Our Boat Story
how we got ourselves into this stuff in the first place
It all goes back to our honeymoon in 1980.
The original plan had been to rent a villa in France for a couple of
weeks, but we'd not worked out the cost of buying a house, getting married
and paying for the honeymoon. We'd spent several Sunday afternoons
in the summer of 1979 walking along the edge of the River Thames around
Chertsey and so we thought maybe we could afford to hire a boat for the
honeymoon and go up the Thames. So, that is how it all started.
The boat itself came from Star Line at
Chertsey. It was a 27 foot cabin cruiser and not in its first bloom
of youth. Actually, it was simply dreadful. We were given the most basic of instructions and left to
our own devices. The nearest either of us had ever got to driving a
boat was a rowing boat at Canoe Lake in Southsea, so this was all new.
We hit Chertsey Bridge (couldn't find the brakes and the steering was
unresponsive) and crashed into one of the entrance wall at Chertsey Lock.
The crew of a trip boat heading upstream to Maidenhead took pity on us and
gave us some clues on how to drive.
First stop - Old Windsor. Out with
the mooring stakes and tied securely. Time for a cup of tea to calm
the nerves. Teapot with dregs (i.e. used tealeaves) emptied into
sink. Sink blocks. Kevin dispatched to repair. Removes
drainpipe from sink and gets a tea shampoo. Language deteriorates
badly (almost shortest marriage on record). Eventually, we fix the
drain and to our amazement, we discover that the sink drains overboard
directly into the river <sigh!>. It's now getting dark
and we need some light. They don't work. So we walk along the
adjacent road to find a phone box and call for help (there weren't mobile
phones in those days). The suggestion is that we've turned off the
master switch which is located in a such a position that the mooring
stakes and hammer are quite likely to knock the switch as they are
removed. And so it proved.
Well, it did get better, we enjoyed the
holiday, but the weather was dreadful. In that week, it only rained
twice - once for three days and the second time for four days. We did
eventually get the hang of locks (after a couple of near falls), but Ann
stated in no uncertain terms that we were not doing locks again, ever!
Well, it did get better, we enjoyed the
holiday, but the weather was dreadful. In that week, it only rained
twice - once for three days and the second time for four days. We did
eventually get the hang of locks (after a couple of near falls), but Ann
stated in no uncertain terms that we were not doing locks again, ever!
The following years, we tried the Norfolk
Broads, which, out of season, are great. We've never been in a busy
time (ie school summer holidays) but suspect that it could be akin to the
M25 on a Friday afternoon.
The children came along and we either
camped or caravanned while they were young. One one of the camping trips,
we'd been to Carcassonne in France and seen the Canal du Midi. About
8 years ago, we fancied another boat holiday and ended up in a Connoisseur
boat on the Canal du Midi (yes, Ann, there are locks, but not many and
they're all worked for you). The bug had bitten again.
The year after that, we sort of wanted to
try a canal holiday in England, but were uncertain. Narrowboats
looked, well, narrow and (not to put too fine a point on it) Kevin is not
particularly narrow across the shoulders. Plus, there's all those lock
things to worry about as well. As a great believer in "nothing
ventured, nothing gained", we took the plunge (not literally) and
booked up for a week.
Picture the scene: Heritage Boats,
Macclesfield Canal, one Saturday afternoon:
"Have you done this before?"
"Yes, but only with a plastic boat"
"OK - its much the same"
chug-chug-chug-chug
"to steer left, you push the tiller to the right"
<<CRASH>>
"to slow down, you put the engine into reverse, same as a plastic
boat"
"NO!! hard astern, not like that"
We got the hang of it eventually.
Harecastle tunnel is a little wider now than before we went
through, though.
A succession of other hire boats followed
and we decided we wanted one of our own. Then we found out how much
they cost and started looking at shared ownerships. Long discussions
with Ownerships and Challenger, but we still thought that we wanted our
own boat. We could afford £25,000, but couldn't find what we liked
in the condition that we wanted for this price. So could we afford a
new boat? I talked to a couple of builders at the budget end
of the market and concluded we needed around £40,000 to get what we
really wanted. We convinced ourselves we could do it. We'd
spent some time looking at other boats and gathering ideas and ha settled
on a 55 foot boat with a semi-trad stern. I wrote a proposal and
sent this to a number of builders. One in particular, Cowroast, had
caught my attention, but their advertising had left me with the impression
that they would be too expensive. And normally, they would have
been. However, as luck would have it, the business had recently
changed hands, they'd not built a new boat for some time and were
interested in exhibiting at Braunston the following year (1997). So,
we got a deal and the rest, as they say, is history.
I think that we got
substantially more than £40,000 worth of boat. The quality of
finish and workmanship is as good as anything we've ever seen at twice the
price (and if you don't believe me, read the August 97 edition of Canal
Boat, because the Editor said much the same thing in his review, or
the same month's edition of Waterways World where there is a
similar brief write-up). Lawrence and Andy traded for a while as
Fenny Boat Services and we wouldn't go anywhere else for service or
painting all the time they were in business
