Everything we know about life on the cut, in the order you meet it. Guides and short answers together, in four sections. Free to read, no sign-up.
Thinking about it
The stage that costs nothing. Whether the life is possible, legal and yours to have.
- What is a narrowboat?. Start here. The boat itself, before any of the lifestyle attached to it.
- What is a canal boat called?. Narrowboat, barge, longboat. Which word to use, and which one boaters wince at.
- Life on a narrowboat. What the life is like once the novelty has worn off.
- Can you legally live on one?. Yes, with conditions. The conditions are moorings, and they are the whole answer.
- How deep is a canal?. How much water's under you, and where it runs out.
- Living aboard in retirement. Doing it later in life, trade-offs and all.
- What to take on a hire boat. What to pack for a week you don't own the boat for.
Buying her
Money, in the order it arrives: survey, licence, mooring, then everything after.
- Buying a narrowboat. The purchase itself, survey included, from viewing through to handing the money over.
- What they cost to buy. What they go for. Sourced, not guessed.
- How long they last. How long a steel hull lasts, and what shortens it.
- The cost of living aboard. The whole monthly picture, not just the mooring.
- What one costs to run. Running costs, year by year.
- What a licence costs. What the licence costs.
- Do you need a licence?. Whether you need one, and for which water.
Living aboard
Steering, locks, distance, plumbing. The half of it nobody photographs.
- How to steer one. Handling her. It starts at the tiller and it is less obvious than it looks.
- How canal locks work. What's happening in the chamber, step by step.
- How far you get in a day. Planning a day at walking pace.
- Waterway signs. The signs on the bank, and what they ask of you.
- The toilet question. The question everyone asks and nobody wants to.
- Narrowboat interiors. Making a very narrow space genuinely livable.
- Cruising without a licence. What happens if you cruise without one.
Making her yours
Her name, her paint, her portrait, and the tradition all three come out of.
- How boats get named. Where boat names come from, and who gets to choose.
- The name generator. Free tool. Press it until something fits.
- The names people pick most. The names that keep coming up.
- The big list of names. A long list to read through when nothing on the shortlist has stuck.
- Funny narrowboat names. The puns, collected. They're worse than you think.
- Roses and castles. The folk art itself, and where it came from.
- What roses and castles means. What the motifs mean, in a paragraph.
- Signwriting on the cabin side. Lettering on the cabin side, done properly.
- What signwriting is. The craft, short.
- What signwriting costs. What a signwriter charges.
- How a boat is painted. Bare steel through to finished livery.
- Canal boat art. The wider tradition, well beyond the cabin side and older than most of the boats.
- Best gifts for owners. Ideas for someone who has the boat already.
- For someone who lives aboard. Gifts for a home that hasn't a spare inch.
- Christmas gifts. Christmas, afloat.
- Holiday keepsakes. Something to keep from a week afloat.
Written by Craig Fearn, Narrowboat Gifts. Last updated .