Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms I cant stop looking at..............?

For years, Dad always did his own hull blacking.

Basford was quite heavy - it had a Lister HRW3 which in itself was a long story. Dad originally bought a Lister JP2 vintage diesel and had it restored by a chap at Norton Canes. It ran well for about 5 hours and then the big ends failed. The restorer quoted for new white metal bearings but couldn't tell Dad why they had failed so quickly. As the boat was intended to be used (once habitable, they were always away continuously from April to October), Dad sold the JP2 and contacted Lister who agreed to build him an HRW3 from new old stock but fit a modern alternator. It worked well.

I covered a number of Boatyards a few years ago when a workmate was ill, It was amazing how much intertuff and big bell anodes the Yards go through it was quite continuous.....Em

He speaks to camera impressively well, doesnt he|? Wonder if he is ex media /TV/Radio?

Interesting Paul as I have a 1936 Lister JP2M (marine version) in my boat. I bought it fully rebuilt by MPS, a father and son business near Poole, and drives a two foot prop via a modern PRM reduction gearbox and lives in its own walk through engine room. With new pistons, liners, injectors and pump its been totally reliable over the modest 2000 hours I've run it. Can't be quite so complimentary about its oil retention though

Sadly we don't own our Narrowboat anymore but a bit like the Mog community we still have many friends from our boating days, our two daughters grew up to be quite outdoorsy and are both very observant of nature and the environment which I'm sure was from many years of boating

I built our second boat, which started with a few months of helping out at weekends with the steelwork fabricator, then about 8 months of weekends fitting out the shell to sailaway stage and about 2 more years of on the water fitout, some of it was very lonely, cold, hard graft but the family loved the inland waterway holidays, at 57ft we could do all the connected system & even priced up moving to the Norfolk Broads for a couple of years

This was about 2 days before the low loader & crane was due to turn up to drag it off for launch at Penkridge, & I put in some all nighters to get the engine install done & a lick of paint on



And this was launch day, with a much younger me tugging the string




But Bonesie, please remember they are a moneypit...

This Chap has kept me quiet for a few hours

Only watched the first Vlog in that link depicting snow scenes. I recognise it as Reedley marina just east of Burnley where I spent my first winter of narrowboat ownership in equally snowy conditions. Stunning scenery to the north towards the Pendle hills.



Frozen in at Reedley but toasty inside courtesy of coal burning stove. Device on pole is long range WiFi hookup to private network inside boat.

How wonderful. They are very special engines. Dad sometimes wonders if he should have stuck at it but he had spent a lot of money and he wanted to go boating.

Basford had a walk through engine room too. Fortunately, the 3 cylinder Lister was oil tight.

The overall design was intended to be along the lines of a BCN tug.

He is. Local telly once upon a time.( though I cant remember where ) Jacked it all in to live on the boat !

Some great stuff here chaps. For me I think I would like a boat with an engine room, even though it cuts down on internal space. Unfortunatley I think its a pipe dream as the misses doesnt seem too keen. Maybe a holiday boat is the answer ... but that would mean flogging the mog :-(

I actually lived on a narrow boat in around 77-78 as a kid at Rodley, may be that part of the reason I keep coming back to looking ! My mum bought one ( Quest was the name ) but she suffered from asthma and something on the water set it off bad so we she had to sell. A little time after the sale the bilge pump packed in and it sank !