December 2005

We have seen a few articles that suggest the UK government is on-side when it comes to extending the UK derogation for using red diesel on leisure craft – let’s hope the Eurocrats follow suit. We are not taking any chances and will maintain our requirements for two separately piped diesel tanks on BELLE; this arrangement will enable us to fill one tank with DERV for the engine and the other with red diesel for the main boiler and the stove. Both will be filled with red diesel until the rules change.

Balmaha has been launched and the shell for the boat to be fitted out before BELLE has been craned into the workshop. You can read about Balmaha here.

British Waterways has advised that they will now treat our criticism of the Sawley Marina moorings policy as an official complaint. We are told that British Waterways Marinas Limited will carry out an investigation and that we should receive a written explanation of their findings within 20 days – so we should have some news to report sometime in January 2006.

Its Christmas – and we have some other important things to attend to!

Our wedding cake:

See you in 2006.

November 2005

We met up over a pie and a pint with the couple having their boat built at Sandhills Narrowboats Limited at the moment [Balmaha] – we stumbled across their BLOG one night and recognised Gary’s characteristic woodwork in some of the images they had loaded onto their site. A couple of email exchanges and we fixed a date. It was very useful indeed to compare notes and have a general chat about how we ended up with our own separate designs, desirable features, things to watch out for, etc. We talked about what made us decide to bring about such a radical change in our respective lifestyles and surroundings, etc. – there were lot‘s of common denominators.

We visited Sandhills Narrowboats Limited the following week to discuss a few aspects of the design for BELLE and the construction agreement. As it happens, we were given an opportunity to look through the boat we had been discussing the previous week - an excellent job of work and further confirmation that we have ordered BELLE from the right builder.

Guess what, we have changed the bathroom layout yet again! The bathroom is still a walk-through, but now we have added a partition and an additional door to create a separate toilet area. We have also changed the bathroom and day room doors to the bi-parting type – this means that they do not project quite so much into the bathroom and day room when opened. Finances have improved a bit and we now find that we can afford two Houdini hatches in the roof – one has been positioned over the bathroom and the other mid way between the galley and the saloon. We wanted them from day one really, but it was just a matter of finding sufficient funds to cover them – installed cost is £705 each, so they ain’t cheap.

So, dare I say it – we have now finalised the concept. In theory, all that remains is our formal agreement for the porthole and hatch positions and the detail design for the removable gunwale sections at the bow [aid to roll-on / off for the bikes] with Sandhills Narrowboats Limited / Graham Reeves. This lot must all be sorted in readiness for when the steelwork commences early February 2006. Thereafter, the foam lining and paintwork is applied, followed by the main fitting out – we shall be BLOGGING this in some detail.

It came as no great surprise to learn early November 2005 from British Waterways that they hold the legal title to Sawley Marina and for that matter, most other marinas managed on their behalf by British Waterways Marinas Limited. So, another letter has gone their way asking them to explain how they can legitimately elicit boat sales on the basis that an element of that being ‘sold’ is priority access to a mooring that all members of the boating public should, albeit subject to waiting their turn on a fairly and squarely managed waiting list, have equal opportunity to access? Letter went on 04 November 2005 and we are still waiting to hear from them.

Good news for the continuous cruisers – apparently British Waterways has decided not to clobber them with a higher rate licence fee. Bad news for shared ownerships though, because most will now be required to pay the higher rate. If you want to see the waffle loaded British Waterways document, you will find it here.

October 2005

We decided to get married – now set for Christmas Eve 2005. Well, after an 11 year romance, we felt that it was the right time for us. We want a wedding cake with a difference and after a bit of searching on the Internet, we found Heather Higgins. Heather does some really wacky stuff as can be seen if you have a look at her website. We hit on the idea that we could have a cake themed on BELLE, with us at the stern in ‘wedding gear’ - well why not? We agreed with Heather that we would make a scale model of the stern of BELLE so as to give her a better idea of the proportions, gather a few photographs of us and Beth the dog and we would leave her to do the rest. As it happens, making this model has also helped us to better visualise the colour scheme and the livery. We will post some pictures of the cake on Christmas Eve [or thereabouts, because we will have a honeymoon to attend to, amongst other things].

The model:

We received an email from British Waterways Marinas Limited in response to our application for a mooring at Sawley Marina. Shock-Horror, whereas we knew that we could be in for up to a 2-year wait for a residential mooring, we were flabbergasted to learn that all of their moorings are allocated in priority to those that have purchased a boat from / via their boat sales office. So, in effect, the waiting list does not shorten for the likes of us! What the hell do they think they are playing at?

Surely, Sawley Marina is still in effect a ‘public resource’, because British Waterways is a UK government agency and they are the sole shareholders of British Waterways Marinas Limited? We shall see what comes back from British Waterways, because we have asked them to clarify who owns the legal title to all of the marinas managed by British Waterways Marinas Limited on their behalf. We might even ask Trading Standards to investigate in the hope that this will result in us and others like us getting a fair deal for moorings that still effectively belong to British Waterways. The British Marine Federation [BMF] might also be interested in this – mindful that they are pressing very hard to ensure that British Waterways’ new venture in the form of British Waterways Marinas Limited competes ‘on a level playing field’. The long term prospects are somewhat grey and fuzzy because we sense that British Waterways is being set up for privatisation anyway – this is a topic for another day. We can only hope for the time being that they make a better job of it than the railway did!

September 2005

The WW magazine write-up for Still Waters was a good one with plenty said about the high quality of the workmanship – only disappointing part was that the photographs made the interior look a bit pale and anaemic. Having seen the interior with our own eyes, we can say that its a lot warmer than the photographs suggest. We thought we had settled on the layout of the interior for BELLE – well, apparently not. We heeded the remark in the article about Still Waters regarding the ability to ‘shut the door’ on the toilet. This resulted in our redesigning the bathroom, still as a walkthrough, but we have rearranged the two doors so that so that they will also close off the main section of the bathroom creating a corridor. This will enable the occupants to go about their business in private and equally importantly, keep nasty niffs in the same general area and give them a chance to disperse via the bathroom porthole! We also did away with the chamfered shower base and opted for a square one to give us a bit more elbow room [or is that belly room?].

We kept up our search for suitable moorings – we now have our names down for Shardlow and Sawley marinas near Nottingham. We also decided to buy a pressurised paraffin lamp [ Vapalux M1B ] as a back-up for when the electrics fail on the boat [which they surely will at some time or other] and for lighting up the bank / towpath when we are using it as our ‘patio’. This is now resident in the every growing box of bits destined for the boat. Wait a minute, we were supposed to be reducing our inventory – something will have to go to compensate! Please take note that these types of pressure lamps make a lot of noise when they are working, unlike capillary fed lamps. However, on the plus side, they do throw out a lot more light and heat and the fumes are less offensive.

August 2005

Not a lot happened by way of boat related stuff this month. We thought that we had more or less finalised the colour scheme for BELLE, but oh no, for some reason we decided to change it from a burgundy base to a gunmetal grey base – not really sure why, we just did. Our challenge is to achieve the right shades of grey with just enough black and white to ensure that the boat does not look as if it has only been given a coat of grey primer – watch this space.

We learned from Dawn at Sandhills Narrowboats Limited that the boat they exhibited at the Crick Show 2005 [‘Still Waters’] will be written up in the October 2005 issue of Waterways World magazine – we thought that it was a really nice boat, so it will be interesting to read what WW magazine has to say about it. Still Waters is a 65’ cruiser with a similar engine and auxiliary equipment specification to BELLE, but thereafter things get very different.

We have been keeping our eyes open for some decent 446 PMR’s [walkie-talkies]. We took some lightweight ones on our weekend cruise back in February and we found them very useful indeed, particularly at locks and at those times when wind and engine noise drowned us both out. However, we really need some heavy duty jobbies like the Kenwood TK3101 that I use when out and about on my bike, but preferably with a higher IP [water / dust resistance] rating. We spotted a new model from Entel - their HT446. This model is based upon Entel’s very successful marine band radio designs and as such, this model is submersible, but at £160 a piece they are a touch on the expensive side. They would be excellent in the rain but failure to recover them from the bottom of the canal would certainly be a heartbreaker at that price. Me thinks that we should keep looking.

July 2005

The house sale was completed 01 July 2005 and we moved to our temporary accommodation in Nottingham that same day. God, it was a long day driving a 7.5 ton box van all over the place. We travelled up to Todmorden and then over to Manchester to drop some items off at their new owners before eventually getting to our place in Nottingham. Still, its all part of the adventure [even that bit where I wiped some wing mirrors off several parked cars down a narrow Manchester street] and we are both glad we have now reached the ‘no going back’ stage. Life seems so much different travelling around in a big van at about 50 miles per hour compared to the much faster speeds in the car and even faster on the bike. Travelling at four miles per hour in the boat must take some getting used to.

Have you sent your comments to British Waterways yet in response to their consultation paper on the fee structure for boat licences in England and Wales – we have. Bad news for continuous cruisers if it goes through – we might be one of those for a while if we cannot get a mooring!

Anyway, having got the house sale out of the way, what the hell are we going to do for a year whilst we are waiting for BELLE?

June 2005

We have placed the order for BELLE with Sandhills Narrowboats Limited – she is scheduled for delivery / commissioning at Hanbury Wharf on the Worcester & Birmingham canal June 2006.

We went to the Crick Boat Show at the end of May 2005. We were expecting to come away with a stack of new ideas for BELLE, dreading a load of re-working of the drawings and the specification, but it did not turn out that way. We have more or less settled on the layout and the specification we have been working on for months. That said, there were some really nice boats to look at – and there were a few ‘waste skips’ masquerading as new boats as well. However, we can feel some ‘riveting’ coming on – there is something about the riveted construction of the older boats that we like. We are not so keen on the idea of drilling countless holes along the hull and fitting coach bolts or something else that would give the impression that you are looking at an old style boat though – that might have to wait for a while – possibly a Sunday job, where you get right around the boat within a couple of years!

Beth [our Border Collie] learned to swim – well, we knew that she knew how to swim, but she didn’t know she knew how to swim – if you know what we mean. She is just two years old and she has only ventured into the water to her ‘undercarriage depth’. In the space of two days, she went from a few nervous doggie paddled excursions from the bank of the Coventry canal to diving in and swimming from one side to the other, collecting the obligatory stick en-route. We recall that it took us a lot longer than that to get the hang of it when we were kids [swimming that is, we never did get around to retrieving sticks]. We were a bit concerned that she might fall in the canal out of reach of the boat and get her awakening that way. Notwithstanding propellers and deep locks, etc. at least now she stands a fighting chance of keeping herself on the surface until help arrives.

The house sale is going forward, albeit painfully slowly. We are on sale completion date proposal number four and we are getting impatient. Thankfully, we are only in a short chain of three, so it could be worse. Downsizing is going well – the main items of furniture have all been ‘claimed’ by members of the family. Our clothing has been reduced to the volume we both expect to have by way of wardrobes and drawers in the boat [well mine is, but Stelle might still have a bit more to do yet, but don’t tell her I said so]. A couple of car boot sales sees many of the remaining items off to a new home and the odds and sods that are left over are bound for the tip. We have negotiated some temporary storage space at our parents, so that helps. Our aim is to reduce the storage space required for our items such as paperwork and family photographs and that sort of thing by scanning them and storing them on disc. That in itself is a big job, but an hour’s worth of scanning each day should see the pile gradually reduce to something not worth bothering about by the time we move onto BELLE.

British Waterways contacted us – Would we like a mooring at Fradley Junction because one has just become available? Having heard that decent moorings were getting harder to find and more costly when found, we put our names down in May 2005 for a few moorings that we liked; one was Fradley Junction, expecting it to take a year or possibly more for a mooring to become available at such a popular location. Common sense prevailed and we reluctantly declined the British Waterways offer – paying nearly £1800 for a space for a year with no boat to put in it was not going to be very cost effective and sub-letting might have been frowned upon by BW. We will just have to keep our fingers crossed that we can still get a mooring we like a bit nearer the time.

Copyright © 2005 - 2006 C J Wells