#77 - Why You SHOULDN'T Buy a Widebeam...And Why You Should

[Music] hello I'm mark I'm Julie and welcome to we're on the move [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello and welcome to the blog hello this week we are going to show you the pros and cons of living on a widely it's sort of follows on from cruising the cut when he did a video about what life is like on board a wide beam on the canals and we were contacted by Emma for a narrow boat girl we'll put a link in the description below to her channel and she has asked us to do a comparison video she's going to do one called the pros and cons or what it's like living on a narrow boat that the pros and cons and we're going to do one about the pros and cons of living on a wide beam so we thought we'd run you through some of the most common advantages and disadvantages i've living on a wide beam so let's make a start number one then we're talking about the pros so I think the biggest Pro is obviously the space inside look at all this space you know we have room to maneuver room to move about room to work yep importantly because obviously Julie as an artist and runs an online watercolor school and I'm a writer so we like our separate spaces to be able to work yeah and also it's really good for the fact that we we've got a family and they've got other half's that they like to bring along to the boats so we've got enough space so that if all of us around which is normally about six of us then we can all fit in the space can't we and that was quite important for us yes it was yeah very importantly and we spent a lot of time trying to weigh up the pros and cons of wide or narrow and ended up plumbing for wide because we need to cater for that special two days every year plus obviously when the kids come and visit which is very rare if we have anything to do with it we just don't tell them where we are so so yeah so space is one of the biggest advantages of living on the white paint yeah should we talk about a con while we're balancing it out yeah I suppose space again a con because obviously it's a larger boat and it can't do all of the network no we'll show you we've got a map room with our map and our pointer which is actually a chopstick and it's the kitchen and actually to be fair it's not very technical the map is taped to the kitchen cabinet so I'll show you that just so you get an idea of operational HQ and where you can and can't travel because we get asked this probably once every video so you join us in the map room or the kitchen with the chopstick and let's have a look at the map so you've got biggie cannot leave and canal going down here and then this but here is the River Thames and then you've got the river way and the Basingstoke canal and then up here the river Lee and the Midway over there and the Grand Union canal going up here over this side you've got the Gloucester and Sharples canal but you can't get from the South here there's a small gap where you can't actually go and obviously the north is a lot larger there's a lot more canals up the north so that you can go on but it's taken us a year to go from devices all the way along the canal and even canal and then join in the River Thames and then going up the Grand Union canal up to about here and then we turn around so we've still got quite a bit in the network today and some people will find that a bit of a you know a corn they you know they're not happy with the fact that they can't travel anywhere but I think it's okay because you either decide if you're gonna stay in the south or you're gonna stay in the north and you have your boat put in the water there and if you want to do the other end it will take you a couple of years anyway just get taken out of the water when you're next blackton but in the the other end so although we should point out that getting your boat shipped by lorry is incredibly expensive so you know blacking might cost you a thousand pounds shipping your boat by lorry will cost you about three I think last time we did it it was two thousand nine hundred pounds I was for a wide beam which is the 35 tonne boat it's slightly cheaper for a narrow boat but then why would you need to if you've got a narrow vocals so yeah it is an option I'm the other thing we would say is if you weren't bound by ties in the south and it's probably better to be in the north because there's more canals yeah that you can travel on in the south essentially as you'll see on the map you've got the Kenan Aven you've got the leaves that right yeah you've got the river way you've got some of the Basingstoke canal although the restrictions on the headroom can be a bit of a problem depending on the water levels you've got the stems and all of the offshoots from the Thames into London the Paddington et cetera the Grand Union and I think that pretty much you can go um back up the Kennett and even come out onto the Bristol Channel and then go into the Gloucester on Charlotte yeah but you probably need a pilot to do the Gloucester and sharpness bit where you've got to go out into the wash effectively into the Bristol Channel isn't it all right for next year yeah let's do it yeah yeah and then let's just turn around and go to France shall we yeah drop us a comment in the back we should take the bow to France okay so Pro number two you get to have a full size bed yeah and that's quite important you know this we've had bedrooms before you know in the children's bedrooms when they've had these cabin beds and you have to lean over to try and tuck the sheet in because it's up against the wall and that is something I definitely didn't want to have I wanted to be able to walk all the way around the bed and tuck it in yeah our experience of narrow bouts is that the bed although they call it a double bed it's what is it four foot yeah I think and if you haven't got a four foot six then quite often they have a pulldown help it pullout bed now we've seen electric versions of this on a friend's now about hello muumuu LaRouche if you're watching that's an amazing setup it's brilliant because it means it automatically folds up and then down again so you don't have to have any manual labor with it but also we didn't like the idea of having to make our bed actually physically not just make a bit but make the bed fit the space every single night so it was important for us to have a walk around bed that we could actually get round to on all sides we've got a king-size on this one which is amazing because it means we can keep the bolster pillow down the midnight bag to keep the distance between us duty can lay with her face phone pointing that way and I can over my face point in that way and never the twain shall meet and here's the king-sized bed another downside that we could think of was the navigation even though were on white beam canals places like the Kineton Aven canal can be quite narrow on their navigations they seem to allow a lot of vegetation to come right out into the canal and it can reduce the canal by about huh yeah and it's not a problem going through it's a problem when you meet another boat I mean really yeah yeah in fact in some places on the Kennett name and it's so narrow where the reeds have grown in by about ten or fifteen feet the new even to narrow boats would struggle to pass each other the other thing as well is on the ground unions especially on the ground union there's an awful lot of overhanging trees and they overhang on the offside because generally is accepted that the farmers and the landowners would manage their trees but the cost no one's checking and they're managing them and so you have 10 or 15 feet of canal not accessible and not only that quite often when you go and pass more boats you will be pressed into the trees and they scrape down the side of your boat which can be a bit of an inconvenience because it ruins paintwork and I know even on the narrow canals you know we watch a lot of the youtubers and they say the same thing so it's not just on the wider canals it happens it's also on the narrow canals as well okay so another Pro of living on a wide beam boat is the size of the galley and also added to that the amount of storage in the galley will show you some footage of our galley and so you can have a look you can look at crews in the cuts video he does a very good boat tour or you can check out our boat tour which I think was video number six or something back in the diners and only one and it means that we can have a kitchen roughly the same size as the kitchen we had in our house which is important because we both like to cook but we can be in the same space which is really really useful yeah and that's your fats the amount of work slots that we've got on board is bigger than we had in a bedroom house yeah completely yeah it's really good so it does allow you to have tridge a freezer full size up and there's a perception that white beams sit in marinas never move yes you know we definitely don't fit that mold we continuously cruise 365 days of the year we don't use marinas and our boat is our home so you know it proves the disproves the theory that white beams are just floating apartments they're not their actual boats that we live on and move on another disadvantage that we found especially on the ground Union not so much the Kineton Aven are narrow bridges there are an awful lot of narrow bridges and you could argue that our boats wide so therefore the bridges and now it's our boat this wide but it's a wide beam canal so it's built for white boats it's built for boats bigger than ours yeah 15 think I think it is roughly it's not an issue as such on every bridge it's just that there seems to be a large collection of narrow bridges and especially narrow bridges on weird and awkward angles on the ground Union some of them almost 90-degree bends so you've just got to learn to negotiate that it's just a case of taking slow you know stick it in reverse if you have to you know forwards backwards forwards backwards you get through so but you know you have to accept that you'll go a bit slower even our friends are never enough crews in hello guys hello they've got a 70 foot narrow boats and I think they struggled on some of the bends going under bridges and round round bends yeah they did but then I just think that's because you know he doesn't have a driver's license be honest he's told me to himself is a novice another advantage is that white beams don't tend to roll in as much they don't tend to move as much I know when we've been on friends narrow boat this boat never Rock seriously you think I'm joking I'm trying to do this seriously sorry carry on well we've been on friends nowadays you walk in and and got you nearly fall over sometimes so because we're just not used to the fact that it moves when you walk on board um and this moves slightly but you wouldn't even notice but you know you feel a slight undulation there's a good word we're going to show you how little the boat moves and to do that we're going to run from side to side to see if we can get the boat to start rocking so here we go ready that's not yeah tiniest little mini bit very very gentle yeah another downside to living on and traveling on the white beam is that you have to plan ahead you do on a narrow boat but more so on a wide beam because you're going around a blind Bend and you meet a narrow boat coming the other way you've got to think where are you going to fit if it's too narrow boats passing each other then there's always space but with a riding you almost always have to think four spaces or four four steps ahead and you know when you're approaching a bridge and you've got a narrow boat waiting to come through and you're in the right-of-way you know when you go through the bridge you've got to then swing if it's on a bend and you don't want to hit the narrow boat so you've got to then plan ahead do you then hold back let the narrow boat through so you've got an easier swing through the bridge there's all sorts of things you've got to do on a wide beam that you probably don't have to give consideration for as much as much on a narrow boat yeah it takes a little bit longer to do manoeuvre I suppose yeah and order narrow boat a little bit more agile and so they probably move a bit quicker than we do so Johnathan's does Speedy Gonzales yeah and also when you're going into locks as well you have to you can't just open one gate and go in and then shut one Gate locks take twice as long because you have to open both gates that's another consideration wide beams tend to have a larger water tank and that means that we can go for two weeks three yeah between moving and the boat to fill up with water again so I mean we are lucky in some respects because you barely wash so as a result of that we don't use an awful lot of water I like to bathe in spring water fresh fresh spring water which I have to buy in but Julie Wow she's a mudlark so so we manage to preserve our water quite often for three weeks maybe some I think the most people manage is three and a half weeks but by the end of it you really did smell you really didn't smell I've never told you this about the truth of the matter is is that you smell so in terms of our water usage we have a 900 liter tank which is peak for some narrow boats but not big for some people some people have got thousands plus but it's a fairly substantial one so if top tip if you're looking for a boat today I would say they're number one one hundred percent top priority for me would be how BIG's the water tank because you're forever looking for water taps and for places to fill up and if you've got a small tank then you are going to be doing it all the time and that dictates house how often you move as well and the other good thing is that's we've got quite a large fuel tank we have so we can go between topping up although we don't do that do we that's because it's because the downside is you run the engine in the winter if you're not getting solar so you're using probably a quarter of your fuel or just you know charging your batteries our fuel tank is 95 gallons you know given example we filled up or Christmas is now February we're still on on the gauge we're still on 8 out of 10 so we're still you know 3/4 full but it is something that you should top up regularly anyway especially in the winter yeah I'll just stop the condensation in the tank and your bird and things like that so yeah I mean luckily enough we use Jules fuse to fill up with and they put an additive in their fuel so that stops any diesel bug from forming but we've also got a special feature on our fuel tank which also is an T diesel bugger as well it siphons off any moisture that might get into the fuel from condensation so but don't let that you know you know making lacks or lazy when it comes to keeping your tank topped up you should keep it subtle at all times in the bitter okay so we hope you've enjoyed this pros and cons of living on a wide beam boat we apologize for the lack of canal footage but we will show you some cute pictures of Eric just to make up you I will show you some cute pictures of me but to be honest I've been told there until my official 2021 calendar comes out I've got to keep myself under wraps so yeah it's good enough for Cliff Richard me I will take a hundred and four million some skimpy shorts leaning against a tree holding it holding a chainsaw over my shoulder a bit of grease on the face and a hard hat on a wire wearing a heart what can tell I'm turning this into a Village People video anyway if you've enjoyed the episode please give it a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe and once you have subscribed click the bell icon to get more of this for some of that and YouTube will tell you when we release a new video and any comments or anything you want to ask us about living on a wide beam traveling on a wide beam or just general canal life then please drop them in the comments below and we will endeavor to answer them all to the best of our ability but we will respond to every single one and we will see you next week when we travel to Tring Tring that's indeed where we go so it's a more canal footage in the next video see you next week bye bye

Channel: Weir on the Move

Views: 129,978

Keywords: boat life, living the dream, canal travel, widebeam boat, Narrowboat, cruising, continuous cruising, tiny house, barge, barging, narrow, canal, boat, the cut, widebeam liveaboard, houseboat, canal boat diaries, Weir on the Move, off grid, canal lock, living on a boat, boats, canal life, small spaces, small space living, living on water, floating home, Mark Weir author, Julie weir art, life afloat, boating around Britain, the Grand Union, Kennet and Avon canal

Id: l5acM2y_G9w

Length: 19min 47sec (1187 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020