Mooring a houseboat

[Daylight]

My brother lives on a 100-year old, 130-foot long, 150-ton (metric, empty) barge. After years of moving from one place to another, he finally managed to obtain a permanent mooring (i.e. the mooring place is permanent, not his stay there).

However, that mooring came with nothing at all, so we had to:

1) fabricate mooring bitts, install them in 5'-deep holes filled with concrete

2) fabricate outriggers to keep the ship away from the embankment, where the water is too shallow. Each one weighs half a metric ton without the (carefully calculated) floats made with foam recovered from a scrapped dock

3) source (from a ship breaker 150 miles away) and adapt a 27-foot gangway.

And this is the end result:

 

[bird dogger]

That is very cool!!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Super Cool!

 

[fried1765]

My brother lives on a 100-year old, 130-foot long, 150-ton (metric, empty) barge. After years of moving from one place to another, he finally managed to obtain a permanent mooring (i.e. the mooring place is permanent, not his stay there).

View attachment 122067

However, that mooring came with nothing at all, so we had to:

1) fabricate mooring bitts, install them in 5'-deep holes filled with concrete
View attachment 122059
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2) fabricate outriggers to keep the ship away from the embankment, where the water is too shallow. Each one weighs half a metric ton without the (carefully calculated) floats made with foam recovered from a scrapped dock
View attachment 122061

View attachment 122062

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3) source (from a ship breaker 150 miles away) and adapt a 27-foot gangway.

View attachment 122064

And this is the end result:

View attachment 122065

Spent a week on a "narrow boat" that we rented (Schropshire canal) some years ago.
A very enjoyable "couple experience".
Our rental was only 70' long though.

 

[GrizBota]

Good looking fab work. Quite a bit to mooring a boat long term.

 

[skeets]

OK its a long boat,, man you said barge, I was thinking one of our 1800 ton coal barges still pretty cool !

 

[GeoHorn]

Just think…. no opportunities to mow grass…rake leaves… water the plants….. I’ll bet he really misses those.

 

[chim]

That's really neat! Not knowing anything about the setup, how are the utilities handled? Thinking about power, water, heating, wastewater.

My first thought when I saw "100 year-old" was a concern about leaks

 

[The Evil Twin]

Damn cool!

 

[Freeheeler]

Where do you park your tractor on something like that?

 

[Daylight]

Where do you park your tractor on something like that?

Easy as pie:

 

[Daylight]

That's really neat! Not knowing anything about the setup, how are the utilities handled? Thinking about power, water, heating, wastewater.

Power: the mooring is getting its own power meter: just plug in and you're good to go. Alternatively, the ship is also equipped with a diesel generator (no Kubota though...) and storage batteries. Solar panels are "under consideration" but would seriously harm the ship's looks.

Water: deck and hatches run-off is collected and stored in a 1,500-gallon tank, then filtered.

Heating: pellet-fired central heating with the furnace (which also produces hot water) in the engine room and a wood burner in the lounge.

Wastewater: the ship has a dry toilet (no flushing - waste is stored in a ventilated bag and dries odorlessly). All other wastewater is 'grey' and just goes overboard. Environmentally-responsible detergents and soaps are used.

Leaks: this thing was built to be run aground for loading/unloading (300 tons) and did so for more than 50 years... It's built like a tank - no, actually better: how many 100-year old tanks are still in daily use?

My first thought when I saw "100 year-old" was a concern about leaks

 

[chim]

Very interesting!

 

[GeoHorn]

Very interesting!

 

[UnEasyRider]

Thats really cool! How many can live on it???