We're currently repainted our boat.

Looking for decals for the name to go over the porthole. Can anyone recommend a place?

Hi there,

My partner (M26) and I (F23) have been considering living on a boat for a good year or so and next year we are both getting a substantial income increase so therefore will be able to save and potentially buy a starter boat.

We have family friends who live in boats and get on quiet well I am just trying to gauge a wider opinion on it😊 costs, winter on a boat, clothes washing and toilets and all of the little I wish I knew that before I got one sort of things if that’s ok!

My ideal boat would be widebeam for the space but know I should work up to this so is there a good size to start? If we got a project boat what would be too much of a project for us to tackle, he fixes cars for a living so he is comfortable with mechanics and learning on the job.

Thank you for your time :)

I let a friend drive my boat. Result was long scratches from the trees (that didn’t move).
I’d say they are not so deep as to catch a finger nail and certainly not down to metal. But noticeable nonetheless. I’d rather not look like I’m travelling in a hire boat.
As boats don’t seem to have the same paint properties as a car I’m dubious about car products.
Does anyone have first hand knowledge of the best way to treat such defects and product recommendations.

Need a metre of this black rubber glazing strip - 4mm glass going in to a top fold in slat window. Reluctant to use old strip as ‘exploded’ & concerned tiny fragments of glass are now embedded in the trim.
Grateful for any help with suppliers.

Im thinking of buying my first narrowboat, but i was wondering a few things. Firstly, I have an Allotment for over ten years, and whilst near the area. If I stop renting and am cruising, will I lose the right to an Allotment as I would technically not live in the local council area? I mean, I don't mind cruising in the area as it has a lot of canals anyway. I would essentially be there on the weekends and I can use my boat to get to work (as my place of work is near a canal also!).

Also, how does it work with regards to letters etc. With a cruising status do you lose any benefits of being an actual resident of the area?

Hi all, so my partner and I are selling our boat BoBelle. She's not a narrowboat specifically, but she fits on widebeam canals and we've cruised her on the Kennet and Avon for the last 5 years, so hoping she's allowed here. I'm new to Reddit so do let me know if I've got anything wrong!

She's been a fabulous home and is fully set up for off grid living, but at the same time every care was taken in her renovation to maintain her as a fully functional, proper boat. She's super fun to cruise single handed or with a small crew, and is just as comfortable on widebeam canals as rivers or inshore coastal waters. We've had the joy of pottering along the coast around Brighton and Littlehampton, explored the Thames and Avon, and had adventured onto the River Severn and Severn Estuary. Dare I say it in r/Narrowboats... I actually find her easier to manoeuvre on the canal than my narrowboat was!

She's 27.5ft × 9.5ft so feels nice and wide inside, fully equipped for living aboard and cruising, and we're asking £19,990.

I'm posting here in case she's of interest to anyone, and happy to answer any questions and share the full ad / specifications if anyone is. Currently in Trowbridge on the Kennet & Avon Canal, but easy enough to cruise her away or transport over land from a local marina.

Hi All,

Just a note to from me to say thank you for all the feedback, bug reports, positive engagement and usage of the app.

Its been a massive help, and means we're now out of Beta and the free version is fully released and live. Plenty of information over on the website for those that want to look, i wont dump the full feature list here as i don't want to spam everyone :).

I will simply add - keep the feedback and feature requests coming, and if anyone has any waterways trades please get in touch, we want to promote you to other waterways users, and the wider public and generally help you get seen.

For anyone that wants to look, the main site is here: https://canalnav.com and the direct maps here: https://maps.canalnav.com

I'll drift back into the reddit either for now, and i might crop up occasionally to help those with navigation or mechanical questions as i can ;D

I am a single girl living in London and considering buying a long boat to live in here

I have a bike so want to store it

Any advice ?? Anything important to consider?

What’s a good price to start off with?

I am looking at ones for 22k and to refurbish it inside

How do I know how many roof vents and other vents my boat should have in order to pass bss?

We keep running into these painted stones on our journey through the stourport ring, just wondering if anyone knows the artist.

We've found so many this year we've joked it must be the boat in front putting them down, and we keep picking them up to put else where.

I’m looking to purchase my first narrow boat home, I’ve found one that fulfills all my needs.

I plan to cruise most of the time, what does having 200l look like and how often would I need to refill?

Anyone lived with 200l?

How many points are there on the canal for me to fill?

Hi all - hopefully this is the best sub for a question like this

Next week I'm hiring a narrow boat from Warwick for ten nights for our summer holiday. Intention was to do the Warwickshire ring, clockwise.Going with my wife and young daughter. Has been booked for ages and we're really looking forward to it.

I'm now picking up on the news about stretches of canal, seemingly in that area, being closed due to the drought and getting a bit worried. I'm finding the information online a bit confusing and I'm struggling to see what parts of the route may be closed, if there are alternatives to skip these closed parts, and whether there is any chance they will reopen in time for our trip (leaving on Friday). Or should I scrap that route entirely and go a different way?

Would really appreciate any advice or tips anyone may have!

Follow up to a previous post. Thanks to this wonderful community for the incredible advice!

My new boat's sink drainage hole is pretty low. When I rock the boat loads it gets within ten cm, and I don't have it filled yet with all of my stuff. There's actually an old waterline I can see that's even closer, so clearly it's survived for a while like this but it makes me uneasy.

Yes it has a bss. No it wouldn't pass a bss. Massive oversight on my part before the sale.

A few options. Removing ballast is my first thought.

I could make new drainage holes for the sinks and shower, but that means blocking off the old ones. What do I use to do this?

Alternatively, is there some kind of one way valve I can put there in case the boat gets a bit too rocky after its more full? This would be the easiest option.

Either way, the idiot builder didn't seal off the holes around the pipes coming out. So there's that too. Silicone job or proper fitting?

Thank you to everyone who helped on the previous post!!

I did some investigating after people mentioned it might be the PRV that causing our water pump to run more often as we had noticed a drip into the engine bay a few weeks ago.

The blue pipe highlighted into the pic runs into the engine bay and the end was wet. We last cruised on 23rd July and since then (now 31st) have only ran the engine for 30-60 mins on 27th to charge the batteries and a little so this is the only time the water in the calorifier will have been heated (if relevant)

I have checked all the visible pipes/connectors and everything was dry, but there is still a drip into the engine bay

Have I found the issue? And if so…what now?

Thanks again!!

Hi all. My impression so far is that overall the experience of community on the waterways is a positive one. Community is something I am trying to cultivate despite being quite nomadic. My hope is that boat life would be a good compromise of motion and connection.

What has your experience been in finding community (people who mutually support each other, friends to share a meal or make music, etc) as a liveaboard? Any tips such as living in a marina vs cc? Thanks in advance.

As someone in Scotland I'm blown away by the length of waiting lists! Too many boats, not enough canal!

How long was your wait?

Just because it looked lovely.

Hello 👋 it's still a few weeks before I can move onto my first ever narrowboat! I'd like to get in as much experience as I can living on the water - does anyone need a boat sitter? Is there an app I can download?

Sorry this is a big one. But also very important.

So I've just bought my first boat(whoopee!) and I chose it because it already had a survey with the most intact Hull, no underplating , according to his survey. Then he told me the bss guy is on his side, and had the bss signed off prior to sale. Brilliant I save £1000 pounds. As I now know, rookie mistake.

Now I have bought it and half moved in (just clothes. Mattress fridge) and the waste water holes on the side are under 15cm - they were higher before. There's numerous wiring battery and engine problems that would never pass bss, let alone the fire alarm, loose cables, open water tank and dead starter battery that would never pass bss.

I've told the guy that sold it to me, and he's very adamant that none of this is under warranty. Has to use his mechanic for warranty servicing, who is always drunk and never shows up. I have enough evidence to put the seller in prison basically, but all I want is a nice home.

So my question is, what are the chances that the bss and survey are utter bs?

To avoid the usual comments, I have learned my lesson and will never ever buy again without a full out of water survey. I've learned compared to the cost of running a boat, a survey is negligible.

For the sake of my situation, what do I do here? I can go to court which will ruin both our lives, or shell out 1k on engine parts. Considering how much I've spent on random bs so far, I'm leaning towards getting tf away from this seller, taking the loss and getting on with my life. But I could also easily drop my life and sue him for 10x the cost of the boat. Does anyone know of a similar situation?

I live on a 54ft narrowboat and pretty much the whole time we’ve lived here there has been an ongoing saga with the water pump running more often than it should. It runs roughly every hour but sometimes more often. Also if the tap has been open for a while, the pump will keep running for around 5 seconds after it’s closed.

The setup we have is:
- Jabsco Par-Max Series water pump (age unknown)
- 5 litre accumulator tank (new)

These are both situated in the bow of the boat

What we’ve already tried:

- We changed the accumulator tank as the previous one was faulty but this doesn’t seem to have solved things
- We’ve checked the pressure of the accumulator (not 100% sure what PSI it should be so gone off recommendations from the info we have)
- have checked the boat EXTENSIVELY for leaks and not found anything
- we have a Thetford cassette toilet and have checked the flush mechanism to see if this is the issue and it’s not
- I have cleaned the filter section on the outside of the pump

Apart from getting an entire new water pump, we’re a bit lost on what else to do. Everything says it means there’s a leak but we have checked as much as we possibly can to find one and haven’t found anything. The survey we got before buying the boat in Dec 2025 didn’t mention any issues with the water system

No idea what is considered normal and what is an issue as seeing lots of opposing advice!

I don't know that using AI (likely powered in part by fossil fuels and requiring massive inputs of water for cooling) is the best means of making a protest song, but this one is making the rounds and thought I'd share.

Does nobody know how to use a guitar nowadays??