koukouvagia

Let's have some pictures. I'm suffering from withdrawal symptoms.

Having just sold one of our boats the process is still very much in mind. 1. Although I had owned the boat for nearly thirty years, I had nothing formal to show that it was mine. However, I did have a large file containing invoices for all the work done on the boat since 1989 and many other relevant documents. This I handed over to the buyer. There was also a recent hull survey and a Boat Safety Certificate and I made a detailed website and a comprehensive inventory of exactly what was included in the sale. 2. I had two pieces of paper – both cribbed off the internet. (a) an Agreement to Sell. This outlined price, dates, arrangements for a survey, etc. etc. In fact, I simply spelt all this out verbally to the buyer whom I trusted. (b) A Bill of Sale. This was a very simple document which again I adapted from one of the many examples to be found online. The crucial phrase was that the boat was mine to sell and was “free from all encumbrances”. I and the buyer signed this when the money had been deposited in my bank. Remember that the moment you sell the boat, it is no longer insured in your name, even though there may still be several months to run. It is the responsibility of the buyer to have his/her own insurance in place. I may have been lucky in having such a hassle-free sale. A diy approach certainly saved me a fortune in a broker’s commission. Incidentally, when I sold the Seffle many years ago, it was simply a matter of a handshake whereupon the buyer handed over a carrier bag full of fivers.

Yep, this is what you need.

It's highly corrosive too. I had to have the reflector of my vintage headlight re-chromed because of the damage the blighters did.

Since this thread is developing into a "who's got the biggest pistons?" contest, I thought I'd post the ones from a Kelvin.

The wooden tiller end on Owl has no wedge, no tape, nothing fancy. Every so often it works a bit loose so a quick dip in the cut and the wood swells and keeps it firmly in place.

I had a workshop on our ex working boat and I’m glad to say that I never had a problem that I couldn’t sort out when I was boating. Over thirty years I accumulated enough spares to stock a small chandlery! When we sold the boat recently and I removed all my stuff, I found that the boat needed reballasting because the back end was nearly a foot out of the water.

The pump I had on Owl did leak, just like you say. However, I have been lucky with this one on Hampton. The one on Owl was an expensive version; the one on Hampton is a cheapo from Ebay.

If you want to fit a dedicated tank for the stove, you should be aware that to fit one larger than 27l is not a trivial task. This tank has to have a vent pipe and flame arrester - just like a main tank. Because it has to be filled inside the boat, it needs a means of diverting spillages overboard - again just as you would have with a main tank. For this reason I fill mine directly from the main diesel tank and have an enclosed feed and overflow system. The diesel is pumped up into the auxiliary tank via a semi rotary pump, thence to the stove by gravity. I rely on the inbuilt filter in the Refleks since this traps any gunge and is easy to clean.

It's all very well to have awards for "space [which] boasts the highest possible environmental standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent visitor facilities" etc. but I'd like to see an award for those canals which have been dredged properly, where the lock gates don't leak and where the vegetation has been cut back. In other words a "best navigable canal award".

Well, comparatively speaking it should be better. The restored boat will have a steel back cabin, a new paint job, upgraded electrics and - most important of all, 70% of the hull at the back of the boat has been replaced. So I'm hoping to avoid major jobs for a while. I can deal with ordinary maintenance - in fact, I rather enjoy it. Think this will need less attention . . . than this

Ah yes, so it does. Clearly without a boat to occupy me, I've got too much time on my hands and so find myself concerned about the minutiae of the forum.

I don't particularly want to give (or receive) greenies. However, I feel a bit excluded because if I did want to give a greenie all I can see is an icon showing a broken link.

We’ve had two boats for the best part of thirty years and reluctantly we’ve reduced the number to one. We kept our historic pair in the same place because they were a josher pair and looked good together. Although the butty has an independent means of propulsion, it was great fun to use them as motor and butty. However, and it’s a big “however”, when only myself and my wife were boating it was, frankly, a bit of a struggle using both boats. So we tended to use only the motor, leaving the butty on the mooring. The idea originally was for our son and daughter-in-law to use the butty, but pressure of work meant that they were only able to come out with us for a very limited time each year. Alan is absolutely right about the time taken to look after two historic boats, not to mention the expense. I used to spend at least four weeks each year doing maintenance work - mainly on the wooden cabined butty. This was time I would rather have spent actually boating. The moment of truth came last summer when I was battling up the north Stratford into Birmingham. The levels were diabolical - I even got stuck in the King’s Norton guillotine lock. That had never happened before. I realised that I was no longer enjoying boating with a deep drafted boat and I looked enviously at our butty which was having absolutely no problems since it has a much shallower draft. Then I damaged my back turning the Kelvin over prior to starting it (I used to turn it over a few times, to circulate the oil). That, coupled with my wife’s dodgy knee, meant that the time had come to let the motor go to a younger enthusiast! I’m pleased to say it sold very quickly and couldn’t have gone to a better custodian. We are eagerly awaiting the time - in about six weeks - when we get our butty back. It is undergoing extensive and skilled restoration up at WFBCo and we hope it will give us many more years of more or less maintenance-free boating. Also while still being an historic boat, it is much more manageable on today’s shallow canals.

I've had experiences like this for the past thirty years. I'm afraid CaRT, and BW before them, are not very good at dealing with anything slightly out of the ordinary. The usual response is along the lines of "the computer says, no." You need to keep cool and ask to speak to the head of licensing. The higher up the corporate ladder you manage to reach, the more reasonable the discussion becomes. The problem is that the personnel and the management structure seems to change so often that it's often difficult to locate the correct person from one year to the next. Persistence and politeness is the rule. (Having said that I once did have to take a complaint to what BW called a level two adjudication. The board member who dealt with my complaint was charming and reasonable and found in my favour - a long story).