STEEL NARROWBOAT:
I have plenty experience of fibreglass and wooden boats out on the tide. Towpath enquiries and observations convinced me that the best spec. for safety, comfort and off-grid use on inland waterways would be robust, easy to maintain, stay dry inside and be able to go anywhere. This would mean it should be a steel narrowboat.
The defining dimension of a narrowboat, the 6'10" beam, permits an easy passage through wide locks by the opening of just one gate, and while sailing solo, to share wide locks with other boats.
It also ensures ready access to the complete inland waterway system and its varied locks
36' LENGTH:
Half the length of real narrowboats, 36' enables hand-brake turns and easy parking in spots the 40'+ must pass. I did my canal training on a 68' x 12' widebeam and know the reality of large boats on narrow waters
People with small boats constantly surprise me at their tiny living inventiveness.
'Longboats' (70'+) are frequently regretted in retrospect, but their owners became "attached" and invested heavily in that factor. My investment is in ecology and economy but not at the expense of comfort but I do understand "attachment" "Mine is smaller than yours" goes against modern acquisitiveness philosophy.
AIR-COOLED ENGINE:
Look up "UK winter of 1962-63" on Wiki. It finished off commercial canal traffic and became the unknowing catalyst for future 'leisure boating'. Smart young chappies with access to Hugh Malet's seminal "Voyage in a Bowler Hat" and deep pockets, grabbed redundent workboats for little or nothing and converted them to "camper" spec. with mod-cons generally copied and cobbled from caravans. This trend began in Market Harborough where, co-incidentally, one Sam Springer had a fabrication business. Sam began to build HIS designs in 1968, but using a unique cunning he took a completely different route to the Smart Young Chappies. Sam's preferred engines were air-cooled and the engine of the day was the Lister. I have never regretted my SR2 which has never ever let me down in thirteen years and we have an unshakeable "attachment" (See "Length36" above).
CRUISER DECK:
'Trads' and 'semi-trads' are for deluded boaters who believe they are following in "the wake of the real boatmen". They are NOT following any wake except their own, but are happily deluded. They wear the clothes. They polish the brass. They talk the talk. A cruiser deck is the only way to go on a 36' boat or on any narrowboat.
Mine provides 48sq.ft of 'balcony space' to survey my world from my director's chair and table while sipping a cheeky negroni.
BED UP FRONT:
During the 2013 refit, the front window frame was replaced to provide an efficient fire escape, allowing me to stuff a 4'6" memory-foam mattress through the hole and build a bedroom as far away as possible from the engine. I sleep like a baby on my boat. And, being right up in the nose, I am as far as possible from engine and galley smells
(MBW17 BED UP FRONT)
Memory foam mattresses come tightly trussed and, once released, unfold to provide a beautiful hypo-allergenic bed which is cool to sleep on. Memory foam's downside can be its memory but I got over that. It never knows exactly where I am going to fall asleep or at which end. So it has no memory dents and has served me well. Don't ask how I would ever get it out of the boat ... Carpe Diem ...
LIGHT AND AIRY:
I have no time for dark interiors.. They mask filth. I have no time for brown timber ceilings coated with tar from wood stoves, gunge from cooking splatters and burn-off from candle grease.
A white ceiling and the palest of blue sides suits me fine. I don't have a wood stove. I don't splatter cook. I don't use candles and I am eternally grateful to my long-suffering wife for painting the interior in a beautiful shade of light blue.
BLACK OUT:
The front bedroom window serves as a fire escape and is triple glazed for insulation. In mid-summer, the sun rises early and goes to bed late. Stone-age man got up and went to bed by the sun, but away from the tropics he slept in the back of a dark cave.
Pentargon is my man-cave, so a black-out was incorporated into the front end for the light half of the year when night may be five hours. Sleep is all important and as mentioned above I sleep well.
SOLID FUEL HEATING :
About 95% of all lived in narrowboats have wood-stoves because that is how it has always been done. Wood burners are inefficient and dirty. Expensive to buy, to run, to maintain they are really only suitable for those who know how to optimise heat output and how to avoid polluting the atmosphere with solid particulates or poisoning the boat's occupants.
Solid fuel, however is the way to heat the inside of an insulated steel tank. Liquid or gas fuels generate moisture which penetrates the fabrics on board.
My charcoal heater uses lumpwood and, after all these years, I have learned how NOT to have fine dust all over the cabins. The device heats the bedroom directly and the bed indirectly and can maintain a very comfortable temperature for up to twelve hours. I have never been cold since it was fitted it and once I got the hang of how to use it, was quick and easy to get going and keep going.
COMPOSTING TOILET:
A composter ordered the day I paid for the boat was crossing the Atlantic in a container during the Spring of 2012. During the first six months on board, in dry dock, I had no need for a toilet because I used the onshore facilities. During that time though, I learned all about the downsides of cassettes and pump-outs and was very glad an Airhead Composter was coming.
I am even more convinced now in 2023 that spending $1000 in 2012 gave an excellent return on investment and has cost me nothing since. I remain convinced, to such an extent that I bought a second unused unit from a boater who had also bought one but could not work with it. Composting is all the rage nowadays in London, but they don't get it. Genteel rearing, Running water, flushy loos?
GALLEY COOKING:
The most important person on a boat is the cook. A happy cook ensures a happy ship. After almost ten years on Muddy Brown Water, I've been unable to improve on Pentargon's layout and the last owner would instantly recognise it and all its bits and pieces.
I eat only home-cooked 'organic' whole food. Much use is made of my Pressure Cookers and 'clam' pans. The book has a whole chapter devoted to specialised 'tiny space' cooking. You will hear a lot more about the galley later. Eating comes second only to sleepingin my order of priorities.
PLASTIC WATER TANK:
Establishing where and how water was stored on board was high on the initial checklist.
:- from a canal website
"Narrowboat water tanks are traditionally installed in the bow as an integral part of the structure. Painted with bitumen, similar to that used for blacking the hull, they need re-painting every few years. They are filled from the foredeck via a deck filler and an inspection hatch is also positioned on the deck for access and cleaning. These integral tanks eventually suffer from limescale build up andt corrode over time".
I was having none of this nonsense. Trust Sam Springer's ingenuity, although I was amused that before I owned her, the water had to be hosed in via the front window due to an airlock glitch which filled the bilges a couple of times. Pentargon now uses click fits directly through the hull. I do like to innovate.
(2013-04-18 15.14 4135 HOZELOCK)
OPTIMUM STORAGE:
The cabin layout was one of the features that sold the boat to me eventually. In a 6'x7' piece of floor they fitted a shower, a wash basin, a wardrobe, three storage shelves and used the construction to separate the sleeping from the dining area with a draughtproof door. I would be surprised if the plan had not been incorporated into the original build. The evidence has the stamp of Sam Springer's ingenuity all over it.
Later, storage was incorporated into the dining area. Cushions arranged as in a caravan to make a bed for Summer use. Pentargon had been a Summer Boat. I needed optimum storage and this was designed into an interior conversion started and finished while actually sailing and living on the boat in 2013 and into 2015.
(2012-08-24 09.06 3055)
CREW BUNK:
Although my plan always was to sail around the system solo, facilities for crew had to be planned in! Crew is a singular word and not gender specific. I planned a bunk into the redesign of the bedroom. The crew bunk needed to be snug, private, well lit, close to heat, toilet etc. This was achieved.
On tidal trips I prefer an extra pair of eyes/hands but I have been known to use that bunk myself on very cold inland winter nights as it is heated directly by the 'Hampshire' dumping warm air into the crew space and which then warms the main bed.
FIT FOR PURPOSE:
Early in my search, I saw boats where I had to double-guess why they were so awful. I figure they were probably bought as "projects" by 'handymen' who hadn't a clue how a boat should be fitted. Or they had been built by people who smelt the quick buck but did not care how a boat should be fitted. [PHOTO] I have seen chipboard floors, compressed paper walls, plastic showers, spray on insulation and even what I think was a chassis-less mobile home laid on floats stitched together [PHOTO]. Obviously the intention, by someone who had never lived in a boat, was to copy a caravan, but that is not a good idea. Pentargon as first seen [PHOTO] passed my "fit for purpose" criteria, or showed potential for development.
SAIL WELL:
All modern canal boats, with one exception, begin life as a series of steel plates laid down on a floor, stitched together, marked out to the shape of a narrowboat and fitted with vertical sides. This gives maximum return on floor space, at a lower cost, of course, and copied the building methodology used by traditional boats which were built to lie low in the water when loaded. But, of course, they are not traditional boats which had 200 years of development behind them, constructed from wood and designed to be used loaded to the gunnels. The flat bottom makes them pigs to steer, impossible to control in wind and easy to "ledge" if a pound dries out while they are parked by the towpath.
Sam Springer avoided all that nonsense by building his boats like ships with a slightly angled bottom and radiused chines. My Springer has precise directional stability and slides off ledges. The unique skeg means it could slide off a cill without popping the tiller out! I really have to look into what this master fabricator did so differently ... in fine detail ...
I have plenty experience of fibreglass and wooden boats out on the tide. Towpath enquiries and observations convinced me that the best spec. for safety, comfort and off-grid use on inland waterways would be robust, easy to maintain, stay dry inside and be able to go anywhere. This would mean it should be a steel narrowboat.
The defining dimension of a narrowboat, the 6'10" beam, permits an easy passage through wide locks by the opening of just one gate, and while sailing solo, to share wide locks with other boats.
It also ensures ready access to the complete inland waterway system and its varied locks
36' LENGTH:
Half the length of real narrowboats, 36' enables hand-brake turns and easy parking in spots the 40'+ must pass. I did my canal training on a 68' x 12' widebeam and know the reality of large boats on narrow waters
People with small boats constantly surprise me at their tiny living inventiveness.
'Longboats' (70'+) are frequently regretted in retrospect, but their owners became "attached" and invested heavily in that factor. My investment is in ecology and economy but not at the expense of comfort but I do understand "attachment" "Mine is smaller than yours" goes against modern acquisitiveness philosophy.
AIR-COOLED ENGINE:
Look up "UK winter of 1962-63" on Wiki. It finished off commercial canal traffic and became the unknowing catalyst for future 'leisure boating'. Smart young chappies with access to Hugh Malet's seminal "Voyage in a Bowler Hat" and deep pockets, grabbed redundent workboats for little or nothing and converted them to "camper" spec. with mod-cons generally copied and cobbled from caravans. This trend began in Market Harborough where, co-incidentally, one Sam Springer had a fabrication business. Sam began to build HIS designs in 1968, but using a unique cunning he took a completely different route to the Smart Young Chappies. Sam's preferred engines were air-cooled and the engine of the day was the Lister. I have never regretted my SR2 which has never ever let me down in thirteen years and we have an unshakeable "attachment" (See "Length36" above).
CRUISER DECK:
'Trads' and 'semi-trads' are for deluded boaters who believe they are following in "the wake of the real boatmen". They are NOT following any wake except their own, but are happily deluded. They wear the clothes. They polish the brass. They talk the talk. A cruiser deck is the only way to go on a 36' boat or on any narrowboat.
Mine provides 48sq.ft of 'balcony space' to survey my world from my director's chair and table while sipping a cheeky negroni.
BED UP FRONT:
During the 2013 refit, the front window frame was replaced to provide an efficient fire escape, allowing me to stuff a 4'6" memory-foam mattress through the hole and build a bedroom as far away as possible from the engine. I sleep like a baby on my boat. And, being right up in the nose, I am as far as possible from engine and galley smells
(MBW17 BED UP FRONT)
Memory foam mattresses come tightly trussed and, once released, unfold to provide a beautiful hypo-allergenic bed which is cool to sleep on. Memory foam's downside can be its memory but I got over that. It never knows exactly where I am going to fall asleep or at which end. So it has no memory dents and has served me well. Don't ask how I would ever get it out of the boat ... Carpe Diem ...
LIGHT AND AIRY:
I have no time for dark interiors.. They mask filth. I have no time for brown timber ceilings coated with tar from wood stoves, gunge from cooking splatters and burn-off from candle grease.
A white ceiling and the palest of blue sides suits me fine. I don't have a wood stove. I don't splatter cook. I don't use candles and I am eternally grateful to my long-suffering wife for painting the interior in a beautiful shade of light blue.
BLACK OUT:
The front bedroom window serves as a fire escape and is triple glazed for insulation. In mid-summer, the sun rises early and goes to bed late. Stone-age man got up and went to bed by the sun, but away from the tropics he slept in the back of a dark cave.
Pentargon is my man-cave, so a black-out was incorporated into the front end for the light half of the year when night may be five hours. Sleep is all important and as mentioned above I sleep well.
SOLID FUEL HEATING :
About 95% of all lived in narrowboats have wood-stoves because that is how it has always been done. Wood burners are inefficient and dirty. Expensive to buy, to run, to maintain they are really only suitable for those who know how to optimise heat output and how to avoid polluting the atmosphere with solid particulates or poisoning the boat's occupants.
Solid fuel, however is the way to heat the inside of an insulated steel tank. Liquid or gas fuels generate moisture which penetrates the fabrics on board.
My charcoal heater uses lumpwood and, after all these years, I have learned how NOT to have fine dust all over the cabins. The device heats the bedroom directly and the bed indirectly and can maintain a very comfortable temperature for up to twelve hours. I have never been cold since it was fitted it and once I got the hang of how to use it, was quick and easy to get going and keep going.
COMPOSTING TOILET:
A composter ordered the day I paid for the boat was crossing the Atlantic in a container during the Spring of 2012. During the first six months on board, in dry dock, I had no need for a toilet because I used the onshore facilities. During that time though, I learned all about the downsides of cassettes and pump-outs and was very glad an Airhead Composter was coming.
I am even more convinced now in 2023 that spending $1000 in 2012 gave an excellent return on investment and has cost me nothing since. I remain convinced, to such an extent that I bought a second unused unit from a boater who had also bought one but could not work with it. Composting is all the rage nowadays in London, but they don't get it. Genteel rearing, Running water, flushy loos?
GALLEY COOKING:
The most important person on a boat is the cook. A happy cook ensures a happy ship. After almost ten years on Muddy Brown Water, I've been unable to improve on Pentargon's layout and the last owner would instantly recognise it and all its bits and pieces.
I eat only home-cooked 'organic' whole food. Much use is made of my Pressure Cookers and 'clam' pans. The book has a whole chapter devoted to specialised 'tiny space' cooking. You will hear a lot more about the galley later. Eating comes second only to sleepingin my order of priorities.
PLASTIC WATER TANK:
Establishing where and how water was stored on board was high on the initial checklist.
:- from a canal website
"Narrowboat water tanks are traditionally installed in the bow as an integral part of the structure. Painted with bitumen, similar to that used for blacking the hull, they need re-painting every few years. They are filled from the foredeck via a deck filler and an inspection hatch is also positioned on the deck for access and cleaning. These integral tanks eventually suffer from limescale build up andt corrode over time".
I was having none of this nonsense. Trust Sam Springer's ingenuity, although I was amused that before I owned her, the water had to be hosed in via the front window due to an airlock glitch which filled the bilges a couple of times. Pentargon now uses click fits directly through the hull. I do like to innovate.
(2013-04-18 15.14 4135 HOZELOCK)
OPTIMUM STORAGE:
The cabin layout was one of the features that sold the boat to me eventually. In a 6'x7' piece of floor they fitted a shower, a wash basin, a wardrobe, three storage shelves and used the construction to separate the sleeping from the dining area with a draughtproof door. I would be surprised if the plan had not been incorporated into the original build. The evidence has the stamp of Sam Springer's ingenuity all over it.
Later, storage was incorporated into the dining area. Cushions arranged as in a caravan to make a bed for Summer use. Pentargon had been a Summer Boat. I needed optimum storage and this was designed into an interior conversion started and finished while actually sailing and living on the boat in 2013 and into 2015.
(2012-08-24 09.06 3055)
CREW BUNK:
Although my plan always was to sail around the system solo, facilities for crew had to be planned in! Crew is a singular word and not gender specific. I planned a bunk into the redesign of the bedroom. The crew bunk needed to be snug, private, well lit, close to heat, toilet etc. This was achieved.
On tidal trips I prefer an extra pair of eyes/hands but I have been known to use that bunk myself on very cold inland winter nights as it is heated directly by the 'Hampshire' dumping warm air into the crew space and which then warms the main bed.
FIT FOR PURPOSE:
Early in my search, I saw boats where I had to double-guess why they were so awful. I figure they were probably bought as "projects" by 'handymen' who hadn't a clue how a boat should be fitted. Or they had been built by people who smelt the quick buck but did not care how a boat should be fitted. [PHOTO] I have seen chipboard floors, compressed paper walls, plastic showers, spray on insulation and even what I think was a chassis-less mobile home laid on floats stitched together [PHOTO]. Obviously the intention, by someone who had never lived in a boat, was to copy a caravan, but that is not a good idea. Pentargon as first seen [PHOTO] passed my "fit for purpose" criteria, or showed potential for development.
SAIL WELL:
All modern canal boats, with one exception, begin life as a series of steel plates laid down on a floor, stitched together, marked out to the shape of a narrowboat and fitted with vertical sides. This gives maximum return on floor space, at a lower cost, of course, and copied the building methodology used by traditional boats which were built to lie low in the water when loaded. But, of course, they are not traditional boats which had 200 years of development behind them, constructed from wood and designed to be used loaded to the gunnels. The flat bottom makes them pigs to steer, impossible to control in wind and easy to "ledge" if a pound dries out while they are parked by the towpath.
Sam Springer avoided all that nonsense by building his boats like ships with a slightly angled bottom and radiused chines. My Springer has precise directional stability and slides off ledges. The unique skeg means it could slide off a cill without popping the tiller out! I really have to look into what this master fabricator did so differently ... in fine detail ...
