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for other evacuations ... CLICK
No living space, especially a canal boat could function without some means of relieving oneself of the bye-products of wholesome eating and good drinking. NEVER ask to use a narrowboat 'toilet' Even with wide beams be circumspect unless they are clueless landlubbers who accommodate on a "floaty thingy" and have never had a toilet malfunction but can afford to call a turquoise truck to have their stored odium wafted away Except in the direst emergency, do not even contemplate enquiring if it MIGHT be ok to 'go to the toilet' on a narrowboat. 'Poorer' boats do not have a 'toilet' in the sense of a house flush-toilet. Evacuations are into a fancy bucket sometimes called a "Thetford Cassette" and your boater host must later carry stored contributions along a canal path in that 'bucket' to tip it into a shithole hilariously termed a "sanitary point" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA4QvSVbl2s Pump-outs: an overview Look again at that turquoise truck The truck was photographed at the marina on the first occasion I visited Pentargon The turquoise truck used a hose coupled to a hole in the ground under which was a very septic tank where faeces, urine and chemicals from all the boats at the marina went 'Cassettes' were poured down a chute by their minders carrying them there. The rich boats had the gross sucked out of their fancy onboard macerating tanks on payment of a financial consideration which would keep me fed for two weeks SOME SOCIAL HISTORY Wiki is winsomely shy on the subject I spoke at some length with the nice man who was operating the turquoise truck about the mechanics of his odorous job Human excretion as it relates to canal boats was explained to me in considerable detail I listened carefully and stayed long enough to photograph the procedure for posterity After all, I was going to be buying a boat and would not this niffy aspect be intrinsic to my 'off-grid' existence going forward? |
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I'm a rural lad.
I grew up within nose-reach of pig-shyte and have 'mucked' out in my time. It is an intensely nasal experience and it is back-breaking work. Boaters with cassettes have a rough idea just a rough idea of de toil
The niff around this very salubrious marina during the time yer man was active was a whole new experience in the odorshet.
Part-fermented pyss'n'shyt, chemicals and sanitary products were undergoing process and now I understood the source of the odour experienced at other marinas. My gast was considerably flabbered by a new appreciation of the origin of the faeces
or sumpin (Yeah these are hyperlinks)
In 2009, I was a new member of a volunteer team doing shore maintenance on Charity Canal Boats which were 'turned around' twice a week. Joe, long-time team-member, flushed out septic tanks as a job and also applied his skill as a volunteer at the charity. Joe was a Top Man on the team.
Sometimes, when my own chores were done, I got to assist Joe and this allowed me to understand the mechanics of pumping out a canal boat toilet system, sucking it away to an onshore facility on the property, before flushing and sterilizing the boat's pipes and tanks. Joe might flush out three tanks IN A WEEK and they would be 'as clean as a whistle' and totally free of odour.
Later, as a crewman, I never ever got a niff from our swish 'toilets'.
This fleet was designed to deal with people who sometimes had profound challenges and the hygiene regimen was superb.
There was no niff off the 'marina' either.
I thought Joe's way was the norm ... little did I know then of the wily ways of the world outside my cossetted and uncassetted experience
In a commercial marina, slurry might fume for months aboard a boat, before being sucked out to a holding tank where it would pick up oxygen and ferment even faster. Now and then a 'turquoise' lorry would arrive and suck up the contents to be spirited away, leaving behind a faintly disagreeable whiff of decomposed human excrement polluted by odious chemicals.
I decided there and then that if I ever did consider buying a boat I'd check how this inconvenience might be addressed.
Canalability and Joe were in mind as I went down the marina ... to discover there was no toilet of any type on the boat.
There was a sealed delivery box marked "Thetford Cassette". I had to ask. Four months later, when I did buy the boat, the unopened box was donated to a boater fallen on hard times. My off-grid living style means I do not have to endure Hard Times.
I laid out $1000 on an "Airhead" from America. It is not the case that Emily Maitlis named her superb autobiography after it, but I bought her book on the strength of its name. It is a brilliant read and she is a brilliant journalist.
Many years later, I found out how a cassette works by watching a YouTube video which, as of that time, had been viewed 599,012 times. Over half a million pairs of eyes had not noticed the demonstrator flushing the contents down a domestic toilet without even lifting the seat.
For me, that said it all and totally justified why I had given away what was a brand new Thetford Cassette all those years ago.
Copy and paste this link unless you are already one of those 599,012 shitheads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA4QvSVbl2s
I grew up within nose-reach of pig-shyte and have 'mucked' out in my time. It is an intensely nasal experience and it is back-breaking work. Boaters with cassettes have a rough idea just a rough idea of de toil
The niff around this very salubrious marina during the time yer man was active was a whole new experience in the odorshet.
Part-fermented pyss'n'shyt, chemicals and sanitary products were undergoing process and now I understood the source of the odour experienced at other marinas. My gast was considerably flabbered by a new appreciation of the origin of the faeces
or sumpin (Yeah these are hyperlinks)
In 2009, I was a new member of a volunteer team doing shore maintenance on Charity Canal Boats which were 'turned around' twice a week. Joe, long-time team-member, flushed out septic tanks as a job and also applied his skill as a volunteer at the charity. Joe was a Top Man on the team.
Sometimes, when my own chores were done, I got to assist Joe and this allowed me to understand the mechanics of pumping out a canal boat toilet system, sucking it away to an onshore facility on the property, before flushing and sterilizing the boat's pipes and tanks. Joe might flush out three tanks IN A WEEK and they would be 'as clean as a whistle' and totally free of odour.
Later, as a crewman, I never ever got a niff from our swish 'toilets'.
This fleet was designed to deal with people who sometimes had profound challenges and the hygiene regimen was superb.
There was no niff off the 'marina' either.
I thought Joe's way was the norm ... little did I know then of the wily ways of the world outside my cossetted and uncassetted experience
In a commercial marina, slurry might fume for months aboard a boat, before being sucked out to a holding tank where it would pick up oxygen and ferment even faster. Now and then a 'turquoise' lorry would arrive and suck up the contents to be spirited away, leaving behind a faintly disagreeable whiff of decomposed human excrement polluted by odious chemicals.
I decided there and then that if I ever did consider buying a boat I'd check how this inconvenience might be addressed.
Canalability and Joe were in mind as I went down the marina ... to discover there was no toilet of any type on the boat.
There was a sealed delivery box marked "Thetford Cassette". I had to ask. Four months later, when I did buy the boat, the unopened box was donated to a boater fallen on hard times. My off-grid living style means I do not have to endure Hard Times.
I laid out $1000 on an "Airhead" from America. It is not the case that Emily Maitlis named her superb autobiography after it, but I bought her book on the strength of its name. It is a brilliant read and she is a brilliant journalist.
Many years later, I found out how a cassette works by watching a YouTube video which, as of that time, had been viewed 599,012 times. Over half a million pairs of eyes had not noticed the demonstrator flushing the contents down a domestic toilet without even lifting the seat.
For me, that said it all and totally justified why I had given away what was a brand new Thetford Cassette all those years ago.
Copy and paste this link unless you are already one of those 599,012 shitheads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA4QvSVbl2s
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shitheads?
This is a dynamic website.
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going into August 2022
You are right up to date
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