Spill ya guts. Many of us want to know more about your narrow boat adventures and narrow boats in general.
What do you want to know? I normally work from September to about Easter then spend the Summer cruising around. Sometimes I have a plan, other times I just make it up as I go along.
We have no such things here, Harry. I assume narrow boats are ex-freight carriers. Are new ones still built? In days of yore, did the boat operator and crew live aboard? Did the boats have a set route, or did they go where the freight took them? Were they confined to canals? Was the canal network interconnected?
Feel free to post photos, some of the ones you have posted, would make excellent jigsaw pictures.
Star down under.:
We have no such things here, Harry. I assume narrow boats are ex-freight carriers. Are new ones still built? In days of yore, did the boat operator and crew live aboard? Did the boats have a set route, or did they go where the freight took them? Were they confined to canals? Was the canal network interconnected?
Feel free to post photos, some of the ones you have posted, would make excellent jigsaw pictures.
Narrowboats haven’t been used to carry freight since the 1960s, the Winter of 1963 whwn canals froze over for six weeks finally killed off narrowboat trade although it had been in decline since the dawn of the Railway Age. Now it’s almost exclusively a leisure and tourism activity.
Back in the day entire families lived on boats and the children were the last group of children to be exempted from compulsory education. Some boats worked set routes, some took spot loads, much as a general haulier might do today. The UK canal network is interconnected from as far north as past Lancaster and Skipton, down as far south as London and Bristol.
Thanks Harry, I’m keen to follow your travels.
It sounds like a great life everything rolled into one, adventure, real life, freedom, no ties, independence,
I’m sure it’s hard work as well keeping on top of everything
Are you living on the boat all year round and if so do you just stay in the same berth all winter, is it your permanent home
Do you do all your own maintenance, how old is the boat and how long will the boat last, was it ever a working boat
Do you have to pre book a berth ahead of yourself when travelling in summer
Will it be your retirement home in the future
Does it feel like you live of the grid at times
Where you ever a sailor what attracted you to boats
What’s the furthest you traveled on the boat
Are you constant cruising all year or do you have a mooring ‘base’ on the network or at a Marina? I live next to the K&A and there is a strip there in winter marked up as winter moorings or similar, so I guess you get some relief from moving every 2 weeks out of season?
I have a mooring on a farm in Warwickshire, I pay about £750 a year for it including the mooring permit I have to have from the Canal and River Trust. I over-Winter there and drive a truck for a firm in Rugby to build up savings for the following Summer.
It was pretty shabby when I took it on but I got every last bit of aggregate from work free of charge as it would otherwise have just been thrown in the skip (damaged bags, double ordered etc, it’s just not worth enough to send back), and I built the sheds from scrap pallet wood which again was free.
There are about twenty boats there I guess, around half are liveaboards, and it’s a lovely community, everyone looks out for each other etc.
Well I can answer one of your questions bigtruck3, Harry does certainly get about. Before I got my boat, he was kind enough to let me visit his when he was on the Bridgewater canal near Lymm . Then once I got mine we’ve passed each other on the Caldon ( near Leek) and Atherstone.
When I was 15 my mates brother lived on a boat which I thought was the coolest thing ever. Had to wait till I retired 40 years later to have the time and the money.
I don’t liveaboard mine, I usually go out for about 5 months between April and September and a pootle occasionally in the winter months. I’m not out at the moment as I’ve had some unavoidable things to do at home in Cheshire. She’s moored bear Banbury.
My boat is relatively new, built in 2016. There is a boat on the marina I’m on which was built in the 1880 or 1890s, can’t remember. Take care of them and they go on and on.
Never worked out how to post photos, but this is Elsie going over the Pontyscyllte aqueduct on the Llangollen…I don’t like heights
A stunning day to cross the Pontyscyllte Aqueduct
instagram.com/p/CFKOoIwDsmy … M3MzIxNA==
Harry Monk:
I have a mooring on a farm in Warwickshire, I pay about £750 a year for it including the mooring permit I have to have from the Canal and River Trust. I over-Winter there and drive a truck for a firm in Rugby to build up savings for the following Summer.
It was pretty shabby when I took it on but I got every last bit of aggregate from work free of charge as it would otherwise have just been thrown in the skip (damaged bags, double ordered etc, it’s just not worth enough to send back), and I built the sheds from scrap pallet wood which again was free.
There are about twenty boats there I guess, around half are liveaboards, and it’s a lovely community, everyone looks out for each other etc.
That mooring looks great. Nice work 
Presumably the boats are motorised these days, Lister, Yanma, what?
Mines a Beta 38, basically a marinised dumper truck engine
My boat is quite old (1986) and the engine older than that, a BMC 1.5 diesel. These were fitted to J4 vans and Morris Oxford taxis and there were hundreds left over when vehicle production stopped. Many of them found their way into boats.
Normally it’s a very sedate activity so here are a couple of pics of white knuckle narrowboating. 
I’ve done this trip (Limehouse to Teddington) twice.
Bigtruck3:
It sounds like a great life everything rolled into one, adventure, real life, freedom, no ties, independence,
I’m sure it’s hard work as well keeping on top of everythingAre you living on the boat all year round and if so do you just stay in the same berth all winter, is it your permanent home
Do you do all your own maintenance, how old is the boat and how long will the boat last, was it ever a working boat
Do you have to pre book a berth ahead of yourself when travelling in summer
Will it be your retirement home in the future
Does it feel like you live of the grid at times
Where you ever a sailor what attracted you to boats
What’s the furthest you traveled on the boat
Sorry, I missed this post earlier.
It’s my permanent home, it was built in 1986 as a leisure boat and it will outlast me. I do nearly all of the maintenance myself, but for some things ■■■■ as blacking (every 3 years) it has to come out of the water.
Generally you can moor anywhere along the towpath for two weeks free of charge, there are a few places where you have to pay (Llangollen, £5 a night, Liverpool Salthouse Dock £10 a night, both give you an electrical hook up for that). You don’t need to book berths but you sometimes do need to book passages, such as Liverpool Link, Ribble Link, Standedge Tunnel.
I will live on it indefinitely. When I get too old to operate locks I’ll just cruise locally as my mooring is on a long lock-free pound.
It is totally off-grid living apart from when I am on my mooring I have permanent mains water.
I grew up near the Thames and always loved boats but have no maritime history. The furthest north I’ve been is just below Kendal and the furthest south to London.
Presumably your mail gets delivered to your permanent mooring, but what happens in the summer when you are off on your travels if you are away weeks at a time?
Thanks Harry and Albion, all very interesting. I had no idea the lifestyle was so popular, outside of Inspector Morse scenery.
cav551:
Presumably your mail gets delivered to your permanent mooring, but what happens in the summer when you are off on your travels if you are away weeks at a time?
If I need some physical mail delivered I use the Poste Restante service and collect it from the Post Office nearest to wherever I am, larger stuff I get sent Click and Collect to wherever accepts it in the area, more important stuff get’s sent to my ex-girlfriend’s house which is technically my home address and she opens and photographs it and emails it to me.
Star down under, youtube has plenty of videos on narrowboating, some of them questionable. Cruising the cut has some good ones though he’s no longer boating .
The only freight traffic you will see are the few hardy souls that operate fuel boats, supplying diesel, kindling, gas etc to other boaters. I’ve watched this a couple of times and still find it fascinating .