very well. They tend to be quite shy though. These three were no exception. Even though I had been around Hilson for a couple of days he hadn’t spoken a word to me. I had been in the company of the other two for a couple of hours without a word spoken.

Before Sally left to join the other women she tried to encourage them to try out their English on me. The most confident of the three was Syrel. Sally harangued him in Tagalog and then after a long pause he launched into his opening attempt with a perfect “Do you smoke?”.

I didn’t help keep the conversation flowing with a conversation stopping “No!”

Sally gave us up as a lost cause and went to join the other ladies for more stimulating conversation. I tried a different approach and went with the universal aid to communication by pulling four bottles of ice cold San Miguel from the fridge.

The conversation improved in direct proportion to the number of bottle tops I removed. By the time round number six had been distributed we were getting along famously. Hilson brought a puzzle out for me to solve. It was a wooden knob on a flat base decorated with interlinked rope loops. The puzzle involved removing one of the loops whilst leaving the others in place.

After much hilarity over my futile attempts to remove it, Hilson showed me how to do it and then, pointing to the large wooden knob, confided that a friend of his had purchased something similar as a joke for his girlfriend. Hilson searched for the word in English. Syrel, sensing that he was struggling, helped him out. “It’s called A Penis,”. “Ah, that’s right,” said Hilson triumphantly, “Happiness!”.

I suppose there are many who would agree with him.

A Walk In The Woods

Thursday was picnic day. Sally told me that we were going to swim in a mountain pool a short walk away from the house. Ten of us set off in flip flops, swimming shorts, old T shirts and not much else.

The half hour walk turned out to be two hours, all of it uphill, initially on a rough potholed road and then on a mountain track. We passed a substantial banana plantation mainly devoid of bananas but there were enough about to warrant a couple of guys loading a shipment onto the back of a truck. Sally managed to persuade them to give us a couple of bunches. They were slightly smaller than the ones we usually see in the UK with a rich yellow and very sweet flesh. They were very welcome towards the end of a long walk uphill on a hot day.

We passed quite a few areas next to the road where hundreds of cockerels were tethered, each had their own territory and a shaded perch. They were all game farms breeding aggressive birds for cock fighting. Sally told me this just as we came to a section of the trail which passed perilously close to some of the tethered birds. We were treated to a chorus of cock-a-doodle-doos but otherwise they kept themselves to themselves.

The scenery was stunning; forested mountain sides, waterfalls tumbling hundreds of metres down glass smooth rocks, flowers of every shape, size and hue and a thousand shades of vivid, healthy green.

I’ve not done a huge amount of travelling in my life but I’ve always associated consistently hot countries with brown rather than green. I’ve been used to searing sun and parched dead looking grass, trees and shrubs. Everything on this island looks so very healthy.

In addition to the banana plantation, we passed mango, coconut, papaya, durian and jackfruit. Coffee beans fringed the road where they had been spread to dry in the sun.

When we arrived at the two pools of ice cold mountain water, there was no ceremony. All the party, men, women and children dived in fully clothed. Everyone apart from Sally and I was wearing normal day to day clothes rather than swimwear. We had picked up two more guests for the picnic as we walked to the pools, two elderly ladies sidetracked from a trip to the shops. They too waded neck deep in the cold water still wearing their long dresses.

We stayed at the pools for an hour, enjoyed a quick lunch of bottled coke and sweet bread rolls purchased from roadside stalls on the walk there, then headed further into the mountains to where we could view some spectacular falls.

The return 7km journey downhill was completed in about an hour and a half with just a brief stop to collect Kim. Kim is Gill’s one year old mongrel. There are a huge number of dogs here but they aren’t treated as loved pets as they are in the UK. I don’t really know why they keep dogs at all. They aren’t showed any affection, or even recognition, but they are everywhere, loosely attached to families and spending much of their time on or beside roads looking for food or laying in the sun.

When we first arrived at Gill’s house, Sally warned me to stay away from Kim. She said that it was wise to be wary of the Filippino dogs as they aren’t generally very friendly. I was cautious but I like dogs so I tried to get to know him.

Kim is just like most dogs I’ve encountered in the past. He responded nervously but enthusiastically to affection. Within a couple of days he was acting like any normal friendly pet dog in the UK. So much so that, instead of laying in the shade ignoring the people activity around him when we left the walk he, unknown to us, followed our group a mile up the hill before we spotted him.

Of course we didn’t have a dog lead with us. The family don’t even own one. Kim had never been for a walk before so he didn’t know how to conduct himself, didn’t know that he needed to stay away from the occasional vehicle roaring past and definitely didn’t know how to deal with the packs of stray dogs we came across. None of them paid any attention to people walking past, but as soon as they spotted a strange dog, there was a collective snarl as they closed in on terrified Kim.

We tried carrying him but the stray dogs still tried to get at him. As we were passing a relative’s house at the time, we decided to leave him there and collect him on the way back.

Kim was relaxed and happy to see us after his three hour rest in the shade of of a mango tree. The final leg of the journey was uneventful if a little surreal. The banana plantation on either side of the road was bordered by a high and neatly trimmed privet hedge.

The Daily Commute

Gill’s main source of income is from the care of a five acre plot of sugar cane. He supplements that income by driving a truck with collects sugar cane then takes it to the refinery. He usually has to wait for a day while the cane is cut by hand, then transported by water buffalo drawn cart to the road side where it is manually loaded. At the refinery the load is weighed and he is paid for the weight of the load transported. The truck owner receives 80% of the income. Gill gets the rest.

Tens of thousands of acres in the area are owned by a Chinese businessman. Because much of his land is sugar cane he can afford to use a harvester to cut the cane. The harvester can load a truck in minutes rather than the full day taken by manual workers. Naturally, transportation of this sugar cane is very popular with lorry drivers when they are paid by the load. Because transportation of harvester loaded sugar cane is so lucrative there’s fierce competition. Gill has to take every opportunity he can when the harvester is working.

For the last few days Gill has stayed with the truck night and day. Both Gill and his son eat, sleep and work from the small truck cab. They take a small sack of rice with them and cook it over a fire by the side of the field as they wait in line for the truck to be loaded. There are no facilities of any kind nearby so they have to take all the water they need with them for cooking, drinking and washing.

On a good day, they can transport three loads if they start at 6am and finish at midnight. Three loads over an eighteen hour day will earn Gill what a McDonald’s worker on minimum wage can earn in an hour in the UK for flipping burgers and looking gormless.

Three loads is a good day. The usual is one load and one load wouldn’t pay for the Starbuck’s coffee  which many stressed UK workers buy on the way into the office because they don’t have the time, energy or inclination to make and consume one before they leave home in the morning.

Gill’s wife looks after the home. It’s a task which takes far more effort in the Philippines than it does in the UK when everything needs to be done by hand. She also helps manage five acres of sugar cane.

On Friday, Sally and I went with Corizon and her sister Cora to inspect the cane. If you find commuting to work in the UK a bit of a chore, please think about Corizon next time the journey gets you down.

The first step was a 20km trip on an overcrowded tricycle into La Carlota. The tricycle dropped us off at the town’s bus station where we waited half an hour for a bus.

The bus journey took us an hour. There are no passenger number restrictions on the buses in the Philippines. If you can force your way on to the vehicle, it will take you wherever it’s going. The seats and the isle are usually packed. The seats are much smaller than they are on UK buses. In the same space you would expect two seats in the UK, there are three on the buses here. The seat sizes suit the usually much smaller frames of the Filippino passengers. Usually, but not always.

Sod’s law dictated that I had the pleasure of getting very close to two of the very few fat Filippinos I’ve encountered. Both were women and both had body parts normally reserved for much more intimate activities thrust against me for most of the journey.

So many people in such a small space generate a great deal of heat. It’s no so much a problem with the normally wide open windows but during heavy showers, which aren’t uncommon, the windows are closed and the heat becomes unbearable.

The bus deposited us in central Magallon. The journey was far from over. We then climbed into another tricycle for the last leg of the journey to the field. Picking the right tricycle driver for the final part of the journey is a bit of a lottery. The last few miles are along increasingly rough tracks. At some stage the tricycle driver will refuse to go any further so the rest of the journey has to be on foot.

Our tricycle driver dropped us off when the side car wheel disappeared in a deep truck rut and nearly overturned the vehicle. We then walked for forty five minutes along deeply rutted tracks. The only traffic was an occasional water buffalo drawn cart.

We passed a calf drinking from a stream. I asked Sally if it was a water buffalo. She didn’t know so she asked Cora. Cora told us that it wasn’t. I asked if she knew what it was as I hadn’t seen any bovine other than water buffalo since I arrived. I loved the answer. “It’s not a water buffalo yet but it will be when it grows up!”

The only sounds were the ever present cockerels crowing, the swishing of the wind in the sugar cane and, at complete odds with the surroundings, blaring rap music from a half derelict hillside shack.

Just before we reached the field, we passed four immaculately dressed schoolgirls walking from their remote homes to the nearest school three miles away. No school bus for them but they seemed happy enough, walking in the sunshine, talking girl talk and giggling at the odd looking European as he passed.

We reached the field hot and tired after a two and a half hour journey. A journey which the family have to make before they can start a day’s work. Of course they can’t spend five hours travelling every day and hope to complete a full day’s brutal work in the field so they often don’t go home.

They stay in the field for days at a time. They have built a sturdy raised bamboo shelter at the edge of the field. It’s a simple ten feet square room with shelves around the edges which allow both seating and sleeping.

In this small space both Cora and Corazon will live and sleep alongside four other labourers for four days at a time. All of the water for cooking, drinking and washing has to carried in, first by tricycle and then by foot. They cook on an open fire outside the shelter using wood collected locally. The field is their toilet.

In the photograph below, Sally and her two sisters are looking out over the rice field owned by a neighbour to the sugar cane they tend.

It’s a hard life.

Continued in part two

Building An Aluminium Narrowboat – Part 2

Continued from part one.

I return to Otter Boats on the 14th of December 2010 by which time some of the previously flat-packed aluminium panels had been joined and bent to produce a semblance of a water craft.  But most of the engineering work done so far had been in the construction of the V-shaped hull, as shown in the following photograph sent to me in the interim period by Anthony:-

The V-shaped hull, made from 6mm aluminium plate, is designed to allow water in and the water then acts as ballast.  The water enters through holes drilled into it, and completely fills it.  The hollow bow-post at the very front of the boat (doubling up as a “bumper” and on which is fixed the bow-fender) is eventually internally joined to the space in the V-hull.  As the V-hull fills with water, the misplaced air is forced up this tube, where it remains happily under slight pressure for as long as the boat floats.  To stop the water in the V-hull from surging from one end to another, or from side to side during unusual boat movements, there are specially designed baffle plates strategically positioned within it.  No additional ballast is normally required unless there is more weight (furniture, cookers, fridges etc) on either the port or starboard sides, in which case concrete ballast will be added to the opposite side to balance the boat.

Work is being done in the photograph to the cut-outs in the V-hull for the operation of the bow-thruster.

Later the V-hull was turned the right way up, thus exposing the flat 8mm base-plate, and more of the 8mm side-panels are positioned and welded into place, utilising several pre-constructed and temporarily inserted bulkhead-type templates.  These are to be removed later.

If you look closely you may observe the box channel through which the main electrical cables travel the length of the boat on the starboard side (On the right on this photograph).  Also, at the front of the photograph, lying on top of a bin, is an incomplete baffle plate of the type used within the V-hull, which shows well the shape of that hull.

The next photograph, taken the same day, shows the stage just before the 8mm side-plates are bent round to join the base plate at the stern.

Windows were discussed, and I opt for a nine curved-top-types, with lower-sliding panels.  The maximum number and sizes of windows is dictated by how much strength is removed from cutting out all that aluminium from the side panels, so I don’t get the biggest size available from the supplier’s catalogue. I specify an opening hopper in the curved top so they can be left open in some rainy weather without water ingress.  I choose a non-shiny “coated” finish rather than a shiny aluminium finish as I suspect the latter will show more marks.  I choose larger than normal hopper portholes, one for the bedroom and one for the shower-room, both portside.  The side-hatch will also have curved top glazing, actually one of the standard curved-top windows cut in two.

Anthony printed out the plan of my boat showing the positions & sizes of windows and radiators which I was required to sign, after which those positions are deemed to be “written in stone”.   This new formality follows a recent situation whereby they were asked to change the position of a port-hole after the hole for it had been cut out !  They are determined not to have to do that again. Fair enough.

More decisions had to be made regarding the positions of ceiling, wall, and reading lights, and 240  & 12 volt sockets.  Anthony prints out another boat-plan, and, with a highlighting pen marks on it where they would normally position such things.  I ask if I can keep it for a week, which I do.

I like sockets, and lots of them !  I don’t like plug-adaptors and trailing cables.  I added dozens of sockets to my last boat, both 12v and 240v, to avoid such things.

I return a week later with their electrical plan and a cheque for the second stage payment.  I tell them that there’s good news & bad news.  I presume from that they’ll think the bad news is that I’ve not brought the cheque as promised, but I hand that over as the good news and I hope they’re relieved.  I now produce the electrics plan which now more resembles an abstract painting created by flicking paint-laden brushes at it.  There are now 33 purple spots (representing twin mains sockets) and 14 pink spots (representing 12v sockets in addition to the 12v supplies for cooker ignition and fridge) and 23 yellow spots (representing ceiling lights) and 5 orange spots (representing wall / reading lights) and 9 blue spots (representing panel-lights), in addition to green & red spots (representing navigation lights) and finished off with a long orange streak in the engine bay (representing an LED strip-light).  There are no raised eye-brows as Anthony adds all my coloured spots to the computer master-copy and I’m certain it was a good plan to give them the cheque first.

We discussed loos.  I want to keep the plumbing as minimalistic as possible, specifically to simplify the fitting of trace-heating to the pipes at a later stage.  I would have been content with a porta-potti, but Paul showed me a fitted cassette-loo in another boat being built, and I was converted.  It was a very neat job, it was an integral part of the shower-room rather than a separate entity, and as it was a manual-fill type it did not require pipe-work to it. Best of both worlds as I see it.

I wanted to check what sort of calorifier I was getting.  The type they fit to a boat my size is of 60 litre capacity, made of stainless steel (because they’re less likely to give trouble), with twin coils (one to bring hot water from the engine, and the other to bring hot water from the Webasto diesel heater), and with a fitted immersion heater.  So no problem there.  But they don’t necessarily build the cupboard around it in such a way as to enable the later replacement of the calorifier if necessary, but they promise to work on that !

I finally get to see my boat, and I’m again amazed at how much progress has been made in just one week.  It has gained the full shape of a narrow-boat with both sides welded up.

As Paul talked me through the progress that had been made he mentioned that, because they had never fitted an intercalated (in-line) generator to a Nanni engine, they had decided to fit a second keel-cooling tank just in case additional engine cooling may be required.  And this (when asked) would be at no additional cost.  This is very typical of their “belt & braces” attitude to boat-building, and extremely comforting to me as a Sea Otter Boat buyer.

The construction of the roof was being completed as I watched. The aluminium sheets were being manually bent up to meet the shape of the pre-manufactured curved aluminium box-sections.  They were then clamped together, and then welded together.  So simple, but a lot of thought & pre-planning has obviously gone into the process.

Later that day the roof was turned the right way up utilising those big suckers on the gantry crane, and positioned in place over the boat.  I missed that stage but Anthony sent me a photograph of the action:-

Sea Otter Boats now close for Christmas holidays, and I’ll be back to see more progress in the New Year 2011…….

Continued in part three

Building An Aluminium Narrowboat – Part 1

Early June 2010

I’ve had one narrow-boat, a 55′ cruiser-stern Liverpool Boat.  I did a great deal of work on that, most of it involving rust removal or rust prevention, and I found that my efforts would need to be ongoing if it was to remain in reasonable condition.  The worst two jobs were the bottom-blacking every two or three years (combined with the associated replacement of anodes), and the painting of the inside of the steel water-tank, without doubt, in my opinion, the very worst chore.

I decided on a change of boat last year.  There were to be two priorities.  With a grand-child imminent, I wanted a “semi-traditional stern”, which provides a safer haven for youngsters than a cruiser stern.  And with older age imminent, I wanted less maintenance work.

A visit to Sea Otter at Staveley, (between Chesterfield & M1) in early July 2010 seemed like a good idea.  They build narrow-boats out of marine-grade aluminium alloy.  So no rust and no blacking.  No electrolytic action below the waterline ( * ) so no anodes to replace.  And with a stainless steel water tank, no painting.

( *  There are no dissimilar metals in contact with the hull below the waterline on a Sea Otter Boat.  All stern gear runs through a phenolic cutlass bearing. The stainless rudder and stock run through MDPE bearings. Any below-the-water-line fittings that may be dissimilar are fitted with a polyurethane gasket. None of these conduct electricity. Because there are no dissimilar metals in close proximity, no electrolysis can occur.)

In early June 2010 I met up with brothers Anthony (who I had earlier met at the Birmingham Boat Show) & Paul, who now run the business between them.  It was started by their uncle 17 years ago.

After preliminary discussions with them, and an inspection tour of their brand-new-looking factory, paint-shop, test-tank, and kitchen / bathroom fabrication unit, I was impressed, and had confidence in them.  Alnost everything is made “in-house”.

I am given a basic price for a 56′ semi-trad. They’ll give me a lifetime guarantee on the hull.  What are they trying to tell me ?

Everything considered, including the reported very low level of depreciation, the price seemed reasonable.  It incorporates some items that, from other boats-builders, may be charged as extras, such as bow-thruster, shore-power, navigation lights, immersion heater, bathroom & kitchen extractor fans, stainless steel water-tank, water & diesel tank gauges, Hospital Silencer, Anchor etc etc.  Quite a few items could be deleted from my “wish-list” that I had taken along with me, and Anthony & Paul did me a few good deals on some of the remaining ones.

But the list still included some additional expensive bits, such as a Morso Squirrel Stove, a 240V transmission (“intercalated”) generator for the Nanni engine, heat-trace freeze-protection for the cold-water system, Axiom propeller, and a side-hatch.  We reckon £125,000.00 will cover everything.  There are boats being made at that price that’ll soon start rusting.

The next stage was the signing of the purchase form, designed by the “British Marine Industries Federation” and approved by the RYA.  It protects both sides.

I’m pleased to be told that I’ll be supplied with a Boat Safety certificate on completion !

The final stage that day was the paying of a 20% deposit on the base price.

The second instalment (30%) will be due upon completion of hull fabrication, estimated to be end of December 2010.

The third instalment (another 30%) will be due upon installation of engine & cabin-lining, estimated at end of January 2011.

The final instalment (20% + extras) will be due upon completion of construction prior to boat leaving factory, estimated at mid to end of March 2011.

21st July 2010

I return to Sea Otter with a plan:-

My plan was very approximately to scale, on A3 graph-paper, and amply decorated with post-it-notes!  That way I could shuffle sections around, and re-draw them independently when necessary.  The scale of the boat on the graph paper was very approximately 1 inch equals 2 feet.  I had just roughly divided the length into 9 sections which looked about right in relationship to each other :-  bow, fore-deck, lounge, dinette, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, rear-deck, and finally the back-end.  No technical terms here, but generally considered to be of a “floating-cottage design”.   Anthony is going to transform my efforts into a more acceptable form with the help of a computer and a printer.

In the short time since my last visit, the marine-grade aluminium alloy sheets for my boat had arrived, and were neatly stacked up in the factory !

The big suckers above the stored aluminium sheets facilitate the raising, rotation & transportation to different areas of the factory during construction.There are two thicknesses shown.  8mm for the base-plate and sides up to gunnels.  6mm for the sides above gunnels & roof.    But the hull is actually better protected than those figures might suggest.  There is an additional v-shaped hull constructed of 6mm aluminium alloy below the 8mm base plate.  That makes a total of 14mm of protection under the boat.

The aluminium alloy is delivered in 12 metre lengths, so there will only be one vertical join in the entire length of the boat.

I had a few pre-conceived ideas about my boat.  Following discussions at this early stage, some of my ideas were about to change, and I get my own way on others.

I originally wanted my batteries to be easily accessible, preferably in a locker from which they could be easily removed for maintenance.  In my old boat it was a back-breaking job to remove the batteries for water-level-checking.  But Paul tells me that he’d be supplying Vetus 108AH sealed-gel batteries which shouldn’t need maintenance of any description for several years.  We read an article published in a canal magazine about a guy who had 3 such batteries in his boat for 20 years, and they were still going strong when he sold it !  Then Anthony told me that a battery monitor would be fitted.  I’m then informed that the dreaded boat inspector can be very fussy about where & how batteries are stored.   And that Paul has just taken delivery of some very nice new and specially designed fibre-glass battery boxes.  I capitulated. The batteries will be hidden away in the engine bay.  (1 to them)

I had a preference for the calorifier to be in the bottom of an airing cupboard.  I reckon this is the best place for it, because the heat from it isn’t wasted (it helps to dry clothes) and the hot water within keeps warmer longer.  Anthony & Paul explain that the new calorifiers are so well insulated that they don’t loose much heat.  [I find out later it’s not just the heat from the calorifier that helps dry my clothes, it’s the heat from the several pipes running to and from it.] They prefer the calorifier in the engine bay because if it ever leaks, the water just runs harmlessly into the bilge. Fair point, but then I learn that it may well be necessary to remove the engine to replace a faulty calorifier !   I get to keep it in the airing cupboard.  (1 each)  [I live to regret that decision!]

Don’t get me wrong.  They’re quite happy to do almost anything to a boat to suit the buyer.  But they’ll input the benefit of their experiences and leave the final decision to the buyer.  I’d be daft not to listen.

Anthony & Paul showed me one of their boats being built, to examine the kitchen & bathroom.  Both varied a little from my pre-conceived ideas, but the differences were unimportant, they know their ideas work, so I go with the flow.

So ended my second fruitful visit to Otter Boats, and I look forward to seeing my computer-generated boat-plan at my next visit, leading to more discussions about the details.

27th OF OCTOBER 2010

Back in the Sea Otter office I get to see my boat’s computer-generated plan he’d been working on.

There’s plenty to discuss.

My engine bay (and hence the boat) has to be made a little longer to incorporate the extra length of my Nanni engine because of the addition of the aforementioned “intercalated generator”  This is a nice bit of kit, though pricey at about £2.5 grand.   It is round, like a pancake, and fits between the engine and the drive shaft, and produces 230V as the engine runs.  The obvious advantage of this over the Electrolux “Travel-power” system that was fitted to my previous boat, is that “the pancake” is maintenance-free….no expensive poly-v belts to replace every couple of years.  [ I find out later that there are disadvantages to this as well ! ]

Sea Otter Boats fit a Webasto diesel heating system by default.  I’ve had problems with another popular make in the past, so I’ll be happy to go along with this.

There are to be 5 radiators throughout the boat, and a heated towel rail in the bathroom. Two of the five radiators are to be in the lounge.  That’s one more than Sea Otter normally fit.  They will do calculations to decide if a larger than usual calorifier will be necessary.

I am shown 3 samples of kitchen worktop, and a quick decision is made on which it is to be.

I like windows rather than portholes, for the extra light they provide, but it’s to be portholes in the bedroom on the port side, and in the bathroom (same side).

The windows recently fitted to Sea Otter Boats have had curved tops, which I quite like.  But I have a preference for bigger ones.  I also specify an opening hopper top, because they can be left open for ventilation when it’s raining.  And I also specify sliding windows below the hopper top.  It seems to me that they provide better ventilation.  All these windows will need to be specially ordered, which Paul is happy to do.

I like carpets fitted up to the gunnels.  It takes some nerve to write that because it’s an old fashioned idea.  But I think it makes the interior cosy.  Does it improve the general insulation of the boat ?  It must, and by a good amount I would think.

I had decided on a cassette loo.  I’ve had a pump-out loo, and personally I wouldn’t have one again, because of unpleasant blockage problems experienced.  In many respects this boat is to be kept as simple as possible.

I order a side-hatch opposite the kitchen.  It is to be glazed, so, just like a window, it lets in light even when closed.

The subject of insulation had cropped up on several occasions, and I had done a bit of my own research.

I looked at “Thermafleece”.  As the name suggests it is made from a sheep….compressed wool.  At about £5.00 per square metre the price compares well to “Thinsulate” at £20.00 per square metre.   But a technical consultant told me that the former will allow moisture in, and if it can’t escape effectively (and how could it on a narrowboat) the water could cause deterioration in the product, and eventual degradation.  So that’s off the list of possibilities.  Sea Otter Boats usually fit sheet foam.  They’re used to fitting it, and they’re good at fitting it.  They’ve built a lot of boats with it, without problems, and without complaints.  Anthony & Paul say “if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it”.  They do offer the alternatives of fitting “Thinsulate”, or “getting the spray-foam-boys in”, both at additional cost off-course.  I decide again to go with the flow.  I decide that foam sheets will do fine.

An experienced friend of mine is adamant that holes should never be cut in the roof of a boat unless absolutely necessary!  But I like roof-hatches, Houdini-hatches, and even prisms.  But my good friends’ words echo in my ears every time any of the above are considered. I end up not ordering any, consoling myself with the thought that I have lots of big windows to let light in, the side hatch will be glazed, all the interior wood is light in colour, and that a cream vinyl headlining is to be fitted as part of the Sea Otter package.

There’ll be no cratch !  I think the bow is the very nicest part of the boat to sit in. You’re transformed to a different world.  It is a quiet vantage point.  You’re the first to see birds & animals.  You’re the first to get there.  I think a cratch takes something away.  The cratch was the first thing I removed from my previous boat.

We decide on stable doors at the bow.  These enable full-length lockers to be built along the sides of the fore-deck which double up as seats.  The lower sections of the stable doors open against the locker sides utilising magnetic catches to retain them, and the upper halves of the stable doors open right across, to lie against the front bulkhead, and you can lean back against them.

I have “trace heating” in bold type on my wish list.  I think it is a great concept.  It protects your water-pipes from freezing, avoiding the hassle of draining water systems down prior to leaving your boat in the winter.  “Trace heating” is simply a special flattish wire, (looks like “twin & earth”) which is attached (using cable-ties) to the water pipes.  (You don’t fit it to the radiator pipes because they are already protected by having anti-freeze inside them.)  When the temperature drops to near freezing a thermostat clicks on and the wire warms up ! Wonderful.  It will be easy to fasten the wire, comparatively speaking, during the plumbing installation stage.  I fitted a similar system retrospectively to my last boat and it took many hours of work.

I reckon when operating it will use about 420 watts of electricity.  It will cost about £500.00 for this 57 foot boat.  Not bad for the peace of mind it will provide over many hard winters.  Disadvantages ?  …..you need a very reliable supply of shore-power right through the winter !

I’ve only been at Otter Boats for a couple of hours, but many important decisions have been made.  Because of a trip abroad, I won’t be back until after the building of my boat begins, estimated to be mid November.  The first stage will be the construction of the “V” hull.

The “V”  hulls of Sea Otter Boats are designed to let water in.

More about that, and photographs of the various build stages which follow, in part 2.

2014 02 02 Newsletter – Monitoring Your Boat From Afar

Tuesday evening… Boy, am I glad we’re getting on a plane and heading towards warmer weather on Saturday. I love living on the boat but this weather is a real pain. Things aren’t just wet, they’re sodden. I spend my working days slipping and sliding through shallow pools of liquid mud, dodging showers and trying to think of something constructive to do which doesn’t involve testing how much rainwater my “waterproof” jacket will absorb.

Ditches which have remained dry every other winter I’ve worked here are now full to overflowing. In fact some of them have overflowed. Sections of paths through the woods are under six inches of water, including areas where I planted hazel, spindle, holly, field maple, hawthorn and blackthorn a couple of months ago. The excess water’s not going to do them much good.

Just to make matters even more frustrating I have until Thursday afternoon to cut some grass. I don’t think it’s going to happen.

We have a lot of grass to cut around the site. Normally at this time of the year we wouldn’t need to go anywhere near it. It’s been so mild this winter though that it’s continued to grow. It’s been growing most of all on the almost vertical banks next to our Locks marina. Cutting the grass there is a rather demanding job which I don’t particularly enjoy.

The company has spared no expense and purchased specialist grass cutting equipment for this particularly difficult to cut area of landscaping. It’s a Flymo on a rope.  Cutting all of the steep slopes with the Flymo takes six or seven hours. It’s grueling work and although I won’t admit it in public, very tiring after even fifteen minutes.

Anyway, it’s my turn to do it. It’s too early in the season really but it’s starting to look a bit scruffy. I’m away for a month from the end of this week and Pat went into hospital on Monday to have a piece of bone removed from his shoulder. He’ll be on light duties for a few weeks so the last thing he want to be doing is hauling a mower up a hill for hours on end when he comes back to work.

The rain this week though has been relentless (I’ve been writing this bit whenever I’ve had a few minutes spare. It’s now Wednesday evening). The grass is too wet to walk on, never mind cut…

I’ve just read the last few paragraphs, and I can’t believe what I’ve written. My life is so lacking in stress these days that I’m getting myself worked up because I can’t make an area of grass a couple of inches shorter in the middle of winter! Life can’t be bad if that’s all I have to worry about!

It’s Friday morning now. I’ve finished work for a whole month. Yippee!

Actually, that’s not quite true. I’ve finished one of my jobs. I’ll continue to do the other one, maintaining this site and writing and sending out weekly newsletters, every week while I’m away.

Writing a section of the newsletter this morning has prompted me to mention something to you. There’s a very important issue for you to consider if you intend to work from your boat doing anything which involves concentration. I’m raising the point now because I’m really struggling to concentrate.

I often get up at 5am while Sally is still asleep and when the boat is quiet so I have no distractions. I’m male, so I’m not very good at multitasking. Most of the women I’ve known well have had the alien ability to concentrate on what they’re doing as well as doing at least one other thing at the same time.

They’ve always assumed that I could do the same. I can’t.

I have to focus my mind on the task I’m working on. If there’s an external distraction, my train of thought is broken and I have to start again.

Often on my days off Sally is working so I have the whole boat to myself. Even when we’re both off Sally often leaves the boat to visit friends or shops or to take the dogs for a walk. These excursions give me the quiet time I so desparately need.

Today is an exception to the rule. We’re off on holiday tomorrow so Sally has decided that she needs to wash every item of clothing we own. I’m convinced that she’s also borrowed a lorry load of clothes from friends and family so she can really give the washing machine a workout.

It’s now 6.30am. Sally’s just turned the washing machine on. It’s not something which would bother me in a house. The washing machine would be in a utility room or a kitchen some distance away from where I would be working. On the boat, the washing machine is five feet away from me. It’s not a noisy washing machine but it’s driving me mad.

Sally is never far from me either. Just to make preparing for the holiday even more interesting, she’s decided to spring clean the boat and cook about a month’s worth of food for her son Michael who is at university in Nottingham. We’re going to pay Sally’s daughter Maricar a lightening visit early this evening to deposit the dogs. They will be staying with her while we are away. We’ll also drop in on Michael to deliver him his food.

So the washing machine is droning, the vacuum cleaner is roaring in between pan clattering, dishes banging and constant threats from Sally as the dogs sit under her feet in the kitchen begging for scraps. Sally needs to get past me to get from one end of the baot to another so it’s like working in a very narrow and noisy corridor.

In an ideal world, we would have a boatman’s cabin equipped as an office for me. In case you’re new to boating, let me explain. A boatman’s cabin is a small eight to ten foot long cabin at the back end of the boat. On traditional working narrowboats the boatman, and his family if he had one, would live in this tiny space. In front of the boatman’s cabin would be the engine room and then the rest of the boat would be reserved for carrying cargo.

These days, the boatman’s cabin is just one area of the boat’s living space, separated from the rest of the living space by the engine room which normally has doors both in and out of it.

A boatman’s cabin would give me a quiet space to work in. Sally tries very hard not to disturb me when I’m working but I don’t think she fully understands just how fragile my concentration is at the best of times. Right now I’m trying to work out whether throwing the washing machine out of the side doors into the marina would be detrimental to the tranquility and harmony we hope to achieve on holiday.

Engine Room Condensation – An Explanation

I wrote about my ongoing battle with water in the engine room in September and October last year and wrote an update a couple of weeks ago. Sean Milligan sent me this very helpful email earlier in the week. I thought I would share it with you.

“A couple of weeks ago you were asking about the effect of heating your uninsulated engine room. You have probably had a number of responses on this, but just in case I will add my thoughts.

Without getting too technical condensation is caused by a surface cooling the air in contact with it to below the air’s dew point. Dew point is the temperature at which the air can not hold any more moisture – it is saturated and the relative humidity is 100%. So there are two variables, air temperature, and air humidity.

When air is heated it can hold more moisture, so if you have a damp bilge, or other sources of moisture, some of this water will evaporate into your warmed air and increase the amount of moisture in the air (although it may feel dryer). This additional moisture also increases the air’s dew point and this increases the likelihood of condensation on the inside of the hull.

Your hull plating will be at a temperature somewhere between the marina / canal water temperature and the outside air temperature as steel is a good conductor of heat. The exception is when direct sunlight is heating up your (I assume) black painted hull plating in which case these sections could become significantly warmer.

The conclusion is that when you run your central heating you will get condensation on the inside of your hull plating, at least for part of the time. How much depends on the variables mentioned above. The good news is that heating the engine room side of the inner bulk head should prevent condensation on the other side as the bulkhead will be relatively warm.

When deciding whether to insulate the engine room hull (and from what you say in the latest newsletter the rest of your hull and bilge)  you might like to consider just how much of the fuel you are burning in your central heating is being used to heat both the atmoshere and canal water outside through your hull plating. Incidentally, water will remove heat from your boat’s hull 26 times faster than air – so if it is possible an insulated bilge (or cabin sole) may well make economic sense. Carpet and underlay come to mind for this though I admit not always practical afloat.

Also, may I make a suggestion for your secondary glazing – instead of the magnetic strip consider screwing the glazing to the wood frame with a soft rubber sealing strip (draft excluder foam strip) between the plastic sheet and wood frame. Drill oversized holes in the plastic glazing and use washers under the screw heads. Just tighten sufficiently to make a slight compression of the seal but not enough to distort the plastic glazing. Then all can be removed by removing the screws. You will be left with small screw holes in the wood frames when the glazing is not in use which may not be acceptable. Brass round headed screws could look acceptable for holding the secondary glazing and shorter ones of the same gauge could be used to hide the screw holes when its not in use.

As a footnote, I used to lecture in maritime meteorology to merchant navy officers and have lived aboard a steel yacht all year round in Shetland (60 degrees north). It was well insulated inside and being a sea going boat didn’t have draughty windows. However, the small cabin windows did run with condensation all the time the heating was on as the glass conducted heat away to the aluminium frames and steel cabin sides. Like you I considered secondary glazing, simply to stop the condensation drips, but circumstances changed before I got around to it.”

Keeping A (Digital) Eye On Your Boat

Most narrowboat owners don’t live on their boats. They park them on a leisure mooring either online or in a marina and return to them on high days and holidays to cruise and to carry out essential maintenance. Many have to travel for an hour or two to the marina from home. It’s rather difficult to keep a watchful eye on a very expensive investment.

The winter months are often a period of worry and uncertainty for non residential boat owners. Sub zero temperatures can cause significant damage to narrowboats if water in pipes, pumps or heaters freezes. You can avoid costly damage to your boat by either winterizing it or by making sure that the boat stays warm enough all year round to prevent freezing.

Winterizing your boat involves draining water out of anything which can be damaged by water expanding as it freezes. Winterizing isn’t difficult but it’s not something you want to do if you intend visiting your floating haven for odd days during the cooler months. A popular alternative is to leave low power greenhouse heaters on the boat running on a frost setting,

These heaters are very effective… providing you have a continuous electrical supply. And that is often a worry. How do you know whether the power supply is working and, if it is working and if you have the usual marina meter which is kept in credit by feeding it with prepaid cards, do you have sufficient credit in the meter?

Our office receives regular emails from boat owners over the winter months asking for their meters to be checked and topped up if neccessary. We always oblige but we also charge for the staff’s time to check and top up the meter. Many boat owners don’t want to incur the additional cost so they just sit at home and worry.

An all year round concern for boaters generally is whether their beloved boat has been tampered with. Marinas are usually safer than online moorings but they have their fair share of boat break ins. I’m delighted to say that boat burglary is not something we’re familiar with here at Calcutt.

Our marinas are not easy targets for the degenerate filth who make a living from other people’s misery. Visitors to the site have to travel up a half mile private road before they reach the entrance to Calcutt Boats. We have electric gates which are closed soon after our office closes for the day plus CCTV monitoring the site from various points around the site.

Before the gates and the cameras were installed we had regular visits from travelers looking to turn a quick profit from the large number of engines we keep in our tip area for spare parts. Scrap metal is extremely lucrative these days and they considered our tip easy pickings.

Sometimes we caught them and sent them packing, sometimes we didn’t. But with the additional site monitoring from the cameras plus two roving groundsmen who know most of the vehicles which are usually on site, it’s now very unusual for an unknown vehicle, especially a large van or flat bed truck, to get onto site without us noticing.

All staff carry radios so that we can communicate effectively across such a large site so if a strange vehicle is spotted, especially a scruffy one containing two or three shifty looking men, a radio call goes out to all staff in the area. We race to the suspicious vehicle, box it in and question the occupants.

After a couple of incidents like this and after pointing out to the travelers that they had been recorded on camera and by our number plate recognition software, they decided to look elsewhere for an illicit income.

Sometimes burglars access marinas from the towpath so marinas and online moorings on the towpath side are more accessible than those on the offside. Calcutt Boat’s two marinas are on the offside. Burglars planning to access the site from the towpath would have to leave a vehicle parked at least half a mile away, walk up to Calcutt Top Lock where they could walk across the gate, negotiate the locked gate into the grounds, sneak past the occupied Lock Cottage before walking another couple of hundred meters to the nearest boat.

The inaccessibility of the site and the additional security measures mean that in the four years that I’ve been here there hasn’t been a single incident of a boat being tampered with. Other marinas are not so lucky.

So leaving a boat often filled with valuable possessions,  sometimes for months on end, at a remote location can be a worry. Fortunately there’s a solution. Enter MaxMon.

Martin Lambert emailed me just over a week ago to introduce his remote monitoring and control system which can be used to keep an eye on any important space from afar. So far Martin’s sold them to owners of homes and rental properties and owners of boats in coastal marinas. He wanted to know if I thought that narrowboat owners would be interested.

Martin offered to bring a demonstration unit to me which I could use to keep an eye on James while I’m away.

He arrived on Monday morning with a small cardboard box and an entry level Android smart phone. The box contained a Quatropus monitoring unit plus a temperature and relative humidity meter and a passive infra-red motion sensor. The Quatropus sensors record data which the smart phone cannot. The smart phone then sends reports to you via either the boat’s WiFi or via the phone if the phone can receive a signal inside the boat.

The Quatropus is the more basic of the two units available. The Quatropus SA also allows you to connect a float sensor (for those of you with a cruiser stern who worry about the bilge pump failing when your boat’s bilge fills with rainwater) and a proximity sensor for windows, doors and hatches. Unfortunately Martin didn’t have a Quatropus SA demonstration unit available.

The system needs a constant power supply so it’s not going to work for you if you leave your boat with the power turned off. However a constant power supply is rarely a problem for most marina moorings. The Quatropus/smart phone combination only draws two watts so the cost to run it is negligible.

More of an issue for boat owners is how the data is going to be sent to you at your remote location. Boats are notorious for blocking phone signals and are often moored where phone signals are poor at the best of times. Here at Calcutt I rarely get a signal anywhere in the grounds and never get one inside the boat. I am on the Three network. Sally does a little better with her T Mobile service although there is only one place inside the boat where she can receive a signal, and that involves pressing bother her phone and her ear against an often condensation covered window at the front on the port side.

Because I don’t have a phone signal I have had to rely on an internet connection via my boat’s WiFi. I’m also with Three for mobile broadband and, unlike their phone signals, their mobile broadband is pretty good. I’m rarely without a connection on the boat.

Martin set the system up for me in a few minutes, but it wouldn’t have taken me much longer. The Quatroport was plugged into an available 230v socket, and the smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy, plus the two sensors where plugged in to the Quatropus.

After that, all Martin had to do was set up the MaxMon app on the Galaxy. He needed to associate and email address with the phone, specify one or more email addresses to receive the reports and set the report frequency, boat location and half a dozen other settings. The whole process took less than fifteen minutes.

Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of receiving a daily report plus regular emailed alerts when the system detects a deviation from the acceptable parameters. The alerts include the following data..

Acceleration : 0.0 (0.0 to 1.5)
*Battery(%) : 81.0 (2.0 to 100.0)
Humidity(%) : 54.5 (42.3 to 66.2)
Location(LL) : 52.26854,-1.32093 net ±21m
*Location(m) : 6.0 (3.1 to 258.4)
Memory(MB) : 119.8 (88.8 to 131.1)
**Motion(secs) : 20.7 (0.0 to 286.7)
*Power : ON (OFF)
Temperature(C) : 17.6 (16.2 to 18.5)
[**=alert, *=past alert, ?=dropouts]

The only one on the list which isn’t self explanatory is Acceleration which uses the phone’s gaming software to detect the phone’s physical movement. If the boat was in an area prone to earthquakes, tsunamis or typhoons I could see this coming in handy. However, in rural Warwickshire the only time this alert will be triggered is if the phone is either picked up and moved or if it falls off the desk where I’ve left it.

One of the first alerts I received was the location alert. I panicked for a couple of seconds thinking that the boat had been stolen… before I remembered that I was actually on the boat when I received the alert and, as far as I was aware, we hadn’t been hijacked.

The alert was due to slight variations in the phone’s location reports. This was easily resolved be changing the apps location sensitivity setting from 50m to 250m.

The next alert I received was a motion alert. It was the first of many. I’ve used the system’s supplied Advanced Sensor Positioning system, AKA a strip of Velcro type tape, to position the sensor in the best place for monitoring the maximum internal cabin space (Just for your information Martin, because I know you’re reading this, the adhesive tape is rubbish. The sensor has fallen off the wall half a dozen times. I’m considering replacing it with a dab of strawberry jam). The best position to monitor the boat’s interior is two feet away from where I sit. The motion alerts have either been me somewhere in the front of the boat or one of the dogs walking through the galley area where the sensor can see them.

It’s possible to programme the system to use the phone’s camera to take a photo if the motion sensor is triggered. However, as many break ins are done at night you would need to turn a light on in the boat before the photo was taken. To get this to work you need to purchase the Quatropus SA and use the included RF actuator in addition to a remote power socket and a light you could plug in to it.

I also received a Power alert yesterday to tell me that the phone was no longer charging. I discovered that Sally, unaware that I was conducting an experiment vital to the safety and well being of the boating community, had unplugged the unit so she could do yet more b****y clothes washing! That one was soon resolved too. I had to wait until the washing was done.

I’ve been receiving regular motion alerts since Monday. It’s reassuring to see how quickly movements made by Sally and I and the two dogs is picked up by the sensor.

MaxMon is now set up ready for our holiday. Next week I’ll let you know how it worked in a real life remote monitoring situation. The only report I’m really interested in is the temperature alert. The boat is moored in a secure location so I don’t expect any unauthorised access (touch wood).

I’ll be leaving two greenhouse heaters on the boat on their frost settings and I’ve left plenty of credit in the shore supply meter so I should be OK. Next week I’ll show you the reports I’ve received. The location report is a cracker. It links to Google Maps and shows the boat’s exact location. I’ll be able to look at my lovely boat while I’m sitting under a palm tree seven thousand miles away sipping San Miguel!

Helpful Hints

I often think of useful tips for new boat owners. I get sent quite a few too. They’re quick tips so don’t warrant an article but they’re worth passing on so I’ll add them to the newsletter every now and then.

Here’s a great one from fellow moorer Allan Birkett. Last week I was talking to him about cruising in some of the less pleasant areas of the canal network. The rare places on the canals where the dregs of society like to hang out and upset and annoy law abiding boat owners.

One of the more unpleasant pastimes of this particularly unpleasant group of imbeciles is to throw stones or bricks at passing boats. “What can you do to stop them?, I asked him,“You can’t confront them because that’s what they want and, because they’re cowards there’s usually half a dozen of them and you can’t outrun them because you’re traveling in a narrowboat at 4mph.”

“The solution is easy,” said Alan with a smile, “You just photograph them!”

He told me that he was on the receiving end of some thrown missiles when he passed through Blackburn last year. Two half bricks had landed close to the boat before Allan realised what was going on. Allan is not the shy retiring type. He’s ex army and both confident and competent when it comes to dealing with trouble but he realised that he was in the vulnerable position that narrowboat owners often find themselves.

He decided that direct confrontation wouldn’t result in a happy outcome for him so he simply pulled out his mobile and started to take photographs of the yobs. While he was taking them he explained to them (slowly and in words of no more than one syllable so that they would understand) that he had his camera phone set to send all photo’s instantly to his mobile photo album and that he was about to phone the local police and share the photo’s with them. The scum grunted an unintelligible acknowledgement, waved Allan a fond farewell with a couple of fingers and slithered back under the stones where they spend most of their miserable lives.

Allan was unfortunate enough to have stones thrown at him on another occasion on the same cruise. The Paparazzi approach worked then too.

There you go, a simple solution to a rare but unpleasant problem.

Here are some more quick tips for you.

“I mentioned a while ago an idea for an article, perhaps it got overlooked, but what about an article about cheap good ideas for boaters , I have a couple, candle wax on the metal runners make the cabin hatch slide very well. Our boats external cabin paint has faded badly, to make it shine for up to 3 weeks at a time we apply baby oil with a cloth, takes about five minutes and gives us some time to save for a re paint.”

Mark and Helen Meopham

“I would quite like a regular article on narrow boat cooking with recipes, frugal but good quality food, and tips on housekeeping. For example, the wood burner glass comes clean with white vinegar 49p Tesco.”

Michelle

If you have any useful tips which you would like to share with other boat owners, please let me know.

Buying A Sailaway To Fit Out Yourself

“More haste, less speed”, that should be my motto. I was in such a hurry when I put together the text and photo’s for last week’s Part 3 of the build blog that I didn’t review it properly (at all actually) before I published it. As a result I duplicated some of the content and didn’t format the rest of it properly. Julian and Lynn, please accept my apologies.

I’m getting my knickers in a twist with correcting part three and adding part four this morning. It’s Saturday and we’re due to leave for the airport in a couple of hours. Sally’s not saying anything but if I was in her shoes I would be a little annoyed at having to do all the packing, organising and boat tidying myself.

Common sense has prevailed. I’m going to stop working on the site now, remember that there are two of us in this relationship, and abandon the site temporarily in favour of preparing for the holiday. There should be plenty of time to work on the newsletter at the airport when we get there, but as it’s quite important that we reach the airport, I’m off for now…

…four hours later.

We’re at Heathrow. It’s 2pm. The plane’s due to take off at 5.15pm so, for the first time in my life, I’m at an airport too early to check in. We’re sitting in Pret A Manger regretting the week’s wages I’ve just spent on two mediocre sandwiches and a brace of thimble sized smoothies. I’m taking advantage of the airport’s fee forty five minute internet allowance while I endure filthy looks from the restaurant staff for having the cheek to use one of their tables for longer than the minute and a half it took us to eat their food.

I don’t have the time now to format part four of Julian’s build blog, so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until next week. To make up for the content deficit this week, I’ll publish Julian’s part four next week and part one of the Sea Otter build blog I promised you a couple of weeks ago.

I’ll have to go now. I have to put my surgical compression socks before the flight. Sally says that she’s not going to sit anywhere near me. She thinks that I should be wearing long trousers with the stockings!