Tigerr

The new to us boat has quite a high cratch deck, and a low cratch height. It's got a cover, with a single zip. It's very cramped to get in and out of, and rolling the cover right back to the beam is a faff. Neither of us is as flexible as we used to be. Anyway, had an edge scrape in Husbands Bosworth tunnel a few days ago, entirely my own fault, and the cover is damaged. To repair, and insert another zip to open it all the way up, is quite expensive in itself. So I am thinking of remodelling the cratch so it works better for us. My idea is to raise the front centre by about 8 inches, fabricating a hardwood surround to fit onto the existing cratch front, with long tapered infils down the sides to take a nice triangular profile up, still inside the 'bridge hole curve'. Likewise a new higher back roof piece profiling down to meet the rails. Then get a new cover made to fit, zipping right up so one can enter easily, and indeed stand. Yes it will be higher than the boat roof, but in sympathy, perhaps a bit more of a lump at the front, but still aesthetically ok. Currently the boat's air draft seems very average if not a bit lower than many other boats I see. The boat next door looks to have about a 12" higher front peak. I used to cruise the old boat with curved profile top boxes that put 10 inches on, and never had a problem with bridges, branches etc in 10 years. But, the front end is more sensitive. Is there any reason what I am thinking of is a bad idea?

Thanks Paul. I think you are directing me to the touch-screen options. Are the Alpine ones better?

So, the new to us boat has an old school Pioneer radio. Its wired into a nice set of speakers but it is one of those pioneer models with a completely incomprehensible control system, much like the one I installed in our old boat in 2012. Old school single line type interaction, with abbreviations that probably made sense in Korea or Japan but could be enigma code to us old folks. I suspect plenty on here will recognise this little hell. We cant even find the off switch. we have to turn the damn thing off via the control panel at the back of the boat. I dont think it has bluetooth capability, but even if it does it is so far down a button pressing menu selection menu that we've never gone there. We rejoice if we can get anything other than the default of 1980's pop, which we both loathe. What I want it for is to play my audiobooks and music. I am capable of installing and wiring a new system, did so on the motorhome a few years ago. Got the crimping tools. I can also manage drilling in and mounting a local on/off, but I'd rather it was easily found on the radio itself. I mounted a Sony system in the van, it's not bad, but I suspect there are better choices. What I'd like, is a nice intuitive touch screen based system, with bluetooth, that I could replace the old model, but use the same slot in the wood bulkhead. I am sure someone here knows what I want.

Your subfloor appears to be sound. Like you, I'd always go for a wood floor. It's impossible not to track mud and wet into the boat, and our first boat had carpet tiles, with a big stack of replacement tiles. Never liked them, and we replaced with karndean planking over a ply base - looked like a boat, and could be mopped. Once down, you'd be hard pressed to tell it wasn't a lovely oak planked floor. It was faultless for 10 years, could be mopped, very hardwearing, and looked lovely. Yes, it was cold. We wore thick socks, and in the summer the dog loved cooling off on it. I'd have liked proper wood, engineered or other, but you do have to be confident of dry conditions. Wet or damp will destroy that lovely wood flooring, staining it in an instant, and then warping etc. You must be completely confident of having a dry, reliably dry, subfloor. We did have a problem in the bathroom, and all that was needed was chopping out some subfloor, and replacing the karndean - easy job. I suspect not so with a solid glued wood floor. It only takes a couple of hours of an open hatch dripping to ruin an engineered floor. An ongoing damp bilge might take longer, but in the end it's going to grow mushrooms. You do have an obvious issue of wet related rot by the door. That is a huge warning indicator. I am not connected to Karndean - just think it's an ideal boat flooring solution.

You can use 'Canalplan' to manage your route, it is very good. Mind you, you can't guarantee to get moorings where you want, in the busy season, after about 1500. It can make sense to start and finish early.