NB kingfisher

Exciting plans! Ill be following this!

How'd they manage to get a cat? We approached Cats Protection, RSPCA, Blue Cross. Soon as we said we live on a boat they didn't want to know

One of her friends had a cat which had kittens. None of the animal organisations seem to allow adoptions from boaters, but half the boats I know have cats or dogs.

Lots of boaters around us have dogs- Jack Russells seem to be the saveur de jour. But no cats.
We had a cat when we got our boat, kept her in for a month but she kept pestering to be let out. So we did, she went out, had a sniff around came back. Went out again, bit further away, came back. Went out again, that was the last we saw of her. She had a tracker on too but it was only short range
Would love to get another cat but not sure how to go about it
Missus would like a dog but I find 'em a bit dirty and smelly (and I don't like Jack Russells!)
Tl;dr, sorry to hijack your thread, it's great, living on a boat. You learn so much about all sorts of weird stuff

Great project, always liked these little boats as a kid when we lived in the UK. Would make some kind of joke about having room to swing a couple of cats if I thought it'd be funny.

Don’t worry, it’s funny 😆

The cats both have somewhere to go for at least a few months anyway.

Moved the boat a few miles up the cut today in preparation for survey tomorrow. The seller accompanied me half way (though the locks) then left me to it. Ended up having to single hand it up another lock and turn it around to moor it so feeling a bit better about my boat handling skills now.

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Really enjoying this. Nice one dude. Subbed

Good luck with the survey!

Awaiting the full report but overall pretty pleased. Surveyor was great - let me sit around to watch and talked through what he was doing and why at each stage, and the pros/cons of options for remedial work.

I no longer have a gas locker as the drains were too low and water had been entering/exiting causing corrosion. Welded them up and will get some new ones fabricated on the stern.

Someone has helpfully blacked over some surface rust so that needs addressing in the next couple of months. Need to strip off all the layer old the old stuff at which point will probably redo with 2-pack epoxy rather than bitumen.

Most importantly the hull has retained most of its thickness over the years and no plating is needed. 5mm sheet is still 5 or 4.9 in most places. A few areas down to 4.7-8 and one v.small area of 4.2. There is some light 1mm pitting from microbial corrosion that can be addressed when doing the blacking.

Engine is decent, could do with a bit of a cleaning up + service further down the line but only one small thing that is a ‘sooner rather than later’ job.

🥳

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Good news about the survey, nice to know that you're not sat in the cut with paper thin steel. Last time I blacked a hull (2012) I used Comastic, went on nicely, and was quite durable.
Edit: Comastic no longer produced.

How did he measure the thickness of the hull to within a 10th of a mm!?

Magic/voodoo/techy jiggery pokery.

Ultrasonic gauge.

Sounds good, what is the first step now?

1. find somewhere to live for the next couple of months.
   
2. sell more of my possessions
   
3. start heading towards Aylesbury to come out of water for 9 days in July
   
4. strip out what’s left of the interior
   
5. wire brush all the rust from the bilges, rust treat, repaint
   
6. new sub floor and line out (excluding ceiling)
   
7. arrive at Aylesbury
   
8. Pressure wash + strip hull back to the steel
   
9. Welder fills a few pits, infills all current flue fittings, waste outlets etc. + makes new gas locker.
   
10. Black the hull with 2-pack epoxy
    
11. Install some kind of electrical setup + instant water heater
    
12. move on to boat and work out the rest from there
    
    

11/12 might have to be swapped around depending on my living situation. which will be interesting...

I'll be watching this with interest!

My parents were into canal boats for a long time, it's actually how they met when my dad was working on horse-drawn trip boats.

They were living in the cabin at the back of a working boat when they had my sister but had moved onto dry land by the time I came about.

This looks like a really interesting project, but for your sake I hope 11 and 12 can be in that order.

Where abouts in Cheshire are you normally based?

Subbed

Not on it anymore (unfortunately), had to sell it a few years ago due to divorce. I was based on the Macc Canal between Congleton and Scholar Green.

Still sorting out the loose ends on land so not much has been done on the boat yet. I found an old workmate 2000 in nice condition for a sensible price on gumtree so did a train/cargo trip out to Hadleigh today to collect that.

I have acquired a van vault and have a mate who works close to where the boat is moored (and has a car) so plan is to get him to help me shift that on to the boat early next week, sort out some comprehensive insurance and buy a generator. Should then be in a position to get to work the following week.

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Nice! Good luck

got started proper today:

Pull the bulkheads + other crap out from one side, should get the rest of it out next week. Aim is to get rid of everything at floor level so I can get all the boards up and bilges sorted before docking for blacking in mid July.

I also found a massive spider, disturbed a colony of moths, and a mushroom had sprouted. once I get to pulling panelling will spray some pesticides around and ‘bug bomb’ it. Pesticides to actually dealt with them and the bombs for content 🥳

Also had to move it again, this is becoming a real pain in the arse while I’m not living on it.

Not sure if I have said but the boat is called Kingfisher. Traditionally it bring bad luck if you rename boats... some claim it’s ok if out the water though, so I’m gonna chance it with a small amendment.

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Only really matters if you're renaming a sea going vessel, as Poseidon/Neptune will be pissed, and drag you to the deep, but as you're probably only in about 5ft of water, go for it, my guess is if summat bad was gonna happen, it'll happen, nowt to do with what name you choose to give to bits of steel.

My long suffering mother who is lending me a fairly sizeable chunk of money so I won’t be sleeping in 3 layers of merino and a down jacket come November, ain’t gonna be having ‘fisha’ anyway.

I like the name but it’s too common, good colour palette to work with though. Have something else in mind but will have to OK it with the boss first.

Could always just call it ‘boat’ to provide some continuity with how I name my bikes.