The canal crowd
Living on a boat can be affordable and jolly — if you’re a dab hand at DIY
Canal banks have a certain appeal on a sunny bank holiday weekend. So much so that you might begin to imagine life aboard one of the gaily painted vessels sitting on the water.
But what’s it like to be one of the estimated 15,000 people who take the plunge? nick Corble has the inside track. He and his writing partner, allan Ford, have put together a Beginner’s Guide To living On The Waterways.
Corble has owned a canal boat since 1999, when he first took to the water in what amounted to a mid-life crisis.
‘My parents had died and I was between jobs,’ says Corble, 58, whose day job now is in management development. ‘So I bought a boat in Skipton, north Yorkshire, brought it down to Oxford and proceeded to live on it with my wife, annette, for half of the year, while keeping a house in Bucks for the winter.’
life in a slower lane had the desired effect. ‘Being in tune with the seasons and getting into the rhythm of nature heightens your senses,’ says Corble.
On the face of it, canal living makes economic sense. Corble paid £15,000 for his first ex-hire boat. Today, a 30 ft-long vessel is £20,000, up to £30,000 for 70 ft.
However, buying a boat is only the start — finding a mooring is more of an issue.
nearly all the mooring places along towpaths are short-term, meaning a boat can’t stay for more than a few weeks. and regulations do not allow you to shuffle between nearby short-term moorings. People using the canal in this way — cruising for a large part of the year — will pay between £750 and £4,000 annually in shortterm mooring fees.
If you shop around, you could find a long-term mooring, which allows access for a year at a time. The terms and costs of these vary with the amenities provided and the desirability of the location.
So it is up to the buyer to find a place that suits their lifestyle. It is advisable to secure a mooring before you buy a boat.
living on a marina is a different ball game altogether. Some of these mini communities have CCTv security, a clubhouse, laundry and a vibrant social scene.
Prices for a mooring will reflect those in the surrounding area and may be high: between £3,000 and £9,000 a year for parts of london.
The residential mooring Ice Wharf Marina in london’s King’s Cross has a communal recreation space, gardens, showers and laundry facilities, and costs a cool £ 10,000 a year. There’s a 66 ft narrow boat for sale there for £160,000,
It would be fair to say that owning a canal boat is best suited to people with a practical bent. Owners must not be afraid to attempt minor repairs to the heating, cooking and sanitation systems.
a certain amount of skill with electrics would be handy as would the ability to identify why the generator may be mis-firing or the engine stalling.
When these type of things go wrong, you will find getting a repair man to a remote canal bank is not as simple as booking a call to a house on a street.
Then there are the maintenance chores: engine services and cleaning the bilges and water tanks. OWnInG
a canal boat is like running an old banger 30 years ago, says Corble. ‘ Something can go wrong at any time and you have to think ahead to prevent that from happening.’
This is not to say that all canal boat dwellers are oily-fingered grease monkeys.
The lure of canal life has cast its spell on a host of celebs, including Harrison Ford, Keira Knightley and David Suchet.
Timothy West and Prunella Scales have made a Tv series about their adventures on the waterways. Timothy Spall and his wife, Shane, took their canal barge onto the open sea. There are everyday admin problems to be sorted, too. Have you renewed your boat safety scheme certificate? are you sure your craft has £2 million worth of third-party insurance?
How do you arrange to receive mail? How can the taxman find you? What about registering with a doctor? Corble deals with all of these issues in his book.
He also sends out one overarching warning. ‘ Boats don’t appreciate in value, so don’t imagine you’ll make money out of living on the canal,’ he says.
‘look upon it as sampling a different way of life and you won’t be disappointed.’