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Post by tyrednexited on Jul 19, 2017 9:05:40 GMT
Buy a boat, the fastest way to turn a large fortune into a small fortune. You can, more or less, get a car that satisfies all your urges and meets all the various requirements you want and places you go. There is no such boat. It will, by design be limited in one or other of all things water. ...or he could combine the boat/car craze (nearly).......
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 19, 2017 9:22:33 GMT
There were some of those amphibious car things at the meadow on Sunday. Horrible. They even let one in the water, perhaps to make the wooden boats look prettier by comparison.
Separate ideas, budgets - and persuasive techniques. 😈
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2017 16:19:47 GMT
I love boats. All boats. But pottering up and down the Thames is limited.
It takes a long time to get anywhere, the other users are often quite annoying, and there isn't very much of it. So you'd be looking for those days when the weather was suitable, you had the time, and wanted to potter up the same little bit of Thames you'd done a thousand times before, and you;d need to be back in the light.
Great if it works for you, but I think you'll find it boring.
I do love narrow boats. But then I tend to go for a week or so at a time so can go further., and relax as I wander from pub to pub. They're also damned expensive.
Something seagoing on the other hand, is fun. Everything from sitting in port with a G&T, wandering around the English coast, venturing across to the continent and actually taking holidays. Its entertaining, exiting, relaxing and rewarding. It is dreadfully time-consuming though.
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Post by tyrednexited on Jul 22, 2017 16:42:40 GMT
I love boats. All boats. But pottering up and down the Thames is limited. etc..... ...hey, leave him alone and let him have his mid-life crisis in peace.......
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2017 17:08:17 GMT
I was encouraging him to have a BIGGER one!!!
Midlife crises need to be done with enthusiasm and gusto.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 22, 2017 21:00:30 GMT
Yeah but... To go to sea I'd actually have to know stuff - like how to stay right-side-up and get back to port without ending up somewhere bloody and foreign by mistake. (I read all the Arthur Ransome books when I was about 8, and it all seems awfully difficult.) Pottering up or down the Thames, on the other hand, ought to be within my compass - especially if the boat has an electric powertrain that needs minimal maintenance and won't explode if I blink too hard.
I have to say, though, that the plan is not going well. I've mentioned it to a couple of friends, who've been enthusiastic; at home, on the other hand - [insert sound effect of Siberian blizzard here]. Even the boys - usually up for something new and moderately adventurous - think it's uneconomic and, well, daft. So I probably won't get anywhere with it.
Got my first payslip today, though. Means I've effectively been paid twice for July, so perhaps I'll just go ahead and buy that new cyclocross bike for now.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2017 21:30:05 GMT
For a man so disparaging of caravans, you should slap yourself repeated for your approach to boating on the Thames.
Though you are correct about needing to know stuff to go out to sea. But not difficult stuff, and it doesn't take long to learn. Trust me on this, you would love it. So would Mrs wdb. The only question is whether or not you have sufficient time for such a hobby.
The sort of messing around you want to do is better done in a rented boat with a picnic basket. Surely they still rent them out down by The Angel, don't they?
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Jul 22, 2017 22:03:14 GMT
Yes, they do. But for a day out in a rented plastic bathtub they charge £470. And you still have to bring your own picnic.
Too wet for cricket today, so I strolled down to Hurley Lock to watch the comings and goings for a bit. Yes, the Thames does get quite congested - mostly with ugly white plastic boats that are basically floating caravans and emit foul-smelling diesel smoke from their presumably under-used motors. Wouldn't want one of those at all. But the little wooden ones are much more appealing.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2017 22:09:53 GMT
£470!! Bloody hell that's insane!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2017 22:13:39 GMT
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Post by tyrednexited on Jul 29, 2017 10:38:52 GMT
....apparently, W's been out for a test- drivecruise..........
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Post by Hofmeister on Jul 29, 2017 11:04:32 GMT
....apparently, W's been out for a test- drivecruise.......... Yeah, didnt quite get the idea of this boating lark. Told him it was a bad idea.
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Post by crankcase on Aug 21, 2017 6:08:18 GMT
That reminds me. I lost a narrow boat once.
We went on a week's holiday with the thing. On the first night rats ran over the deck, and Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the second night the battery ran out and it was pitch dark and cold from 6pm. Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the third night she desperately wanted to see a sports final. The b&w tv reception was so poor I had to stand outside with the aerial. It fell apart and dropped into the canal. Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the fourth night our repast of tinned soup was just half warm when the gas ran out. Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the fifth night the battery had run out again, and the slightly drunk man from the boatyard had come and fixed it. He made himself objectionable and patronising, replaced it with a "new" one and went away. Within ten minutes it failed. It was pitch dark and cold from 6pm and Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the sixth night a new horror began. The onboard toilet had an interesting inbuilt spring mechanism in the bowl, with a flap. Said flap would open when anything solid landed upon it. From this night on, it decided it would then bounce back with a boing thud kertwang. Every time. This could be heard through the boat and surrounding pastures, and I can assure you, Mrs C was Unhappy.
On the last day we arrived at a lock. Mrs C went to work it. She struggled. I decided to help, leaving the boat unattended and unattached to anything. We opened the gates, the water rushed, we grinned at each other and the boat shot off down the canal by itself. I pounded after it, and at the last split second took a flying leap and managed to only just about land in it. By the time I'd got the engine started and tried to control it, it was 90 degrees across the canal entirely, blocking all traffic in both directions, and of course, stuck solidly in the mud. Passers-by stared open mouthed at the funny red faced man lying down and trying to punt a narrow boat with a boating hook too short to reach the bottom, and children took refuge in their mother's skirts at the language. Mrs C, for the first time in the trip, was very Happy indeed, with considerable eye mopping.
We've not been again.
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Post by Humph on Aug 21, 2017 6:50:02 GMT
That cheered me up on a dull Monday morning Crankcase !
We've a canal behind our house, and some of the incidents we see are similar, particularly with the day hire boats.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Aug 21, 2017 7:26:41 GMT
Yes, it improved my Monday too.
However...
...Until the final episode, what you describe could equally apply to caravanism. (Even the last bit, if you take omitting to tie up as analogous to forgetting to chock the wheels.) The mistake, as you discovered, was to commit yourselves to a self-contained residential coffin-cum-sewage storage facility, with additional disadvantages of mucky water for things to fall in and a towpath to provide handy access to your roof for people who want to bang on it on their way home from the pub. At least T&E drives his sewage to Finland to avoid that problem.
So I submit that a narrowboat is the worst of all possible worlds: too slow and ponderous to be enjoyable on the water, while condemning you to be in it for all but an hour or two every day. A bit like a prison cell but without the mains drainage.
What I'm considering here, daft as it may be, is the other, entirely discrete Venn oval. 'My' boat is free to go wherever it likes - within the limits of my Thames registration, which I've not read properly yet - for the purposes of scenic picnics in charming, stylish company and no onboard sewage or TV to go wrong. Electric too; I hoped you'd approve of that.
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