Background

Hi! - Welcome to The Cat's Whisker's webpage - The Cat's Whiskers will be a 48ft Narrowboat, I say 'will be' because she hasn't been built yet (29/01/02). Building of the shell is due to begin in May.

Anyway - I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Chris, married to my far better half Bev and we are fortunate to have common interests in Cats, Motorbikes, Camping, DIY and Narrowboats/Canals. This Website is intended to tell the story of why we fitted out our own narrowboat, hopefully helping other people interested in doing the same thing. We hope to include links to useful sites, lessons learned! and as the boat progresses, pictures of her coming together.

It all started one day in September 2001 .......

We had just returned from a fortnights holiday touring down to Spain on the Motorbike where we had rented a villa for a week - we enjoyed the touring down through France - we were bored silly in Spain so we left early and spent more time touring back. We were sitting at home suffering post holiday blues and talking about why we had got bored in Spain - so we turned it on its head and asked which holidays had we enjoyed the most, and both concluded it was holidays on the canals where we had hired a boat for a week. We have had several of these holidays, both with friends and on our own.

Right we said - next year we'll have another canal holiday - so we started browsing the Internet for hire firms - Where we were promptly reminded that to hire a narrowboat is not a cheap option! - Let me make it clear - Hire charges are good value - running a hire boat is expensive! - it's just that if there are only two of you it does work out a bit on the dear side, especially if you fancy a couple of weeks in peak holiday time.

Then we happened to come across a site for a boat share scheme - effectively you buy a share in a boat, sixth, eighth, twelfth shares are available. Purchasing a pre-owned share in a well maintained boat can be as little as £3000 - you then own that percentage of the boat which entitles you to a certain number of weeks use (eg a twelfth gives you 4 weeks approx every year) you also have to pay for your share of maintenance - so for about £150 a week you have a narrowboat!

Now there's always a catch - of course you won't always get the weeks you want - there's lots of systems, all of them striving to do it fairly, but Sod's law says you won't be able to use all the weeks. Typically for a twelfth share you'll get one peak week, one mid season week and two out of season weeks. If you have flexible holidays or are retired perhaps, there is no doubt that part ownership is a great way to have your 'own' boat for a fraction of the cost.

But for us? .. No   - we have flexible holidays but we don't like to be tied to schedules - so what now? - well while we are thinking about it - what about a second hand boat (sorry! - pre-owned!) - there are quite a few brokerages on line - so we went hunting - and then visited a few to see what you got for your money - we came to the conclusion that at the bargain end (all we can afford!)

• A 45ft boat with a decent shell but needing total refit is about £10000 - £15000
• A reasonable condition boat of about 45ft that would need work to bring it up to scratch is about £20,000
• A 3 to 4 year old 45ft boat with decent standard of fit out is about £25000 to £30,000

We thought about second hand boats a lot (probably most of October!) but every one we looked at in the £15000 to £20000 region (what we wanted to pay!) needed (in our opinion) totally gutting and refitting. Some which were advertised as high standard of fit out and fittings, we felt would be best burned. Just being inside the boat made us think about having a shower! Others, whilst being in good condition, we knew we would have to change (We're just like that!)

So what next? - well by now we're buying the canal magazines and we find this odd expression 'Sailaway' - er wots that then? - a Sailaway is a narrowboat shell fitted out with ballast and flooring, windows, doors and an engine/gearbox and stern gear such that you can literally sail it away. Most boatbuilders will do them. The bigger builders do them quite reasonably - for about £15000 you can have a brand new 45ft sailaway.

Its about this stage that I will make something clear - I have no doubt that the end product of the smaller builders has more shape/flair/lines/charisma/style/tradition than the soulless mass produced output of the big builders and I know you get what you pay for, but our pockets are only so deep and so I will settle for a boat that is solid, well welded, looks OK to me and I can afford!! - I also can't wait that long!!!

So as you've probably guessed we decided that rather than buy a 10 year old boat with a 10 year old engine for £20,000 which we would probably end up stripping and totally refitting - we'll have a brand new 'un for £15000 and fit it out ourselves - good job we like DIY!!

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