Vlog 348: All aboard the Skylark!

Although traditional steel narrowboats cost many thousands of pounds, even second-hand, there is a cheaper and easier way to get a foot on the water and that’s with a fibreglass cabin cruiser. In this video, I visit a woman who’s chosen exactly that as her first boat.

Watch my prior ‘fibreglass boats’ video by clicking here.

Jade’s boat is apparently an “Ensign” from about 1975, though I can find nothing about these boats online. Viewers have suggested that it might be the same manufacturer as Buckingham boats but I have no way to verify that. Either way, it’s a pretty little 23-footer powered by a 10hp Honda outboard.

Kept on a secure mooring at Marple Junction where the north end of the Macclesfield canal meets the Peak Forest canal, Jade has three immediate routes to choose from her mooring (being down the Macclesfield, up the Peak Forest to Bugsworth Basin, and down the Marple lock flight towards Manchester and the Huddersfield Narrow canal).