similar to our honeymoon boat

our first hire boat on the Norfolk Broads

on the canal du Midi in France

our last hire boats on the Norfolk Broads

entrance to Harecastle tunnel. I always get the impression that I am driving into someone's house 

The boat itself came from Star Line at Chertsey.  It was a 27 foot cabin cruiser and not in its first bloom of youth.  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! 

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.

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 Challanger, 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.  So, we got a deal and the rest, as they say, is history.