Life Afloat

I sold my narrowboat Bristol Fashion two years ago and moved to Australia. Not many canals here so these days I live in a house.

Happened to see Bristol Fashion up for sale on the Apollo Duck website and it looks like she’s had quite a bit of work done to her.

James Shipley is trying to trade some paperclips for something better, then trade that for something else and so on and so on until he owns a canal boat.

So far he’s traded 1) paperclips for a bouncy ball 2) for a kids’ book 3) for a golf bag 4) for gym equipment 5) for a radio-controlled plane 6) for a motorbike 7) for a speedboat.

He’s not doing too badly! James continues to blag his way to a narrowboat at www.onepaperclip.blogspot.com.

At www2.mihalis.net/canal/cgi-bin/index.cgi (a shorter, more memorable URL would be nice) you’ll find Canal Planner, an incredibly versatile journey-planning website backed by a comprehensive database of waterways features.

I’ve only made relatively short trips on just a few waterways so I never used it before; a copy of the relevant Nicholson’s guide was sufficient. But now I’m considering taking Bristol Fashion up to Yorkshire and have a choice of routes, Canal Planner is proving very useful. I now know that there are twice as many locks going via Stoke on Trent than via Nottingham. I have some idea of how long it will take and where would be good places along the way to stop for the night.

There are so many options – size of boat, your usual cruising speed and so on – but Canal Planner doesn’t calculate how much longer it takes if you stop off at every canalside pub on the way.

Interested in boat-building? Take a look at the Craft a Craft website which has a custom Google search engine for finding boat-building information.

If you agree with the following statement then you might like to sign the e-petition submitted by Save Our Waterways:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce legislation to solve the short term funding problems that have been caused by the cuts that Defra has made, and threatens to continue, to the budgets of British Waterways and the navigations the Environment Agency, and to ensure that long-term funding is made available to enable the inland navigation authorities to maintain, improve and restore these important parts of our national heritage.

Visit http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveOurWaterways to add your signature.

Some narrow boaters (as opposed to fat boaters?) are using the YouTube website to publish their videos and some are actually quite entertaining. Here are a few worth watching.

How not to steer

The curious incident of the tree and the cat in the night-time

Tardebigge Flight in a minute

Save Our Waterways on BBC news

And there’s plenty more…

This week I’m leaving the job I’ve been in for over six years to go freelance. It’s a big step and I’m nervous because I need to bring in enough money to keep both me and the boat going; with no monthly wage it’s a gamble, especially considering how much has gone on repairs lately.

So far I’ve only travelled the Grand Union, Regent’s Canal and the Thames as far as Reading, staying within commuting distance of Uxbridge, but from now on I won’t be tied to an office and will be free to travel the country. I plan to go north, back to Whilton where I bought the boat, stay in Leicester for a while then on to Leeds where I lived for 12 years. I want to moor up next to the Armouries museum, visit York, Huddersfield and Skipton, do what I used to dream of doing when I was a student in Leeds wandering the canals, looking at the boats, wanting one of my own.

As a web designer I’m reliant on the Internet and if it wasn’t for other peoples’ unpassworded wireless networks this would be an impossible way to work. I’ll need to buy an extra leisure battery, turn the lounge into an office, repaint the boat with a huge advert for my services, install a massive satellite dish…

Bristol Fashion has been in Denham Yacht Station, in Uxbridge, for two weeks. It’s an odd-shaped little boatyard with boats crammed in one against another in a long, narrow cut of water.

J.P. Marine have found and fixed my water leak, the central heating and pumps are working again and the boat is drying out nicely. They’ve given my engine its annual service and it now sounds a lot quieter and smoother. The cost was reasonable and I’m pleased with what they’ve done.

But now I’ve got another problem. There’s been a problem with the gears for a while but it’s worse than ever. The gear lever is very loose, whereas it always used to be quite stiff to move, and it won’t stay in certain positions. When I put the boat in neutral there’s a clanging noise from below, which disappears when I speed up. I can’t drive far like this so it’s back to the boatyard.

Ken asked me a question:

I’ve just spent the evening browsing apolloduck for widebeams, rather than working again… I visited Whilton & Braunston marinas on Sunday and saw a wide range of Narrowboats and one widebeam. I’ve realised though that the Mooring is the thing. Do you continually cruise the network, or do you have a residential mooring? I don’t think I could really continually cruise. Do you know where to look for the best residential mooring sites that are within commuting range of London? Unfortunately I still need to turn up in the office each day. I found a great Dutch Barge site last night which has a good widebeam cruising map (I think using your new search engine). A good max size seems to be 60×12′6×9: http://www.barging.co.uk/ukcruising.htm.

When I wanted a boat I too went to Whilton and Braunston and Crick because these big marinas are so near to each other and selling so many boats.

I’ve never had a mooring and the longest I stayed in one place was for three weeks in Islington (because it’s so cosy and secure there and convenient for commuting) and a couple of weeks at boatyards while having repairs done. But continuously cruising isn’t for everyone, especially if you need to commute. Last summer I took to the Thames and spent a lot of money on rail fares and was late to work fairly regularly. I don’t know where to start looking for residential moorings near London and suspect there might be quite a waiting list – try asking the same question on the www.canalworld.net forums.

(By the way, I just added http://www.barging.co.uk/ to my www.boatr.org.uk search engine, thanks for the tip).

Ken asked me ~ How have you adapted to the confines of a narrow boat, and do you ever wish you had a widebeam or a dutch barge?

Living in a narrowboat is a bit like living in a corridor that wobbles. The narrow space has never bothered me. Perhaps because the boat’s quite open plan and I can see from one end to the other it doesn’t feel that confined; and Dutch barge style boats have vertical walls, unlike traditional narrowboats whose walls slope inwards, which makes them feel roomier (and it’s easier to hang pictures).

I miss the comfy leather sofa in my old flat but there was no way it would fit in here. I sometimes miss having a lie-down bath. Nothing else.

Yes I’d like a widebeam boat – and a huge sofa, full-sized bookcase and a bath – but they don’t look so easy to maneuvre and there are parts of the canal system they can’t navigate.