Listing boats need ballast

4/8/2024 Self destructor is a blog that may vanish at any time likely to have been written with a flame thrower and when the gas goes out the self destructor will go out like the olympic flame in Paris ... First time in fifteen years on canals this has happened and it took me nearly two hours to get rid of the shyte but the smell may take days or weeks. 


Parked up at Bridge 51 with my doormat out to wipe my shoes before going on board.  I had been coming and going all day with a major electrical project and using different footwear depending on whether the going was wet or dry.  I came back to the boat this time in hush puppies, stepped on board and went down the hatch ... suddenly noticing there was something unpleasant on the deckboards which smelt like dogshyte.  I went ashore at once and discovered the remains of a very large turd on the doormat. I had neither noticed nor expected it but had collected most of it on the sandal and now there was dogshite all over the deckboards, down the hatch and on the cabin floor which thankfully is wooden. The hushpuppies have a noticable thread and the shyte was embedded into the sole pattern.

Fukk you fat bitch wot owns
the dog I suspect done it. 
And fukk your fleabag mutt. 
I hope he gets the mange
and passes it on to you
you entitled oul bag
with your entitled
70 foot corridor
of a horsebarge
and a face on you
like a plateful
of mortal sins. 

Once I decided to buy a canal boat to live on, I needed parameters which led to research and a "wish list" which was drawn up in 2008    This list was continuously expanded, contracted and amended until I actually bought the boat and from that date the list became post-purchase development and there has been an ongoing "to-do-list since then.   
 
I decided early on that the ideal boat should be a steel narrow boat not more than 36' long, with an air-cooled diesel engine and a 'cruiser' deck.  It would have a double bed, as far as possible from the engine,  light and airy cabins but with the bedroom capable of being darkened out.   It would have solid fuel heating and a composting toilet.

The galley would be so well-appointed I could cook easily off grid and solo.  The boat would have a large water tank and loads of storage.  (2012-08-24 09.06.01)  It would have crew bunking for Summer Visitors or Winter Warmers.  I planned to live totally off-grid at any time I chose without having to rely on anything or anybody.  I would live in a floating man-cave, relying on my own resources so I needed to trust my boat.   It would have to be 'fit for purpose'.

THE LIST

STEEL :
The only boat for safety,  comfort and navigation would be one that could take punishment, stay dry inside, be easy to maintain and able to go anywhere.  The defining 6'10" beam would allow easy passage through wide locks (opening just one gate!)  while enabling access to the complete inland waterway system. Steel was the only way to go.

MAX 36':
Half the length of the real boats and essential for hand-brake turns, manoeuvrability and squeezing into parking slots 40+ have to pass.  There is an economical factor here too as boat licences cost by the foot as do mooring fees if applicable.  I did my canal training on a huge 68'x12' widebeam and understand the realities of large wide boats.  

AIR-COOLED ENGINE:
To avoid any misconceptions , wiki "UK winter of 1962-63" or look up Mark Vogan's site.  That winter finished off the last of the "Number Ones", effectively ended commercial traffic and was the catalyst for future leisure boating, as smart young planners picked off abandoned workboats and converted them into 'campers'.   Market Harborough led in this and Sam Springer was [unintentionally] in the middle of it.  He realised that  an air-cooled diesel was the best option for use in all weathers and, at that time the best motors were Listers.  His favourite engine for the 36' models was the ListerSR2, the latter becoming famous for reliability, ease of maintenance and adaptability.

CRUISER DECK:
Trads and semi-trads are for those who believe they are following in the wake of real boatmen.  They're NOT, but they're happily deluded.  They wear the clothes.  They polish the brass.  But they don't live the REAL life.  A cruiser deck is the way to go with a 36' boat.  Pentargon gives me 48sq.ft of 'balcony space' to survey the world from my director's chair with my little table for cocktails in Summer and plenty deck space for visitors in the warm end of the year or bags of fuel in the colder end.

BED UP FRONT:
During the 2013/14 refit, the front window frame was replaced to make it an efficient fire escape.  During the change-over I stuffed a memory foam mattress through the hole and let it expand and settle.  Memory foam's downside can be its "memory but I got over that.  It has minimal memory dents and has served me well now for ten years (2024 edit).
Many trad boats have their bed on top of the engine with the accompanying noise and the stink of diesel.  

LIGHT AND AIRY:
I have no time for dark interiors which mask dirt.  I have no time for brown timber ceilings coated with tar from a  wood-stove, gunge from cooking splatters and the burn-off of candle grease.  So a white ceiling and the palest of blue sides suits me fine.

BLACK OUT: 
The front window may be a fire escape but it is also a triple-glazed window.  In mid-summer the sun may be up at 4.30am and not go to bed til 10.30pm.  Stone-age man got up and went to bed by the sun, in the back of a dark cave.  Me too in my mancave.  So the window can be blacked out and I sleep like a caveman.

SOLID FUEL HEAT:
Over 98% of all canal boats have wood-burner stoves of necessity or as an optional extra, because 98% know no better and follow the crowd.  Inefficient, dirty, expensive and quite frankly only suitable for those with serious backwoods training.  Solid fuel, however, is the way to go.  Diesel fired radiators give the coldest feet and the hottest head on the cut and have not been thought through by those who copy houses, forgetting that boats do not have an upstairs to heat and are not able to use convection efficiently. 
Liquid or gas-fuelled heaters are expensive, complicated, prone to faults and generate moisture which hides in the fabric of the boat.  My heater uses lumpwood charcoal and after twelve years I have learned how NOT to have fine charcoal dust all over the boat.  It heats the bedroom only and can maintain a comfortable temperature for over twelve hours when carefully primed. It is also economical and very safe.

COMPOSTING TOILET: 
During my first six months, I had no toilet on board and used marina facilities.  During that time I learned all about cassettes and pump-outs and was very glad an Airhead composter was coming from America.  I am even more convinced now that spending $1000 twelve years ago gave an excellent investment and has cost me nothing in repair, maintenance or replacement since.  In fact I now have a spare one squirrelled away for future use.  

GALLEY:
The most important crewman on a ship is the ship's cook and a happy cook bodes a happy ship.  Include me in.  Even after ten years I have been unable to improve Pentargon's galley.  It even came with a magnetic knife strip and knives. (photos) all of which are in daily use. 

PLASTIC WATER TANK: 
from a canal website " Narrowboat water tanks are traditionally installed in the bow as an integral part of the structure. Painted with bitumen, similar to that used for blacking the hull, they need re-painting every few years. They are filled from the foredeck via a deck filler and an inspection hatch is also positioned on the deck for access and cleaning. These integral tanks eventually suffer from limescale build up and start corroding over time".  'Samson' Springers used this technique from the late 70s, but not our Sam.

OPTIMUM STORAGE:
The original cabin design and outcome was well-conceived and was probably what sold the boat to me.  In a six by seven footprint between the cabins they got a shower, wash basin, wardrobe, storage shelves and used the construction to separate the sleeping area from the dining area.  I would not be surprised if it had been done at the beginning.  Later, another owner incorporated storage into the dining area upon which cushions could be arranged for making a holiday bed.  Pentargon had been a Summer Boat.  I needed optimum storage and designed a major conversion carried out while sailing and living onboard, using a master carpenter and a marine architect as consultants. 

CREW BUNKING:
Although my plan was to sail around the system solo, I knew there was always the possibility of needing or carrying operational 'crew' from time to time!  'Crew' is a singular word and not gender specific so I planned it into the re-design.  The bunk needed to be snug, private, well lit, close to heat, toilet, galley etc. and this was achieved.

FIT FOR PURPOSE:
early in my search for an ideal boat, I saw some offerings where I really had to double-guess as to why they were so awful.  Eventually, I figured they had been bought as "projects" by clueless handymen who confused canal boats with caravans. I saw chipboard floors, compressed paper walls, plastic showers, expanding foam insulation.  Obviously the boats were got up by people who had never lived in a boat as a sea gypsy.  Pentargon passed all my "fit for purpose" criteria as seen or was deemed to provide the potential for development.

SAIL WELL:
All steel canal boats with one exception begin life as a series of steel plates laid down on a workshop floor, stitched together, marked out to the shape of a narrowboat and fitted with vertical sides. This gives a max return on floor space at the lowest price.  Often the only difference between a very good and a very bad build is the thickness of that first sheet and the steel quality.  Their flat bottoms make them pigs to steer, impossible to control in wind and easy to "ledge" if a pound dries out while they are parked.  Sam Springer avoided all that nonsense by building his 36 footers like ships.  His true genius shone through in sheet-bending to angle the bottom ever so slightly and incorporate radiused chines so that the boat had precise directional stability and would slide off ledges.

GOOD  DESIGN: 
Good design is subjective and mostly in the eye of the beholder but an informed beholder starts well ahead of the posse.  My wish lish was the foundation of my views on good design.  Pentargon was designed and built by Sam Springer with a v-bottom using monocoque and modular techniques like the Mini and Morris Minor of the same era.  Sam used a sheet-bender to press a radiused 7º positive dihedral into 3/16" Imperial plate back in 1973. 

No-one in the canal business remembers how Springers were originally fabricated, which might explain how the gougers got it so wrong, when they used 4mm plate to cock-up a bodge of breath-taking stupidity under the guise of "over-plating" before my time. 

EDITED TO UPDATE AT RUGBY on 9th August 2024


PATIENCE IS A MORRIS MINOR

The 36' Springer is the canal version of the "Morris Minor".   Accordingly, it was entirely fitting that her original ship's whistle came from a Morris Minor discovered in White's Breaker's Yard on the A45 near Coventry.  The "Wind-Tone" was refurbished by Autolec and 'field tested' at Hillmorton top lock where, in calm conditions, it was heard clearly on Badsey's lawn half a mile away.  Autolec had also sourced Pentargon's digital voltmeters (2019-01-14 09.11.36) which to this day read 'working' line voltages.  Pentargon has a bank of sockets supplied by Maplin into which were plugged all the electronic kit normally used in the [then] support vehicle i.e. GPS, phone charger, USB slots.  

Think of Pentargon as a pleased-as-punch Morris Minor, tootling up the recently-opened Rugby to Leeds section of the M1 in 1967, picnic hamper in the boot, AA badge on the front bumper and a nuclear family on board.  They were driving to freedom.  Forty five years later, I was driving to freedom in a boat from the same era, sailing into a timeless future.   Boat 1973, engine 1967.  Pentargon is a floating Morris Minor. 

But, do not infer that she is dated ... au contraire.  My foot may be firmly embedded in the 1900's but at least one toe hovers in the 2030s.  Once upon a Dreamtime, the cut was for REAL boats and REAL boatmen.  Now most boats and boaters are look-alikes and pretenders. 

I never copy.  Like Sam Springer, I innovate.  My boat is for doing whatever I can do on inland waterways so it was fine-tuned for all-weather all-season operations even if I planned to be on her for half the days of any year.  The learning process had started long before my search for a floating man cave had begun and the learning process shall continue until I am called to Fiddler's Green. 

The fact that I had messed about in the tides most of my life helped my transition from blue to Muddy Brown Water, but not half as much as becoming a volunteer with a Harlow canal charity (photo) just as Northern Rock went bust in September 2007.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were directly responsible for my decision to buy a canal boat.  I needed to put my funeral money into something tangible; an asset that could not be sunk by financial crises.  I certainly needed to get out of cash, that most worthless of commodities. "Loadsamoney" explains the incestuous relationship between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and a lot more besides.  

In the final analysis, a boat is a home from home: a rent-free, mortgage-free place to live.  My original wish list was for a craft which would best fit my perceived needs in 2008. There is a fair discrepancy between perception and reality, but re-writing this in 2024, investing in a boat was a Right Move.  

Adherence to a Wish List led to Pentargon's purchase in the dawn of 2012, in a plan which had been in gestation for some four years.  It was entirely incidental that I bought her as an un-insurable 'wreck'; but it was the best stroke of luck ever dropped in my lap.  She ticked all my boxes. I only needed to know that the wetted hull would last a quarter of a century in case I did.  In the event, the surveyor failed it on a crucial ultra-sound test on the day!

Obviously I bought the boat, or we would have no story but for less than half the price originally agreed.  A new bottom was almost £5K, toilet, heater, license, insurance survey and misc.exp. lapped up another £5K.  I allowed  another £5K for future exigencies.  She was sheeted in 6mm steel below the water line to ensure she would never again need to be re-bottomed or patched.  The fix would give scope for successful surveys for the next 25yrs. 

By a stroke of luck, my surveyor knew the man I needed to make my dreams come true and he worked only ten miles away from where the boat failed her survey at a boatyard near Rugby.  Paul did jobs no-one else could handle: a latter-day Sam Springer.  He also knew that Sam's Springers were originally plated in 3/16" imperial. This was crucial knowledge that no one else knew, including the apes who buggered up a perfectly good boat and took £10,000 off its value while charging the hapless owner for work patently not needed.  

"It may take a few weeks but you can stay on board if you wish while the boat is in dry dock and do other work yourself while it is being plated".  I'd been warned that no matter what schedule you might write for getting stuff done on inland waterways, it will overrun.  If you need it on TIME, it will cost ya.  Since "Project Pentargon" was not being funded by The City, time became absolutely negotiable.  Work originally planned to start on 7thFeb would take about "ten days" in the original plan.  Reality was that work commenced on 17thFeb and took a hundred days to complete, of which about twelve were work days.  Canal time intervened.

The dry-dock had been contacted even before the purchasing cheque was cleared.  The surveyor had  told me who to talk to and I went over that same day.  7Feb 2012 was set for her to go in, but I was advised that some 'delay' was envisaged and it might now be 'mid Feb' before a slot was available.   Being a long-time master of turning negatives to positives, this was an an opportunity to hone my familiarisation with the innards and the outards.  Patience is a Morris Minor A silly little Therm-X 'heater' (2012-02-18 16.20 DSCF0662) was deemed entirely useless early on and removed complete with all it's pipery and fittings.  The boat had been 'winterised' before I had bought her.  The water had been drained so the rather fetching gas water-heater (2012-02-22 22.17 DSCF0686) could not be tested.  I would not have hot showers then.  I had brought some salt water knowledge in from the sea and , since on-board heat was top priority, this was sorted with a charcoal heater.  I'd seen on ocean-going yachts.  (2012-04-27 2658 06.06UT) 


HAMPSHIRE
From the day that device went onto the boat I have never been cold in bed.  March came and went and so did the bitter cold.   April came and went and Pentragon was having a few days here and a few days there in the dry dock. Paul had an arrangement where my work was done in the dry dock alongside boats going in and out for blacking and if two boats were booked for the same days, mine had to give way.  The ejections never became rejections.  I got on with familiarization and developed a bond with my boat.  Close-quarter manoeuvring, victualing, locking, lone-ranging were sampled, tested, revised, honed without piped hot water or toilet facilities.  I got to to live aboard in almost deep-freeze conditions in February 2012, including being ice-clamped for over a week, just before the charcoal heater was delivered.  I have the frostbite evidence to this day and always have to keep my fingers warm in Winter.

With April upon us and Spring sprung the Springer was called in one last time to be finished.


for future editing to bring up to date

AIRHEAD
A Revised Wish List was started when I decided that the boat would be maintained as near as possible to what was put on the water back in the seventies, as near as possible to what had come from Sam's workshop in 1973.  I'll tell you why later.  One item on The Wish List and already paid for was still on the high seas.  My state of the art composter, ordered the day I bought the boat, was mid-Atlantic in a container .  It would be collected eventually.

 By now, I was fully acclimatized with canal conditions and the lifestyle. I was familiar with the boat, some of the local canals, the new farcebook community, the websites, locking, docking, tunnels, even to a great extent how the system works . . .  Also where to find toilets, showers, Wi-Fi, buses, Gongoozler's breakfast, a Badsey Pint, a bit of plastic hose or a garage to fix the support car.   Rugby is the sort of place where you could sort just about anything.  Well maybe not a lumpwood charcoal heater fuel (2012-04-27 05.53.25) but that will have a chapter to itself later!  

Whither the lumpwood charcoal, I hear you ask?  After a week of sub-zero temperatures on board without heat in February, Pentargon was treated to the only Hampshire Charcoal Heater on the cut at that time.  The Hampshire is a 20c. answer to heating a narrowboat with 15c. know-how and 21c. renewable energy policy, while producing [almost] no ash!   AND.  The teeny bit that is produced is pure potash and sometimes went directly into an Air-Head toilet along with processed No2s to become usable compost for horticultural escapades.  Suffice to say that five weeks of trialling the Hampshire Heater sorted out how to avoid being cold aboard. It would be five years before I perfected how to avoid black dust in every adjacent cranny and get it to stay lighting for ten hours in mid-winter.  It gets better.  I was shown how to make soap using the ash, but decided to pass on that. Life is too short.

v Lea Valley Brexstreet  

Posted by walltoall on January 16, 2019 at 8:25 AM     16th Jan 2019 Fore Street Library. Edmonton Angel  WIP. 7thJan2020 at home.

I must be slipping!  Six whole months and nare a blog.  The last one got rote in Islington and since then me'n'me boat have passed through many London villages without notice or record.  During the last three months of BrexitY2, Pentargon wandered to and fro in central London trying to figure whether to go up to Watford or Hertford.  For a new boat battery and maybe a bigger solar panel.  Quite a lot of time spent in the British Library too and of course Pancras Library for internet.  I got a life changing book out ...

"Swallow This" ... Serving up the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets ... by Joanna Blythman, ... 4thEstate ...  ISBN 9 780007 548354

It was such a good, I read and re-read it before the library bell chimed. Then I had Waterstones get me one for myself.

(I also discovered Guy Martin "We Need To Weaken The Mixture" and "When Yo dead Yo Dead".) ... Genius ... I love libraries

I made a mid December decision to get a six-month "Lea Licence" for my canalboat, go up-river before the end of January, park awhile under a bridge, skive off to Iceland with Diane and pay respects to my late mother-in law's memory.  I dropped onto the Lea from Ducketts as BrexitY2 whimpered to a stall.  UK is rudderless, clueless, leaderless, overfed.  The people are punched out with political gob-shite-hawkery, rising recession, every drug you can think of and others you never even thought of.  I am working my way slowly up-river having replenished my charcoal supply.

Hackney Wick through Tottenham is hipsterland ashore and a resolute mix of hipsters off-gridding on the water.  Solid shite.  There be dragons.  Mostly stoned.  Sometimes biked.  Frequently lycrad boatless braindead.  Two rowing clubs one for the toffs.  A lot of black and white religion with ringlets. Dog walkers, cat walkers, ferret walkers and Walkers crisp-bags.  All of them five a day.  But you gotta get through it to reach the magic land beyond Waltham and the M25.  I eventually pitched a new village fornenst Cobbs Ferry and almost under the North Circular Road.  Just far enough away from the constant traffic and the floating riff-raff.  Conveniently, I got tagged by the boat-counter almost as soon as I tied up.  He had started earlier at Stonebridge but just after I had left it at 8oc.  Granda says "Boat should sit in water. Water should not sit in boat."

Suits me well to be tagged, as I now know the boat is recorded and when and where.  I'm good for 'fourteen' days.  My next port of call will be Ponders End where I have an arrangement which keeps my bilge from filling with water Granda says "Boat should sit in water. Water should not sit in boat."and I can fill my storage tank with fresh water and go away to Iceland the country without any worries.  But that's future.  Today is now.  It's only 9oc and I need to check bus stops, timetables and where the nearest pint of milk can be procured.  It's not too bad by the North Circular.  Buses 444 and 34 stop 150metres away and both run [west] to Edmonton Angel.  There be a branch of my bank, a lovely little library, some handy shops  ... a handy butcher too who does affordable meat.  Cobbs ferry will be fine.  I can start Spring-cleaning tomorrow and continue with a major internal fabrication, to quadruple accessible storage and provide summer bunks for visitors. [PHOTO] There will be major de-wintering of the boat here over the next fortnight as I try to declutter and get her ship-shapen and guest-friendly ...

Wed16thJan.2019.
Edmonton Angel is one of those cash-poor but bargain-rich outer suburbs I can cope with.  Real shops for real people.  Two vegetable stalls with real farm produce at farm prices.  Charlie and Johnny are part of the archecture.  I even got an AEG drill like my onboard one, with a goodish battery and a charger in Cash Converter, who charged it up to ensure it worked, before I paid money.  It is almost 11oc. The Library does not open til 1oc on a Wed.  Sods law being Sods law yesterday was Tuesday.  So I take a sling towards town on the bus just to have a warm place to read.  Yes!  It is Joanna Blythman's "Swallow This". Once, the only fat people were the rich.  Now, the only fat people are the poor, fatted by shite food.

Back in the library 1.15pm to while away an hour before picking up my charged drill and 400g Neck of Lamb for £2.30.  £1.20 for two onions, a swede, a parsnip, two carrots, two spuds from Johnny's stall.  Eggs and fruit from Charlie.  I decided to move down towards Stonebridge at 3oc.  Just as well I had the yellow jacket on.  It BUCKETED down about half way and stayed at it for another hour while I tied up, dried up, prepared my lamb stew and got it going. 

Since I know you are gagging to know about a boatstew:
200g neck is £1.15, one onion, half the swede, half the  parsnip, a carrot, a peeled spud, some chutney and a spoon of mustard all chopped up and done in the pressure cooker, makes breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper for a whole day at £1.75 all in.  The following day takes two days food up to £3.50 and a fish and chip supper runs to £6.50 in Angel Edmonton.  16.30 I left £1.75 to mature in the haybox and went for the 476 to Kings Cross. 

Today is a one-meal day.  Yes!  It took a ten-minute brisk walk from the boat, a huge stairs and a further walk to 476 terminus at Northumberland Road Station, almost ten minutes waiting for the wanker to get the bus going at 16.50, almost two hours in traffic and a ten minute walk at the Pancras end to get into the library . 19.01 ... at Pancras Library ... but I needed to return their "Swallow This" which I have now read three times. 

Did I tell you about it?  (Great Book!  Look up my GoodReads account)  I got an hour in on the Camden computer.  til 19.50.  Then traipsed back to the boat for a rather late dinner in a warm boat.  I was in bed light-outed by 10pm.

I spent the first six months working my way rather slowly up the river.   Mid-May I'd got as far as Waltham Abbey, to one of my favourite moorings. The ME/Fibromyalgia was being a bit tedious.  Later, I had an unfortunate shunt in a Go-Kart which took me out of service for a whole month, at a time when the land house was in a shambles and my room unusable.  Best forgotten.  Towards the end of June, I could still hardly walk but had to present Pentargon at Lee Valley Marina to be craned out for three months and a new village established but this time on land.  Til the end of Sept. when I could buy a 12mt licence from Oct1.

LET US MOVE ON TO THE OTHER END OF BREXIT Y3

Fri1stNov.2019 ... Stone Frigate ...
Home from the sea, well from Stonebridge where boat is holed up for the interim.  Changes in my village.  On the water, it's end to end from the lock along the length of towpath in either direction.  The paid moorings are full and boat movements are almost continual.  The facilities include a scabby shower, a shitty shithole, certain waste disposal facilities and a gated toilet.

  Ron Goding has a boat servicing post adjacent and is not short of work. 

Northumberland Park station has been completely rebuilt and now has a dedicated line from Meridian Water to Stratford.  Ten minute brisk walk now can put me on a train for home as early as 6.16am. The oyster card is before 6.30 for a continuous run so I can get C2C home to my village station for £2.50

I'll keep this entry to talk about Lee Valley.