Are you allowed to drive a narrowboat at night?

There are a number of questions we get asked all the time by non-boaters. How often do you fill up with water? Where do you get your electricity? How does the Internet work on a boat? Is it very cold in he winter? Where does washing up water go? Do you need a licence to drive a narrowboat?

Another common question is whether you are allowed to cruise at night.

The answer is “no” if you are a hire boater because your insurance won’t cover it. But for liveaboards like ourselves the answer is “yes” because it has always been allowed. At the peak of canal traffic, in the 19th century, bargees were paid on taking a load from a to b, however long that took, and so often they would travel all day and all night.

Although it is allowed, these days we see almost no boats travelling at night – maybe two or three in a season. Certainly we have never travelled at night. Even with the headlight, you can’t see very well, and it is annoying to fellow boaters who may be sleeping.

But this time of year the sun sets so early that this week we found ourselves travelling in the dark at just after 4pm. Perhaps we should have moored up as soon as it got dusky, but there was a particular mooring we were heading to, and besides it was an adventure.

The water looked very beautiful as the sun went down and my eyes acclimatised quite well. Still, I decided to move even slower than usual because seeing obstructions in the canal was very difficult. Surprisingly, locks were less of a problem. The headlight is designed to illuminate tunnels, and a lock is like a tunnel without a roof, so they lit up quite well.

I don’t think we will choose to travel at night again in a hurry, but as Thomas Beecham once said, you should try everything in life once, except incest and Morris dancing. And I love an adventure.

November 29, 2024 0

What is it like to stay on a boat that does not move?

From March to October we are continuous cruisers on our narrowboat. We travel around the country seeing new places and meeting new people – having new adventures. We are already planning our first trip for this year, probably heading up to Liverpool and then crossing the Pennines to Leeds. I am excited at the thought and this week I made a boat improvement that will help – a map on the fridge.

We had the kitchen upgraded before last season and we have been very happy with it. The one thing we did not like was the white fridge, which did not look quite right. So I had a vinyl “wrap” made of the canal network and have put that on the door. Now, not only does the kitchen look better, but we can easily show visitors where we have travelled and where we are heading.

This is an example of the sorts of “jobs” I tend to do over winter, when the boat is moored in a marina. The experience of staying on a boat when it is not moving is different from our summer adventures. We are not seeing new places every day, and we are not enjoying the loneliness of staying overnight somewhere away from everyone. But there are advantages too.

The marina has plenty of facilities including electricity and water on the pontoon, toilets, showers, pump out, and even its own pub. We also have access to our car so I can easily get to shops or go to see people. I also really love the cold weather. Gongoozelers (non boaters) often ask if the boat is too cold in the winter. The answer is absolutely not. We have central heating from a diesel boiler, and a “bubble stove” that easily heats the small airspace in the narrowboat. Last night for instance was icy cold outside, but Mandy and I were in our T shirts and had to turn the stove off because it was over 24°C in the boat.

It is cold in the mornings because we tend not to have the heating on overnight, but it is cozy warm in our bed, and the boat doesn’t take too long to warm up. I also really love getting up to take the dogs for their first walk, and seeing the early morning sun glinting off the frost and ice on the boats in the marina. It is very beautiful.

Staying on a boat that does not move is a different experience than our summer adventures. But it has its own charms. I am just so happy to be back on the boat.

February 2, 2024 0

How is the narrowboat?

I’m back at the narrowboat tonight. Over the past few weeks it has been taken out of the water and blacked (bitumen painted on the hull to protect it), It has new sacrificial anodes (zinc plates under the water to prevent electrolysis pitting the steel). It has had the roof stripped back to metal and repainted with 7 or 8 layers of primer, undercoat and top coat (the sun and my poor repairs had made the roof flaky). The engine has been fully serviced and the coolant system pressure checked after we overheated last summer. They have investigated a leak in the central heating system and dampness by the water pump.

So my job this weekend is to check the work, and to make sure that everything else still works, especially the heating now that cold weather is coming. I am looking forward to being back, even if it is just for a couple of days.

We are currently looking at moving house from Scotland to Lancashire, and as part of that we may have to live on the boat before Spring, which we have not done before, so it is fairly critical that it is warm. We can heat the boat in one of three ways. We can use the webasto boiler, we can use our “bubble stove” diesel fire, or we can run the engine. The last of these is not really an option while we are in a marina overwinter, but the other two techniques should be OK. Often people assume that narrowboats are cold in winter because they just have a single skin of metal, but in fact they have such a small airspace that they warm up very quickly. The only challenge is first thing in the morning, when I need to run from my warm bed to press the button on the webasto controller, before returning to bed for 30 minutes while it warms up.

Hopefully everything will be fine. And then there is just the bill to pay to the boatyard for their work. The saying is that “boat” stands for “bung on another thousand” and it is not far wrong! It is worth it though.

November 24, 2023 0

How to tidy up a boat for winter

I went back to the narrowboat last weekend to get it ready for winter. We have been travelling for over seven months so it was fairly full of bits and pieces. I had a long list of jobs to do. But it was also a wonderful few days to relax and enjoy the boat and the marina for one last time this autumn. We even had a hot air balloon take off a few yards from where we are moored.

So here is my list of jobs:

Clean windows inside and out
Dust and clean all surfaces and ledges.
Wipe down radiators
Vacuum throughout
Clean mirrors and pictures
Clean floor
Clean shower grout
Demould shower sealant
Defrost and clean fridge. Turn off and leave open.
Properly clean oven and grill
Take home and revarnish wooden boat hook and seat
Antitrust and repaint windlass and mooring “nappy” pins
Clean out cratch (area at the front of the boat)
Put covers on front window, side hatch and back deck
Pump out toilet tank
Drain water tank
Take home crockery and glasses for dishwashing
Take home all food except cans
Bring home fire stick for use when we go away
Take home towels, t towels, bedding, hats, gloves
Leave a few windows open for ventilation

And now all that is done I feel the boat is ready. Next step is for the boat to be taken out of the water at end of October to have its bottom blacked, roof stripped and repainted, new batteries, engine serviced, and a couple of faults fixed. Then maybe we will come back for a winter stay in December or January before our next big adventure in 2024.

It is very satisfying.

October 13, 2023 0

It may be snowing but it’s cozy inside the narrowboat

It is so good to be back on the boat.

It has been convenient to live in a house over winter. Easy to keep clean. Things don’t break as often. Plenty of space. But I have missed the boat.

The new kitchen was finally finished on Tuesday, so I drove down Wednesday with a car full of everything we need for a season – clothes, towels, crockery, cutlery, bedding. I am very pleased with the work the boat yard have done and they have kept the boat relatively tidy. Last year I had to clean lots of mould from surfaces. But this year a quick steam clean of the floor, a wipe of the insides of the cupboards, and we are fine. I have learnt that the key is to allow plenty of air circulation, so moving the bed away from the wall, having several windows open a little, and giving everything a good clean before we leave the boat in the autumn. All these things have helped.

I’m heading back to Scotland later, and then will return with Mandy and the dogs over the weekend. My plan was to get going early next week, with our first trip on the Lllangollen and Montgomery canals through Wales. But the forecast is that the current snow and sleet will continue all week, so I will have to do some pretty fancy negotiating to persuade Mandy that it is better to travel than to hunker down with the cozy stove in the boat.

Gongoozlers (people who like to watch the boats but don’t have one) often ask me if it is cold living on a narrowboat. You might think so because there is just a single metal skin and little insulation. But in fact they are very easy to keep warm and do not use much energy because there is such a small airspace inside. As I write this, it is lovely to watch the snow falling outside while feeling cozy and warm inside, with the boat very gently rocking in the wind.

But I have a list of jobs to be done. I would like to give the kitchen walls a quick coat of paint to make them look as fresh as the new units for when Mandy arrives.

I’m ready for the summer – in the snow. Are you?

March 10, 2023 0

When can I go back to the narrowboat?

I was hoping that this week’s blog would be about my return to the narrowboat, after having a new kitchen fitted over winter. I know the washing machine has not yet arrived but that is not urgent, and I really want to get the boat set up for the summer season. Unfortunately I found out on Wednesday that the new cooker is installed but is not yet converted to bottled gas, so I would have no way of making food or boiling a kettle. The limited electricity on a boat means that things like electric kettles and microwaves are rarely used.

I am hoping that on Monday the new “jets” will be installed and I can travel down to the boat on Tuesday. I am bracing myself because I have not been on the boat since November, so something is sure to be broken. But we have plans for travelling the west of England this year, so the sooner I get back, the sooner we can resolve any issues and get going.

Last year we travelled for seven months, all around the South of England. This year we plan a more mixed summer, where we travel for 5-6 weeks and then return to the house for 1-2 weeks before repeating. That way we can keep the house in good order, and still make the most of the boat. It will also help us work around some events this year, such as my niece’s wedding and a weekend at the London E-Prix (Formula 1 for electric cars).

On the boat we also have targets – to spend time around Gloucester docks, to see our younger son in Tewkesbury, to cross the Pontcysyllt Aqueduct and navigate the recently reopened stretch of the Montgomery canal. I also want to return to the boat museum in Ellesmere Port, and possibly to explore the many canals of Birmingham.

So hopefully by next week’s blog I will be back… We will see.

March 3, 2023 0

How important is central heating?

It has been cold this week – around 3°C. Unfortunately our boiler broke down – no heating and no hot water. Fortunately we have a service contract and so were able to call an engineer out. Unfortunately his temporary fix only lasted overnight. Fortunately we have a wood burning stove. Unfortunately it is not working very well because the chimney has not been swept for four years. Fortunately, with new kindling and some TLC we have managed to light it. Unfortunately it does not heat the water or the radiators.

When we are in the house we get very used to utilities always working. You turn on a switch and the lights come on, open a tap and there is fresh clean water, click on your phone and the Internet is available. And without thinking the house is warm when it needs to be, and you can have a shower whenever you like. It is all very easy and when something does not work we get resentful, angry, confused.

It is very different on the narrowboat. There are three ways to heat the boat – the engine, a diesel stove or the Webasto boiler. The reason there are three ways is that often one or two ways are broken or inconvenient to use. The electricity is always on our mind. The solar is great in the summer but not in the dark, cloudy winters. The engine charges the batteries well but only easily when we are travelling. There is a mains hook up where we are moored in a marina, but we have to remember to top it up, or we will be cut off. And water is not always available. We have to remember to find a working canalside tap every couple of days to fill up, and once a year to disinfect the tank. As to the Internet, things are massively better than even a few years ago. We have a mobile powered WiFi router and can also tether to either of our phones which we have deliberately contracted with different networks, to maximise coverage. But it ain’t “always on”.

I wonder, is it better to have the ease and comfort of living in a house, with the consequent panic when something does fail. Or to live off grid on a boat, where it is harder work, but you understand it better. I’m not sure. I just know I don’t like being cold.

Fortunately the engineer is back today with lots of spare parts. And if that does not work, we can go back to the boat.

What is your view? Perhaps you believe that with sufficient layers of clothes, we do not need heating?

November 18, 2022 0