The madness that is mooring costs

In this cold and icy time I've exercised my mind and fingers to see what's out there regarding online off side moorings and costs. Boy do they vary from the appealing to the absolute ridiculous. 

I'll not mention all actual places other than canals as I'd not want ( yes I know my social media impact it very limited)  to influence cost increases for people if mooring managers found out the specific rates but I have no doubt they do check, but some are greedier than others for sure.

All for a 60 foot boat

Start with where we are at the moment Great Haywood marina  - £2993 p.a 

There is a free 60 foot mooring at Fradley  - Hunts Lock were we were for 10 year - a bit over £2,500, no water no parking no electric and a decent walk over a lock - nice moorings though 

Three prices on the Shroppie ranging from a staggering £3672 and that was for a 57 foot mooting so well over £3,700 for Percy. Another was £3,276. Best (no vacancies surprisingly) was £1,620... All of the Shroppie ones were the same water and parking middle one was electric available but a walk to park.

On the Staffs and Worcester one - best yet was under £1,200   - again no vacancies.

So this year if we stay where we are are (not started the engine not moved anywhere) costs in brief will look like this ....

Moorings  - £2993 ( will go up when we renew if we renew in April)

License -£1,096 ( gone up 4% in April 2022 and another 4% in October 2022)

Insurance  - £200

Blacking £500  ( we try and black every 2 years and budget about £1000 per blacking) 

Service  £100 ( each year for oil stern greaser which is automatic and antifreeze etc)

Batteries £150 ( about £600 eveey four or so years)

RCR - £200 ( we don't have tis but may add it for peace of mind in the future)

So sitting still in the water before we add diesel etc it'll cost us around £5,250

Thats a chunk of change for this pensioner  - walking cycling and camping are sooo much cheaper ! 

Leia will be with me for the rest of my life

Only pet owners know the hurt of losing a loyal companion. It's getting on for 6 months now since we had to say goodbye to Princess Leia. We had her cremated and she lives with us in one of her favourite places...  just by the wood burner.

She still felt a bit distant to me so for my Christmas present my son Tom finally got to tattoo his old dad as his dad had a subject worthy of the pain of the process...

It was the beginning of January and I turned up at his studio with my preferred image and he set to taking a photo in ink on skin. I've never had a tattoo before and when I tell people one of my lads is a tattooist they ask if I have tattoos. Well now I can say yes and show Leia off with pride. 

The process took a good five hours with a break... it started ok. Mildly uncomfortable but tolerable. Towards the end it was getting very uncomfortable, especially when he was doing the white over the black as it was needles on needles and some of the needles were several needles at a time ! However the more painful part of the day was listening to the German heavy metal at decent volume ALL day !!  

She's still healing but settling into her new place in my life very well. I know tattoos are not for everyone but I get the addiction and even more so when it's a special image for the carrier.

All's still including us

We had a tentative plan to visit Percy this weekend for a few nights aboard. Family matters and another cold snap put paid to that little plan. We did still visit for the record and found a frozen marina and a frozen main line.... all is very much still around Great Haywood. 

You never fully know how your boat has fared over winter ( unless you live aboard) until you refill the water system and pressurise it and wait with fingers crossed for the pump to get to pressure ... and stop. Continued cycling gets you looking for the burst. I hope I'm not tempting fate here but we had a knackered water heater due to frost on Comet and a burst pipe on Waterlily due to the same. Time will tell....

Whilst marina living is easy it's not for us and we put the end of the year as a fate type date to see if any feelers for online moorings came up and nothing has. The plan B was to put Percy on brokerage  which we've not yet done but is looking increasingly likely if we don't get an offer of a mooring soon. Still very mixed emotions about it as going on board albeit briefly today reminded me how nice a boat we have and what great memories we have of being aboard at Fradey and Shebdon.

Fate.... she's Percy's mistress now !