Leaderboard

There are no issues with a 'fat-boat' ( I have one at 14 feet beam and one at 23foot beam), the problem is the location that you have chosen as your 'base'. London has limited moorings (and you do need a mooing to tie up to at night / for a few days) Boat congestion is fairly severe with narrowboats already having to moor up 2 or 3 abreast (tied up to each other side by side) an then the outside ones have to walk over the inside one to get to 'land' - a widebeam takes up twice the space of a narrowboat so further restricts the available mooring space - so, your 'fat-boat' will not only by be 'another boat' added to the already congested waters, but, in effect 'adding two boats'. You both work (primarily) from home so why restrict yourself to a busy, unpleasant, urban environment. You could CC or take a mooring further North (maybe Nottingham or Leicester) have beautiful countryside around you and take a train (about an hour or so journey) on the odd occasions you needed to visit London. If, however, the 'plan' is based more around having a 'cheap flat' (that happens to float) in London, rather than enjoying boating and the life aboard, then forget the 'move North' suggestion.

Email just arrived from the EA. Water levels in the upper River Thames Water levels in the upper River Thames, particularly upstream of Abingdon lock, will be shallower than you are used to in some places, due to below average rainfall this year. With this in mind we are asking boaters to take extra care, especially immediately downstream of locks where the natural gradient of the river means levels are always slightly lower than elsewhere in the reach. For your safety, we have marked all known shallow areas in the main navigation channel (the middle third of the river, also known as the ‘fairway’) with red and green buoys. Please ensure you are familiar with the rules of navigation around obstructions marked in this way - they are there to protect you and your boat from harm. You may find the diagram on page 13 of the River Thames cruising guide helpful. Remember, boats coming towards you may have to manoeuvre around an obstruction even if you don’t. Also, other boats may be harder to handle than yours, and their skippers less experienced, so please be considerate. Where we can, we will also mark obstructions that we are aware of, or are reported to us, outside of the main navigation channel. We cannot mark every one however, so do please be vigilant. You can report an obstruction to us on 03708 506 506. Please also remember that a mooring may be shallower than the last time you used it. We are doing all that we can to maintain the depths of navigation as published on www.gov.uk. Actions we are taking include closing all our weirs and placing ‘summer boards’ on those that can accommodate them to raise their height. This means we can hold more water back, so raising levels. We are also carrying out additional checks for any leaks in our weir gates and ensuring they are staunched. In addition, we have instructed our lock staff in the Oxford area to try to avoid emptying locks unless they contain at least one boat, wherever possible. This ensures we are making the most of the considerable volume of water that is released downstream each time a lock is used. If water levels continue to drop, it will be increasingly difficult for us to maintain depths, even if we implement additional measures such as restricted lock use. We hope to avoid the need for additional measures but may not be able to unless there is significant rainfall over the coming weeks. Where possible we will also ask our lock staff to advise you of any known shallow areas ahead of you. To help you assess whether or not to continue your journey, you may want to check your boat’s draft if you don’t already know it. Above Iffley Lock we cannot guarantee the navigation channel will always be sufficiently deep for craft with a draft of 0.9m or more. We are of course monitoring the situation very closely and will let you know immediately if there are any further developments you need to be aware of. We hope you have found this communication helpful in planning your cruising this summer, and hope it is not unduly affected by weather conditions. Thank you for your understanding and co-operation. River Thames Waterway Operations

Hi Peppers and welcome to the forum. There are a "few" of us on this forum who have widebeams, not many, but a few. Ours is our first canal boat, so I really can't tell you if it's easier or harder to handle than a narrow boat, but I can tell you we have no problems in cruising. Ours is a 57 x 10.10 with a trad stern which gives us more internal space, a very generous main bedroom and a good size spare as well the bathroom, large galley and good size lounge. After living on ours for 4 years now, the only thing I'd have different if we were looking to replace it would be: 1) reverse layout (galley & lounge at the stern of the boat) 2) soild fuel (coal/wood) stove on the left (port) side of the boat...this really should be a no brainer, but as novices we didn't understand the difference and bought a boat with it on the right hand (starboard) side 3) I prefer a U shaped galley rather than the L shape I have, more efficient use of space. We've cruised the GU, K&A, Thames, Paddington & Regent canals & the rivers Lee & Stort. We've always been able to find a spot to moor and only once did we need to double (breast up) moor and that was at Wallingford on the Thames during the peak season. We went through London a couple of years ago, and had no problems with finding a place to single moor. To be honest, there aren't many spots in London I'd be comfortable to double moor our boat, I'd feel we would just cause too much of a obstacle especially to other widebeams. I don't envy you living on a boat in London, I wouldn't want to do it, but others do. Just make sure you fully understand what is expected of your movements by CRT as a cc'er. I'd also recommend that either you or your partner have a decent grasp of diesle engine maintenance, battery managment & electrics. Best of luck in your search. *when looking at boats, we found you get a lot more for you money the further north you go. If our boat had been in London when we bought it, it would have sold easily for 15 -20K more than what we paid for it in Chorley. Ours had one previous owner, the engine hours were ridiculously low, it hadn't even been broken in

Just get a recording of it, then playback louder than the engine you get. Sorted

Hello Dean, an old blog, and very good it was too. I was amazed to see how quick you made this sailaway into a nice home for your familly. The only thing I never understood is why you repeatedly wrote that you were going to post more pictures soon, but never did. Of course nobody can oblige you to put up these photos, but there's no need to say several times that you're going to post them, if you don't do it. Still anyway, I think you did a great job. Peter.

Except all the piss takers ruined that for the rest of us.

Easy to get the chimney caught on overhanging trees when passing another boat. If it is on the port side, it will be near the centre of the canal when passing boats.

Again, Dear Lady, that's a lot more knowledge than most folks. I just found a video of a TS2 on Youtube and it does sound great at tickover, but at canal speeds they get a lot louder. The engine on the sale boat looked like my SR2 on my home generator and that is very loud (it does run at a fixed 1500 rpm) whereas you will be running at 1,000 - 1,200 rpm).

I did say that some may disagree. But I stick with what I said - they can be dangerous, especially when used by someone not aware of the dangers. Just because it is a designed feature doesn't mean that it can't get blocked.

The GU from London to M/K is getting more and more congested and is better suited to narrowboats but not impossible. Fat narrowboats are easier to handle than similar sized narrow beam craft and make living aboard an even greater pleasure. The problem on this forum is most but not all are narrowboaters many of which will comment on something they have never even been aboard let alone lived on but in fairness the proliferation of Fat boats in the wrong place is getting to be a problem.

Pretty much - yes. Unless they are private moorings, for the use of (say) a ferry, or permanent moorings (that someone pays for). They will generally be 'signed' as no-mooring. It is generally accepted (in London) that you will need to 'breast-up' moor alongside), but the etiquette is 1) To ask 2) If no one is in just do it and ask when they come 'home' 3) Do not moor a 'big boat' on the outside of a small boat 4) Take your lines to the 'shore', don't rely on tying up ONLY to the boat you are mooring against. You will get all sorts of arguments from boaters why they don't want you to moor against them, from "I'm leaving at 5:00am and don't want to disturb you when I go, to My dog has got claustrophobia and cannot stand having a boat tied up - when that happens its not worth the hassle - just move on.

My twopenneth As for having to live in/around London you have my sincere condolences, I would not live there boat/boatless for all the tea in China. Having said that I also believe a fat boat is too big for the small waterways such as the G/u and others with their congestion and the north is VASTLY better suited. Having said all that a Fat Boat is MUCH MUCH comfier to live aboard and a much better boat to handle and for stability, narrowboats as the name gives away are too skinny to make good boating but are popular due to their go more places capability. Having lived on both the difference is immense and if you can put up with the small waterways and problems that may give you then a Fat boat is the way to go.

One of the big 'issues' is that the towpaths are being concreted / tarmac and 'THEY' are not installing mooring rings, so, as you can now no longer knock in mooring pins, and you have no rings to tie up to that stretch is now no longer available to use for mooring. As the 'cycling paths' and tow-path upgrades continue the mooring options will get less and less. I'd suggest that you join the London Boaters facebook page where you will be able to get updated information - I've not been to London for some time. (Rumour has it that you can co-ordinate your 'moving date' such that you arrange for another boater to move on the same day / time and you just 'swap places' and hope that no-one else jumps in whilst you are both on the move - it could be, for example that at 10:30am every second Thursday, every boat in London is 'on the move' to a new mooring 'spot')

Yes, but are we aware that anyone has actually been charged this? Not for an extended stay, but for, say a couple of days transit one way and three weeks later a couple of days transit back again?

On the Thames you buy your EA licence at the first manned lock you come to, which would be Sonning if manned. If no-one's there, for example because you've set out early in the morning, you might operate several locks yourself before you come to one with someone on duty, no problem. I know this applies to daily and weekly licences and suppose it would for monthly too. A month from Reading to the Wey? That's not too long if you really like to take your time, and as you've just spent two months doing the K&A to Bristol and back I suppose you do. But Reading to the Wey can be done at a slow pace on a week's licence, and because it's only two 8 hour days of boating you could do it on a one day licence if you want, because that gives you the day you buy it plus the next day. The quick way is to moor the night before in the Reading Gaol loop, start early, buy your licence as above, stop the night halfway, then get onto the Wey late afternoon on day 2. Navigation is not so different to going downriver from Oxford to Reading, the river's just a bit bigger. The main thing to keep in mind is to make sure you find the lock channel and don't head towards the weir! It's not always easy because the "LOCK>" sign sometimes gets covered by foliage in summer, so do take a map so you know what's coming up. There's a huge variety of craft, from the big trip boats (especially at Windsor) down to lots of little canoes, rowers and sailing dinghies and the occasional swimmer. So keep a good lookout. All those little boats are more manoeuvrable than you, so generally just be predictable, follow a steady course and give them a long blast on the horn if they're in your way. They don't want to be mown down by 15 tons of narrowboat, but they may need reminding of that.

She actually said "So no pootling about till discovered", which reads to me as if she'd happily pootle till she was discovered if she could.

The shaft is 1" diameter. The standard taper for imperial shafts is 1:12 (except Lister who used 1:10 just to be awkward). Put the boat in forward gear and see which way the shaft turns - that will tell you which hand you need - almost certainly r/h. No, it's a got a long shaft from a centre cockpit engine/gearbox with the shaft sloping down and running out through a conventional stern gear bonded into a shallow keel.

"Driving" a widebeam is as easy as most other boats....with less swaying to the left/right...more stable.......it's only bridges that might need a little more attention. Click my signature link and it should open an old blog

Don't worry, the first low bridge will do that for you Congratulations and welcome to the wonderful world of boating.

No, there are cyclists... end of. Then there are nice, understanding considerate people and arseholes. There doesn't need to be any limits imposed as Alan has rightly said, just the consideration of boaters and walking people on the towpath, if around any then slow right down. Simple really.

All good stuff and relevant, however it's too wordy and long. A simple statement is all that's needed: - "Going by Boat? ... On Foot? ..... Or Bike? .... Then it's 4MPH !!"