Are you well balanced? We’re not…yet!

It’s only too late to get back on an even keel when you’ve capsized… a thought for us all and particularly those of us who live on boats where prevention is definitely better than cure. 

So this week has been about rebalancing our lives…and our home. It’s so easy when you have a 50 x 6ft home to just add and amend what’s on board without really thinking about where we’re putting things, and that is crucial. The layout of our boat means we have a passageway down one side of the boat so all the heavy stuff tends to congregate on the other side – including us! You see the problem – most of the weight is on the side opposite the passageway, creating a list to (in our case) the port side.

The only sizeable weight on the starboard side, and it is sizeable, is the multifuel stove. After that there are a two book shelves and some shelf steps under the side hatch. 

We need to redistribute weight more equally, to recalibrate our home, and so our lives. We are aware that this year we will be bringing on new batteries (into portside fixings). Whilst the coal on the roof is steadily reducing and will continue doing that, it will ultimately be replaced by the veg garden so the weight on top is not really diminishing. We keep that weight evenly distributed but it tends to be central to the boat. The water tank with its 500litres is also central, but at the bow (front). Too much weight on one side and too high up (like on the roof) can make the boat more susceptible to sudden movements, to winds and waves… and that’s a clue to one reason as to why we are doing this now. 

Once we have headed south for welding work to be completed we shall be heading off on a new adventure – one that takes us across tidal waters.  No – not to France or Ireland, but to Lancashire (and with a Yorkshireman as skipper that is seen as very foreign territory, believe me!). 

That will take us across the first new canal for 97 years – the Millennium Ribble Link. It connects the 41 navigable (and lockless) miles of the Lancaster Canal to the national network via the River Ribble, the River Douglas and the Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The Ribble Link consists of the River Ribble and River Douglas – all tidal, fuelled by the waters of Morecambe Bay. 

In tidal waters it’s more important than ever to keep an even keel…particularly on a narrowboat which doesn’t even have a keel but has a flat bottom so is susceptible to rolling when walloped by waves.

Safety equipment for coastal waters differs from the inland waterways – and it’s going to weigh! Looking down the list for this trip we seem to be pretty well equipped so this weight is already on board, we just need to make sure distribution is even. 

• Life jackets – got
• Accessible, ready anchor on chain to stop the boat in case of engine failure – got
• Charged mobile phone or VHF radio – got the former
• Marine Distress Flares – still to get those.

Undertaking anything out of the ordinary it is always worth putting in the preparation – researching (in our case reading guidance documentation provided and looking at how others have fared via the many boaters vlogs available – some make alarming viewing, others are more calmly reassuring! 

We need to book because of tide times and we aim to be in a convoy of several boats for safety. But we can’t go yet as we have things to do before then. Our engine is going to need to work harder for longer than it has for years so we will be completely replacing what we think is its current weak point – the cooling system.

We are also actively starting to get our lives in balance. That means working out weight distribution across the boat. We do have ballast in the hull of the boat and that is fixed (in our case it’s kerb stones – we know as Steve has managed to get a few out for rebalancing when we brought the washing machine on board. So it’s the easily moveable elements that we are concentrating on.

We are using pallets to build shelving along the length of the starboard side to enable lots of items to make the move from the galley (kitchen) cupboards on the port side. Just emptying a few and putting them onto the scales resulted in the discovery that that should redistribute over 40 kgs.

Making changes to the shower cubicle replacing the giant ceramic shower tray which over time we realise we only use a fraction of, keeping storage there when not in use as a shower. We have actually shelved over part of it. That change should remove about 30 kgs from that side of the boat.

Little by little then, we are recalibrating our lives afloat, and our home. Nothing too quickly, but steadily we are reviewing, reconsidering and rebalancing. Not a bad thing fornus all to do regularly with our lives really, however or wherever we live and work.

Removing the unnecessary, reorganising priorities and reviewing how we live – not a bad mantra for everyone. Seems a wise move to deal with the things throwing you off balance before they do serious harm. May mean all our physical and metaphorical distress flares remain unused.