Whether you’re a solo narrowboater or have plenty of crew aboard, there’s no doubt that at busy and long canal lock flights, a team of helpful volunteer lock-keepers can be a blessing to help you through. I spent a couple of days at Fradley Junction near Lichfield, talking to the volunteers as they prepare for the new boating season, and they explained what they do and why they do it.
An alternative to the tradition steel narrowboat, fibreglass (GRP) cruisers are long-established on British canals and rivers. Often cheaper to buy, both new and used, but with drawbacks such as a more fragile construction and less suitability for living aboard, especially in winter, they are a popular choice particularly on rivers. In this video, I speak to a chap who bought a Viking 26 and absolutely loves it.
For those on small or disconnected canals, who want a boat that can be taken out of the water easily and moved elsewhere, there is the Wilderness Trailboat; an incredibly cute, fibreglass (GRP) lightweight craft that you can practically put in your pocket!
With Christmas coming and small businesses ever more in need of your support, I thought I’d do a video highlighting a smattering of the arts and crafts that many narrowboaters sell from the canals.
In the second of my lockdown Skype interviews with other boaters, we cross the pond to Missouri, USA for a chat with Kay Davis and Jeff Hoesel who own a 1994 Gibson Cabin Yacht and take it for trips along the mighty Mississippi River.
Filmed entirely on a DJI Osmo Action camera – which has the most amazing stabilisation – with a Rode Videomicro microphone, this is a recording of the first brief walk I took after completing 14 days of self isolation having come back from overseas. The weather was beautiful, the birds were chirping like crazy but the waters were almost totally still. Hopefully this is a nice little background video to bring a window of peace and calm into your day.
A few weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of spending a day aboard the fuel boat and butty of “Jules Fuels” on the Grand Union canal. The day started – early! – with loading of supplies and then off we went to deliver to customers south of Milton Keynes.
If a traditional narrowboat that’s 6’10” wide is just too limited in width for you then you might want to consider a widebeam for the canals of Britain. However, there are limitations on such craft so in this video I talk to widebeam owners Julie and Mark Weir about their experiences on a boat with an 11′ beam.
