Important changes to the site login process
Over the last month or so I’ve talked about changes to the site login process. I’m sorry if you found some of the instructions both confusing and contradictory. Logging in to a site should be a straightforward process. it wasn’t, but it is now.
This site is built using WordPress. It’s blogging software that’s pretty easy to manage for a numpty like me, but it has its limitations. I have an ever growing number of users needing access to guides they’ve purchased and access to both the Standard and Gold editions of Narrowbudget. I couldn’t manage the access sucessfully with WordPress so I installed a plugin for WordPress to do this for me. Unfortunately, the plugin has a different log in system to WordPress, but it has to be used to manage product access correctly.
If you have been a site subscriber for some time, you have probably been using the WordPress login below.
Please do not use this login form any more. The only function that it served in the past was to log you in to the forum so that you could make new posts and reply to existing ones, and to access and edit your profile details. Using this form, you would have entered your username and password.
The new form has replaced the WordPress form. You will find the link to it at the top of each left hand column throughout the site. The new form requires you to enter your email address and password. The email that directed you to this page contains your email address and password that you need to use to log in using this form. If you have landed on this page via another route and want to know your login details, please contact me.
The default landing page from the new form is your own home page. There are three sections to your new home page; the welcome message with links to the main part of the site, the forum and Narrowbudget, your affiliate details and your profile details.
Under the welcome message, you will see all the products that you have access to. Unless you have purchased one of the guides or access to Narrowbudget Gold, you will just see one product listed here; “Site Access”. There is a message under this heading which reads, “Sorry, no content found. This could be because no content has been made available to you yet, or because your access to this product has expired.” Don’t worry about this. All it means is that there are no restricted files connected with your ability to log in and log out of the site.
Once you have successfully logged in to the site and reached your home page, if you click on the link to the forum, you should see “logged in as yourusername” in the top left hand corner. This means that you are able to create new forum posts and reply to existing ones. If you see a “Guest” icon and a message asking you to log in to post, you are probable one of the older subscribers who has an existing user name within the WordPress login system. Don’t worry, I just need to manually sync your new login details with your old ones to get the two systems working together. Just let me know so I can fix it for you. It only has to be done once and takes me just a minute or two.
The section beneath product details is Affiliate Details. This section is probably of no interest to you unless you have your own blog or website that’s waterways related and you want to earn some extra money for simply providing a link back from your site to mine. The link in this section has your own personal code embedded in it. It will enable livingonanarrowboat.co.uk to track any visitors from your site and any purchases they make on the site over the following 365 days. You receive a 50% share of those purchases. If you have a site of your own and you want to earn a little more cash from it, please let me know.
The final section is your Profile Details. You can ammend your profile details in this section, change your password and unsubscribe from the emails you receive from me. There’s a tick box at the bottom of this section which allows you to turn off your email subscription. Please note that if you uncheck this box you won’t receive any further regular newsletters.
Each of the newsletters you receive from now on will have a link at the bottom of the email “Manage your subscription”. Clicking this 
link will take you to your home page where you can unsubscribe if you choose.
It’s taken me a while to get to this stage, but hopefully logging in to the site and finding your way around is more straightforward than it was before but, as ever, if you have any problems, just let me know.
Free Online Narrowboat Budgeting Application
I just thought I would write this quick post to let you know about a very exciting addition to the site. It’s a comprehensive, sophisticated and absolutely free tool for you to use to calculate the real cost of owning a narrowboat, particularly with a view to living on it.
About two months ago I asked a chartered financial analyst to create a budgeting application for me using Microsft Excel 2007. It covered all of the costs you’re likely to face buying and then maintaining a narrowboat including the purchase costs and any additional expenses associated with it, on and offline mooring fees, boat loan repayments, licensing and BSS certificate fees, insurance, repairs and maintenance and all utility costs. There was even a section to include the total running costs for your car in case you’ve considered a life on the cut but haven’t budgeted for running your car.
I was very proud of it. I sent the beta version to over 100 site subscribers for them to review and test. They loved it too. At least the few who could open it loved the application. Sadly that was only about half of them. I had foolishly assumed that everyone in the world had a copy of Excel 2007. Of course, they didn’t. Nearly half of the testers had earlier versions of Excel, used Open Office rather than Excel or owned a Mac rather than a PC.
The test demonstrated very clearly that an application written in a recent version of Excel wasn’t going to be accessible to the majority of site visitors. I decided to have the spreadsheet translated into an application that would work straight from the site regardless of operating system or software. I’ve taken constructive criticism from the testers to make the application even more comprehensive and user friendly.
The end result is an extremely easy and free to use application that will, within minutes, give you a very good idea of both the initial cost and then the running costs of your dream narrowboat. Nothing has been left out. It’s an essential but previously unavailable tool for any potential narrowboat owner.
It’s going to be available to test next week. I’m looking for both potential and existing narrowboat owners to run it though its paces. I want to make sure that site visitors like you think it’s as useful as I do. You can see what the original software looked like here. The new application is similar, but better. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see a link where you can email me if you want to test the software. You can either do that or justsubscribe to the site below to receive notification the moment it’s released.
GREAT NEWS: Narrowbudget is now live. Click here to access your copy now!
Introducing Your New Narrowboat Budgeting Software
The application is almost ready for release. I know you’re going to love it. It’ll remove all the mystery from planning your great escape. You’ll be able to see at a glance whether you can afford to buy and maintain your dream narrowboat or whether you need to rethink your options. The application will work equally as well for you if you want to buy your boat for living on full time or just for leisure cruising during your weekends and holidays.
All that’s left to do is to test it in the real world. Maybe you can help me do that. I’ll explain what I’m looking for at the end of this post.
Here’s how the application works.
You’ll be progress through a number of different categories entering information as you go before arriving at the summary section which will show you in a number of different ways whether buying and maintaining a narrowboat is a realistic option for you. The first data entry category is…
Capital and Income
Narrowboat Budgeting Software – Capital and Income
You need to be able to buy your boat, and you need to be able to pay for the associated monthly costs. In this section you can add the amount of capital you have available to buy the boat and what regular monthly income you expect to receive in the future.
Car Details
Narrowboat Budget Software – Car Details
Expenditure for your car is possibly not something that you’ve considered when you’ve thought about living a life on the waterways. The fact is that most liveaboard narrowboat owners have a car or two. Even some of those who cruise constantly throughout the network have a car. They cruise for a day, moor the boat, get a bike off the roof then, pedal back to the day’s starting point to collect their car. Whatever you plan to do with you boat, you can still do it and keep your car close at hand, but can you afford to?
Use this section to add all of the outgoings for your car or cars. You’ll be able to see on one of the summary pages exactly how much you have to pay for the luxury of motorised transport.
Boat Details
Narrowboat Budget Software – Boat Details
You can add your initial investment here; the cost of your boat, any remedial work required, out of water survey cost and, if you need to get your new boat moved from one part of the country to another, the cost of transporting it by road
You can also begin to enter your ongoing expenses starting with monthly repayments if you’ve had to take out a loan to fund all or part of the cost of your boat. In this section you can also add the cost of your four yearly BSS certificate, waterways license and boat insurance.
Mooring Costs
Narrowboat Budgeting Software – Mooring Details
Unless you plan to cruise the network continuously, you will need either a leisure or a residential mooring. Even if you are a continuous cruiser, you may wish to secure a temporary mooring during the winter months or if you want to leave your boat for a while when you go on holiday. In this section you can cater for both eventualities.
Diesel
Narrowboat budget software – Diesel
This was a really interesting area to try to quantify. Many boats use diesel for both heating and propulsion. More often than not the fuel for both is drawn from the same tank. In order to determine how much diesel you need you have to know how much diesel your engine uses per hour, how many hours you will have the engine running, the cost of propulsion diesel, the cost of heating diesel and how much fuel your heating system is likely to use. You can add all the variations here and use the information that will be available separately to determine the most accurate figures to use.
Utilities
Narrowboat Budget Software – Utilities
This is the section to enter the cost of heating your boat if you’re going to have a solid fuel stove (I sincerely hope you do otherwise you’ll miss out on one of the real pleasures of living on a narrowboat and you’ll put yourself at risk of freezing in the winter if you’re gong to depend on a mechanical central heating system). You can also add the cost of your gas for cooking and maybe for heating your boat to.
You can also add the cost of communicating when you’re on the boat either by phone or via the internet. Finally, there’s an opportunity to add both TV license and council tax. Again, I’ll provide separate notes to let you know if you need to include these two expenses.
Repairs and Maintenance
Narrowboat Budget Software – Repairs and Maintenance
In order to protect your boat’s steelwork, you need to ensure that both top and bottom are painted often enough to prevent rust. In this section you can determine how often you want the painting to be done, whether you intend to do the work yourself or let the professionals do it for you and how much you expect it to cost. Again, the application notes will steer you in the right direction.
You can add other elements of repair and maintenance here too; cratch and rear deck cover replacements and cabin interior and engine repair and maintenance jobs too.
Dashboard
Narrowboat Budget Software – Net Income
Here’s where all of your hard work pays off. You can now see whether you can afford to buy and maintain your boat based on the information you’ve added in the preceding pages. The annual net income chart shows all of your income by category and all of your expenses, also by category. The grand total at the bottom deducts your total expenses from your total income. If there’s a negative figure here, you can’t afford to maintain your boat.
Boat Purchase Chart
Narrowboat Budget Software – Boat Purchase
On the Capital and Boat pages you enter the savings that you want to invest in your boat plus the details of a loan if you intend to take one out. The Boat Purchase section displays whether your savings and/or loan are sufficient to cover the price of your new boat, any remedial work required, the cost of having an out of water survey done and transportation if you need it.
If you don’t have enough for your initial expenses, the Remaining Capital line will display a negative amount. Here’s an opportunity to return to the preceding pages and fine tune your entries.
The budgeting application is almost ready for release but before I make it available to download, I need four or five site visitors to thoroughly test it for me. I want to make sure that it’s easy to use and that all of the calculations are correct. If you would like to take it for a spin, please let me know. Tell me what stage you are at with your plans. Are you a narrowboat owner already? Do you just want to get your hands on the application to confirm what you already know, to see whether the Dashboard reflects your current expenditure? Fantastic! I would love to send you a copy. On the other hand, if you are in the very early stages of considering life on a narrowboat, I would love to hear from you too. I want to make sure that the process of adding data to the various categories is a simple task even if you aren’t familiar with narrowboat at all.
Whatever your circumstances, please get in touch, tell me what your situation is and why you want to test the application. Maybe you can help me put the finishing touches to a really useful narrowboat budgeting tool. Please hurry though if you’re interested in helping with the trial. I’m only looking for a maximum of five testers.
Not Everyone Enjoys Living On A Narrowboat
Is life really so bad Natasha?
I came across the article below yesterday. It was published recently in the online version of the Uxbridge Gazette. It’s a new blog by reluctant narrowboat liveaboard Natasha Gorbert-Hopkins. What do you think of her take on life on a narrowboat?
Life, warts and all, on a canal narrowboat in Uxbridge
Oct 3 2012 by Natasha Gorbert-Hopkins, Uxbridge Gazette
LIFE on the canal in Uxbridge – a dream for some, definitely not the lifestyle choice of others – is brought to life in our new blog, The Narrow View, by boat dweller Natasha Gorbert-Hopkins.
SAY the word ‘boater’ and most people think of Rosie and Jim, old men with beards and folk festivals. If they think of anything at all, that is – living on a narrowboat (the long, narrow boats that ply the canals of Britain) is hardly the most common or widely known lifestyle choice.
As a 22 year old female, I’m not really your typical boat-dweller. I’m not really the most enthusiastic boater either: my parents decided to turn to the waterways when I was just a twinkle in their eyes, and – except for a three year stint at university – I’ve been more or less forced to live on them ever since.
Nevertheless, home for me has always been on the Grand Union Canal, in the stretch between Cowley Lock and Uxbridge Lock.
The towpaths, the trees, the neighbours are as familiar to me as I’m sure roads and estates and front gardens are to people who live in houses.
The canal was where my mum brought a chubby-faced baby version of me home from the hospital, the background to my childhood games, the waters that I stared gloomily into in fits of teenage angst.
Until the age of eight, I shared a boat with my parents; when my father moved out, he didn’t stray far, moving on to a narrowboat 10 minutes down the canal. At the age of 16, the fleet expanded further and I moved into my own boat, aptly named Freedom.
This was my beloved home for the next six years, until only a few months ago, when it was sold and I had to – dramatically, tearfully – move out, and begin sharing my father’s 62ft long, 6ft wide narrowboat.
That might sound like a lot of room. It is not.
My cries of: “Oh no, I have to live in a cupboard!” were probably heard reverberating down the canal for days afterwards. If I was 10, I would have been excited that I finally had something in common with Harry Potter, but unfortunately I’m 22 and can say for sure that my Hogwarts letter is not in the post.
Sharing such a small space with my dad, at an age when, let’s face it, I really should have moved out, has been challenging. Don’t get me wrong, there are positive aspects to living on a boat. There are also a whole host of negatives.
I will try to provide a balanced, realistic and insightful look into narrowboat life: I’ll try to cover some of my FAQs – How do you get water? Do you have electricity? – as well as some aspects that landlubbers (we don’t really call you that) might not have considered.
Next time: The difficulties of tall boyfriends, the complications of no electricity, attacks by swans, and the infamous – the dreaded – chemical toilets.
Grand Union Uxbridge Aerial View
What do you think of that then? Has the article put you off living afloat? I certainly hope that it hasn’t.
Natasha has lived all of her life on a narrowboat. It’s all that she’s known. She appears to have been on a static mooring for all of her twenty-something years, and static, as far as I’m concerned, in one of the worst places in England to live on a narrowboat. The Grand Union canal runs through Uxbridge on the west side of Greater London. She lives on the stretch between Cowley Lock and Uxbridge lock. The caal there is in a densely populated area just a stone’s throw from the infamous M25.
One of the great advantages of living on a narrowboat is your ability to get away from the noise and polution of city life. Natasha lives within half a mile of one of the busiest roads in Europe with an estimated 196,000 vehicles using the section near Heathrow airport, which is very close to Uxbridge, every day. Uxbridge is also within the Greater London sprawl with its population of 8,000,000 hyper-active and highly stressed souls. Why on Earth would you choose to live on a narrowboat there?
I think that choice is probably the issue with Natasha. She couldn’t choose to live elsewhere when she was a child. She had to live with her parents, or at least with her mother, during her formative years. From a child’s point of view, I can imagine that there are few advantages to living on a narrowboat.
Space is of course an issue. Space is what teenagers crave, and there’s very little of it on a narrowboat. That’s why you see precious few families living on narrowboats. Ocasionally, very ocasionally, you will come across a couple with one or two very small children on a narrowboat, but the majority of liveaboards are single or couples.
Natasha enjoyed a spell on her own boat but now, at the age of twenty two, she’s moved onto her father’s narrowboat. You can almost feel her frustration as she writes her article. I can’t wait to see what she has in next week’s installment. She promises to try to “provide a balanced, realistic and insightful look into narrowboat life” She needs to try harder on the balanced bit as far as I’m concerned.
Living On A Narrowboat Forum Survey: The Results
A huge thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the survey and tell me why you either wanted or didn’t want a forum on the site. Virtually everyone who completed the surveyoffered constructive comments; even those who said that they didn’t think a forum would be beneficial..And the result was…
You want a forum!
Well, 76.8% of those who responded indicated that they want a forum. There were many positive and encouraging comments posted. There were also many constructive comments posted from those of you who told me why they don’t think a forum is in the site’s best interest. Let me answer some of the more common points made.
“There are enough narrowboat forums already. Another really isn’t needed” I agree that there are a few forums around discussing boats in general and narrowboats in particular. Some contain thousands of topics and tens of thousands of replies, but that’s part of the problem.
I consider myself reasonably proficient with computers. I do a lot of research online so I’m pretty good at searching for information that I need and finding it without too much trouble. I always struggle with forums though. There are often so many topics and threads to plough through that finding the right information is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
I intend to add a little more structure to this site’s forum. I’m going to link forum topics to articles in the site and vice versa. I’m going to extract relevant information from forum conversations and write articles based on that information. I’m going to encourage the use of tags in forum posts to make finding information easier and I’m going to create an index of subjects with links to appropriate posts.
There’s a lot of work involved to keep on top of it all, but the site is my hobby and, as I don’t actually have a social life, I should be OK.
Here’s another constructive comment from the “No” section of the survey;
“There are often cases of cyber bullying on forums from a few established and highly opinionated members” I agree. I’ve seen it often and experienced it myself once or twice. While the forum should be a platform for open debate, there is absolutely no justification for individuals using their online status to intimidate others. I feel very strongly about bullying of any kind. Fortunately I am in a position to do something about it on this site. I simply won’t allow it. I would rather lose a forum member who is a regular contributor than allow other less frequent visitors to be intimidated.
So you now have a forum. I will do everything that I can to ensure that it’s a useful resource for the narrowboat community, but I can’t do it on my own. I need your help. Without it the forum will fail. The forum needs to be used for it to work. It needs to be used by both experienced and inexperienced narrowboat enthusiasts. The forum needs questions posed and questions answered. And they need to be answered in courteous and helpful manner.
It’s time to introduce you to the forum. Click on the following link to go to the forum home page. The page will open in a new window so that you can refer to this post as I show you around. Here it is.
Logging in to the forum
This is the forum home page. You should be logged in already if you’ve followed the link from this post because you need to be logged in to read this post. If you are logged in when you reach the forum home page, you should see your login details and avatar if you’ve selected one in the top left hand corner. You need to be logged in to read and to write posts so if you aren’t logged in already, log in using the link at the top right of the forum window.
Update your profile
Profile Tab
Before you do anything else, why don’t you update your profile. The forum software copied your very basic details from the web site database when the forum was created. This information just consisted of your login details and your name. You can enhance that information here. At the top right hand side of the forum window, you will see a button labelled “Profile”. There are numerous options in this section. The first tab, profile, is where you set your display name, first and last name, location, a short biography, and your signature.
The important ones are display name, location, and signature. These will be displayed on each post you write. The display name needs completing so people who read your posts know what to call you. The location doesn’t have to be completed but, personally, I think it’s really interesting to see where subscribers are located. At the last count, there were subscribers from 32 different countries! If you are a continuous cruiser on your own narrowboat, just add the name of your narrowboat and the fact that you are cruising full time in the location field.
It’s nice to know a little about the people you are talking to, so if you have time please fill in the biography section. You don’t have to write a novel. Just a few words about your situation now, whether you are a boat owner or whether you hope to purchase one in the near future. That’s all you have to put there.
If you have your own blog or website, you can add it here. The more you post on the site, the more your profile will be viewed and the more likely you are to get subscribers from this site visiting your blog.
The signature field is a bit of fun. you can see the signature on the bottom of my posts. It says “loving life afloat”. It sumarises they way I feel at the moment. Be creative!
Do you have an avatar? It’s your online graphic representation. In my case it’s a head and shoulders photo, but you can add whatever image you like to this section. There are just two riders to that;
- Keep it clean. Offensive or pornographic images will be removed
- You will need to ensure that the image is 50 x 50 pixels if it is to be displayed properly.
The last section on this tab is the account settings. You can change your email address here if you want forum notifications to go to a different address from the one specified. You can also change your password. A word of warning though, if you change your password here, it won’t update your site password. You’ll have to remember two passwords; one for the forum and one for the main site.
There are six other tabs for you to explore but I won’t go into them now. You can change notification settings, define buddies and adversaries (subscribers whose posts you don’t want to read and who you don’t want to send you private messages.
Talking of which, the forum has its own internal email system. You can send private messages to other members whenever you want. Please only use this for topics that are not in the public interest. If you think that others can benefit from the questions you ask and the answers you receive, post a topic on the forum instead.
Forum Rules and Regulations
I’ve never been much of a rule follower but it’s in everyone’s interest that we adhere to one or two. There aren’t many rules but they are important so please read them here.
Introduce Yourself
I want the forum to grow into a friendly and mutually beneficial community, just like the real world boating community. The first step is getting to know each other. This is where you can do that. I’ve started you off. Please read this to find out what encouraged me to leave a very comfortable bricks and mortar home for a relatively claustrophobic steel box.
Post A Topic
It’s time to begin! The majority of you wanted the forum so now’s your chance to put your money where your mouth is. We’ve passed the theory stage. The forum is ready and waiting. Let’s get posting. I promise you this, if you create a thread, I will respond to it. So if you have a question you would like to ask, please ask it. And if you know the answer to a question that’s been posted, please share that knowledge with other subscribers. It’s time to join the forum!
test post
Test post to see if there is a link created to the forum
Contact Me
[contact-form-7 id=”1777″ title=”Contact form 1″]Survey Result: The Downside To Living On A Narrowboat
As a result of Pauline Roberts article about the problems she has experienced as a liveaboard narrowboat owner, I created a survey and asked the boat owners who subscribe to this site to give me their point of view. There were eight questions in the survey. The questions and their answers are below.
Question 1: Is your boat ever cold in the winter?
“Other” Responses
“No, but it is frquently b****y hot”
“warm if my fire stays in, cold if it goes out”
“It is unless the fire is going and the heat never really warms up the bedroom”
“Only when I am not there to keep the stove in. Gets warm quickly and can always keep coat on.”
“only if I have been away a while”
“Pengalanty is always warm, comfortable & cosy, as I have a diesel fired “Bubble” corner stove that is fully controllable. Changes are noticed with a 15-minute period”
“Only very occasionally, if heating off and fire goes out”
“Webaso takes 10 mins”
Question2: Does your boat have any cold spots?
“Other” Responses
“We do not heat the bedroom”
“Only get cold areas if companion ways closed preventing warm air circulating.”
“near the front vents”
“My engine is sited in the back cabin area and near to the inner bulkhead and to one side. After the engine is run, it is like a “Giant” storgage heater, so my boat is warmer than most”
“Stern cabin can be cold due to draughts – can be fixed”
“Much better since we got an Ecofan”
“yes – of course”
Question 3: Do you have any problems emptying your toilet in the winter?
“Other” Responses”
“pump out toilet we pump out into containers if we are frozen in”
“I have a pump out but when frozen in, I use a bucket and dispose of contents down the elsan point.”
“We purchased self pump out and house owner kindly lets us empty in manhole in garden by where we are moored”
“Porta potti and pump out for emergency use only if the PP is full and can’t be emptied.”
“With my composting loo, I can survive almost 4-months without toilet maintenance (Emptying)”
“bucket and chuckit”
“i think that there isn’t enough space to add what I really want to write”
Question 4: Do you think dog muck on the towpath is a problem?
“Other” Responses
“Yes it is a problem. I wouldn’t shoot the dog though, I would shoot the owner”
“I love dogs, but I just wish owners would be considerate and clear up after them, there is nothing worse than stepping off you boat into a slimy pile of poo!!”
“Yes, but if I see owners not clearing up after their dogs I just offer them a plastic bag. No point getting angry.”
“The dog is not the problem. It’s the owner who does not pick up!”
“yes, often”
“it’s not the dogs – it’s the owners who should be shot!”
“no I pick mine up and tell others to as well”
“One has to be careful and yes, there are too many lazy, selfish owners.”
“Yes! In some places, this is a severe problem (I use nappy bags for our dog poo!)”
“it’s the owners not the dogs I’d shoot”
“Yes”
“It’s not the dogs that are a problem it’s the owners that don’t clean up after them”
“Yes there’s dog pooh but it’s the owners fault for not picking it up”
“it’s not the dogs fault, it’s the lazy owners who should be shot”
“I have 2 dogs so cleaning up is enevitable. If im moored, why not keep everywhere clean.”
“Don’t blame the dog. Blame the owner.”
“Its the owners that should be shot!!”
Question 5: How much of a problem is obtaining and managing your water supply?
“Other” Responses
“I’m on the Thames and getting water depends on the flow strength”
“Connected to water supply. Never had a problem.”
Question 6: How do you deal with your narrowboat’s lack of space?
“Other” Responses
“have always lived on a boat”
“plenty of space but you have to be eruthless with junk”
“I am a hoarder! – Need I say more? (I have an excess of tradesman tools, this is a problem)”
“If you can’t store it you probably don’t need it!!!!”
“i have sufficient space in the boat – and beautiful outside the boat”
Question 7: How much vandalism do you experience on the cut?
“Other” Responses
“Have only been living on boat 5months so have not experienced any yet”
“So far I have only been on the rivers”
“I was in the merchant navy for 26 years – this country is a haven – you need to see the rest.”
Question 8: Does the use or the condition of the towpath cause you any concern?
“Other” Responses
“I’d sooner have a muddy towpath than a tarmac one. Tarmac only encourages the cyclists.”
“No”
“As 1 but I would rather it was not muddy. Too many cyclists and motorcycles churning it up”
“More maintenance is required in heavy use areas; eg when lots of cyclists and walkers.”
“It has good and bad spots which is to be expected.”
“Towpath is behind a gated fence so no problems.”
A Review Of The Liveaboard Guide By Tony Jones
I’ve just been sent a book to review. It’s “The Liveaboard Guide” by Tony Jones. Tony Jones has lived aboard his 50ft narrowboat for 7 years, in which time he has traversed 500 miles of canals and rivers, navigated through 400 locks and moveable bridges, run aground 4 times, sunk once, and broken down more times than he can remember. He is a professional freelance writer, published regularly in Waterways World, Canals and Rivers and Towpath Talk.
I like this book. It’s packed full of useful information for potential narrowboat owners. Tony describes the different style narrowboats and the pros and cons of each, other liveaboard boat styles available in the UK but why they’re not suitable for canal liveaboards, whether to choose a new or used narrowboat, where to get them and what you can expect to pay, what to check for when considering a boat for sale, how to fund the purchase. Then he moves on to the practicalities of living on a boat.
Moorings
Where will you moor? Do you need a permanent mooring at all? How will you cope if you’re trying to hold down a full time job? How easy is it to find a residential mooring? What is a residential mooring and how does it differ from a leisure mooring? What facilities are available on moorings? How much can you expect to pay? What are “on-line” moorings and why is an off-side mooring much better than a towpath mooring? Where can you moor your boat for free?
The Cost Of Living On A Narrowboat
How much does a narrowboat license cost? Where will the license allow you to travel? What is a boat safety certificate and why do you need one? How much does insurance cost for a narrowboat? Is insurance available for liveaboard narrowboat owners? How much does coal and gas cost? How much electricity can you expect to use? How much diesel will your boat use? What about toilet servicing costs and boat maintenance costs? How much does a professional paint job cost and how often does it need to be done? How often does the hull need to be “blacked”?
The Importance Of Space
A narrowboat is a very small space to live in. Tony explains the different internal and external storage options available and why you need to consider the lack of on board space very carefully before considering living on a narrowboat.
Narrowboat Toilets
It’s a popular topic of conversation on the cut. Your toilet choice can have a significant impact on your life aboard. It’s a subject that never raises its ugly head in spacious homes on dry land but on a narrowboat where you have to carry your liquid and solid waste around with you, it’s very important indeed. And when you intend to live on board full time, it’s critical that you get it right. Tony’s book explains the options available to you.
Boating Skills
It’s not difficult to get a narrowboat from point A to point B. At Calcutt Boats, as with most narrowboat hire companies, novice boaters are given a crash course lasting no more than an hour before they set off on their own for a week or two. Of course the hire boats are fully equipped and serviced and call out engineers are just a phone call away. When you buy your own boat, you’re on your own. Tony explains clearly what equipment you need on board and what checks you need to make before you start a cruise. Once you are on the cut, you need to know how to conduct yourself. Tony explains the rules
Working and Living Afloat
How do you manage a full time job when you live on a boat? What are the problems that you are likely to experience and what are the solutions? Full time boaters need to be more organised than their land based counterparts. There are logistics to overcome but what are they and is commuting to work from your floating home really practical?
Managing Your Utilities
Unlike a house, a boat doesn’t have utilities on tap. Unless you have a connection to a land based electricity supply you have to generate your own electricity on board. You have to replenish your gas, coal and water supply. You have to keep a careful watch on your dreaded toilet tank. Tony explains how to manage it all effectively.
Boat Safety
There are many potential dangers in and around your boat. Fire risks from multi fuel stoves, carbon monoxide poisoning from stove and gas appliances, sinking through poor lock practices and lack of basic engine maintenance, slips on wet surfaces, slips on icy surfaces, trips caused by carelessness and poor rope management, slips and falls in the dark, crush injuries cause by inserting body parts between boats and solid objects, drowning (yes, you can drown in a shallow canal), amputation and laceration caused when body parts are introduced to a spinning propeller and broken bones from flying windlasses. The section also covers vandalism and break ins, illnesses and deseases. Be safe. Read the book.
On Board Entertainment
It’s possible to enjoy all the comforts and toys on your boat that you have in your house. Your choice though will have an impact on what type of system you need on board to generate the required amount of electricity. You can have digital television, radios, CD, DVD and MP3 players, games consoles and systems. In many places you can also enjoy broadband speed internet connectivity (I do on James… most of the time). Tony explains all you need to know to keep yourself entertained.
Boat Maintenance
Some basic knowledge about the systems on your boat is essential if you want to enjoy trouble free life on board. Tony explains how to prolong the life of your batteries, how to prevent toilet blockages, how to avoid catastrophic floods from frozen water pipes, basic equipment to keep on board to clear a fouled propeller (and carry out basic boat maintenance), the most effective flooring for your boat, how to deal with stove leaks and engine maintenance. It’s stuff you need to know.
Keeping In Touch With The Real World
When you move on to a boat full time, you create a bit of a problem for yourself. Many institutions insist that you supply documentary evidence of a permanent address. You don’t have an address for your boat unless you are on a mooring where the owner will agree to accept mail for you. However, this can often create a problem for the mooring owner. So how do you deal with the paperwork necessary to open a bank account, register with a GP or dentist? Guess what? You need to read the book.
In summary, I think Tony’s book is excellent. It’s easy to read, well presented, has plenty of cracking photo’s and is a really useful resource whether you’re thinking of buying a boat to live on or just for occasional leisure use.
Click here for the Kindle edition
