Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms I cant stop looking at..............?

Even if not a narrow boat since 2005 I rent this same boat every year with two ancient friends from childhood, every year for a week in October, after the season. In beautiful North Friesland in Holland. There are beautiful canals. And I love the old beautiful places. There is always something to discover, also culturally, three years ago, for example, the EIS EISINGA PLANETARIUM in Franeken.

When our children were small, they went with us, but it is purely a male thing. I love the landscape, the season. No fighting for moorings unlike summer. Contemplative time, deceleration, pure relaxation. The cars on the bridges seem rushed and under the compulsion of haste.
I didn't want to buy something like this, I see again and again that such a boat eats up a lot of time if you don't want to use it a lot. but because our rent a boat has always been the same boat for 16 years, it feels like "our" boat for one week a year (but no 2020 due to C19).

Sorry to back the trend here but as quaint and appealing narrow boats might seem they are mostly filthy things that pollute the waterways. I walked from Birmingham to King’s Cross along the canals and when near the main moorings there is very little wildlife. I imagine, but don’t know for sure, that living on board might not be as idyllic as one suspects.

Quite possibly a money-pit as well.

All I can remember of my time on a narrow boat brings a grimace.

A group of ten of us rented one for the time we were due to get our A level exam results.
On the day they arrived we had a great party at a pub near a lock.
We phoned home from the landline in the pub (as this is a long time ago and mobiles had not yet been invented)
We all passed to some degree and the party went on into the night.

The following morning(ish) I got up with a hang over and decided a shower would help, it was small. The bathroom was tiny.
I dropped the soap and so faced the curtain so I could bend to collect it off the floor.
At this point the boat moved and I came into close personal contact with the hot water pipe coming up from the floor.
I shot forwards out of the shower and placed my face somewhere I wish I had not.

Never went back on one again!

I've fancied the idea of a narrowboat for donkey's years, but they seem awfully cramped inside and a bit restricted as to where you can go.

I always end up going though the cycle of rejecting a narrowboat in favour of an airstream caravan, rejecting those in favour of a motor home, then remembering why we didn't use our last one enough to justify ownership and deciding that it's easier to stay at home, from where it's dead easy to cycle to the pub and you don't have to put up with tourists.

Still, it's nice to daydream, isn't it? And if I lived in a town or a built up area with neighbours and stuff I'd have a completely different view, I'm sure they'd be a great way to get away from it all for a bit of peace and quiet.

What a shame that wasn’t captured for posterity. Sounds hilarious

I’ve been fighting off buying a share in the Swan 43 I race on for ages. It is a very beautiful boat, and the members of the syndicate are 3 of the nicest chaps you could possibly meet, it’s just that it’s not the boat I’d choose to buy, were I to buy a boat.

Done Hatton locks a couple of times, once in pouring rain and in company with a not so young lady in a heritage narrow working boat. With two boats even single handing you get into a rythm taking turns in setting one lock in advance as you ascend. I remember with amusement following her into the next lock. I could have sworn she was doing knee bend exercises until I realised it was involuntary and due to the thump of the massive piston in the single cylinder Gardner semi-diesel shaking the hull.

I later found this video of same lady starting engine on same boat. Quite an exercise.

The one I can’t stop looking at (to answer the O.P.) is the dragonfly 28 trimaran.

It is my dream boat. Small, fast (20 kts), fun to sail, very shallow draught (and can take the ground), so
perfect for Brittany and the West Country. adequate accommodation for 4, beautifully built, trailerable. Yum.

Family holidays on canals were a feature of my teenage years. My brother and I helped Dad to fit out a 40' Narrow Boat in 1972/73. Our family best for the Wolverhampton 21 is around 1h45 with the time saved being spent in the pub at the top lock.

When my Dad specified his dream narrow boat, he settled on 55' long and 2' draft so that it would be able to go anywhere he wanted to go.

If you plan to get one, make sure you have enough time - they are a money pit if you don't do the servicing and basic painting yourself. A professional re-paint and sign writing was quoted as £7k 10 years ago. Dad, at 80, did the lot himself except the sign writing which IIRC cost him around £500. He then declared that it was the last time he would be able to do it himself and the boat was sold soon afterwards.



The boat was called Basford and he had fitted it out himself from a bare steel hull - to a very high standard.

The boat equivalent of an MOT is hard work too. Retrospective modifications can be required (Dad got very p'd off with having to drill extra holes in the boat when ventilation rules changed for example). Worth doing some serious research on this element.

Giles, That is a beautiful boat. Is it a Ron Holland design or an S&S? I remember sailing one around the Isle of Wight, what a wonderful experience.