58 February 2018 www.waterwaysworld.com www.waterwaysworld.com February 2018 59

More space aboard Need extra room on your boat? Tony Jones explores the options…

ADVICE BOAT OWNERSHIP

A nice butty?We’d read about boaters having unpowered butties as companion craft for their main boat – an idea I was initially rather taken by. We worked out that a 20ft butty would be perfect for our current 50ft boat, allowing us to fit into any lock, either abreast, in front or behind.

According to our calculations, a 20ft butty would give us approximately 13ft of interior space – just enough for a tiny galley, toilet and two snug workspaces. This would enable us to work aboard the butty during the daytime and retire onto the main boat in the evening. We

even went so far as to produce 3D designs for the boat.

We also contacted several boat-builders who promised to provide a quote for the work. Only a small number ever got back to us, however, which I found a little disappointing. Those that did were largely dismissive of the idea, saying

Imoved aboard my narrowboat 13 years ago with two boxes of personal belongings and my laptop

computer, and since that day I have been slowly filling every available nook and cranny with possessions. I don’t know how it’s happened, but having visited plenty of other people’s boats, I know it’s not just a liveaboard issue. I recently cleared my retired neighbour’s weekend cruising boat and removed enough stuff to fill a long wheelbase Transit van…twice. Space, it seems, is the final frontier when it comes to boats.

For me, the tipping point came when my partner Vickie

and I decided to live together. We both work from home, she as a graphic designer, me as a writer, so we needed space to not only live aboard but also work comfortably. We started making plans and quickly realised there was a lot to consider.

Of course, everyone’s situation will vary and our eventual solution won’t work for all boaters, but our journey could provide some ideas. I would certainly guard against rushing into anything. I’m now glad we took time to weigh up our options, as we could easily have ended up in a frustrating, or even nightmarish, situation.

A bigger boatThe obvious answer to having more space aboard is to buy a bigger boat. I haven’t written a section on commissioning a newly built craft because if you have the funds to do so, then it’s the obvious way forward. However, this certainly wasn’t an option for us.

We’d also written off the idea of a wide-beam, not least because of the significant cruising range restrictions that come with owning one. So, we started looking at large second-hand narrowboats online, having resigned ourselves to carrying out some renovations. Although we knew that finding one with just the right layout would

be difficult, we were still surprised by the slim pickings on offer. Most of the boats we found were unsuitable because they required an almost completely new fit-out.

The real sticking point with the ‘buy a bigger boat’ plan was the fact that we would need to sell my boat, The Watchman. It would be impossible to know how much it would fetch and how long the process would take, thereby creating uncertainty. Not only that, but I was rather fond of my boat and had been more than disappointed in the craft we’d looked at in terms of quality and character. Eventually, we knew we needed to find another way to make our plan work.

Buying a bigger boatSteve and Eileen Rayner

Steve and Eileen decided their 45ft cruiser-stern narrowboat Rahab was too small, and coveted more space to live, work and store the things they needed.

Eileen spent weeks scouring the internet looking for boats which might be suitable, eventually narrowing the field to a shortlist of six that were moored at

various locations around the country. They then spent two days travelling to see them all, and found that the real-life versions were often very different to what they were expecting. “You can’t tell how the boat will smell when you look at it online,” says Eileen. “And neither can you see the things they didn’t photograph for the advert – like shoddy DIY work or the fact that there’s nowhere for two people to sit.”

In the end they went for one of the boats

on their shortlist that ticked almost all of the boxes on their checklist. Narrowboat Sophie is a 57ft semi-trad. “We decided to forego a permanent office space for a more versatile, convertible area. Thinking laterally about how to overcome the issue was necessary, but it’s worked out well, as it

happens,” says Eileen.The couple appreciate

that they were somewhat lucky with regard to the sale of their original boat. Steve recalls, “I overheard a gent in the canteen at work saying he was thinking of buying a narrowboat. A few weeks later, he bought our boat and paid what we wanted for it.”

CASE STUDY

Steve and Eileen upgraded from a 45ft narrowboat to a 57ft semi-trad.

Tony and Vickie felt they needed more room aboard 50ft narrowboat The Watchman.

A versatile living space has been created on Sophie.