On Schedule !

Introduction

Our decision to buy / fit out a narrowboat was almost a spur of the moment thing. We've both enjoyed canals for a long time and have had our fair share of canal boat holidays - it was the cost in recent years that had really put us off still having regular canal holidays. In addition, we'd both realised that we were not getting any younger and that, if we wanted our own boat and wanted to go cruising, we needed to plan to do it while we were both still relatively fit.

The man of the house (or should it be boat) has a medical problem that makes sitting down quite uncomfortable after a fairly short time. Consequently, anything - like fitting out or steering a narrowboat or working locks - that keeps him away from chairs and, more specifically, the computer has to be beneficial.

A friend of ours had trodden a similar path and fitted out his own boat. He helped our decision by lending us a couple of books, the main one being The Narrowboat Builder's Book, by Graham Booth, which details the author's experiences fitting out his own boat.

Our web site is our story of planning, buying and fitting out our boat and, latterly, a lot more besides as we interspersed work on our boat with the occasional cruise and Trip Boat duties.

We've included a selection of photographs as work on our boat progressed. In an effort to minimise the time it takes for each page to load, we've purposefully kept the images small. Simply click on any of the images on a page to see a larger version of the picture on a separate page. We're not professional photographers (or boat builders) so please don't be too critical of our efforts.

We updated this introduction at the end of 2008 as work on the fit out gradually drew to an end, not that any boat is ever finished. In fact we'd already started making changes. Some were driven by experience and some were our attempts to improve what we'd already done.

Retirement from more or less full time work came in late 2009. We almost immediately set out on a cruise on our boat, covering a far larger area than we hed intended and still finding it necessary to slow down for fear of arriving at our intended destination far too early.

The following few months were spent first moving and then helping a coleague to start the fit out process on his Dutch Barge a boat that is double the width of ours and a little longer and taller. Woodturning fittings at home provided an excellent excuse after Christmas to stay in the warm at home instead of trudging through the snow to the boatyard!

We'd been associated with the Trip Boats that operate from the boatyard where we moor our boat for twenty five years. That business changed hands in early 2010 and we carried on as before although With more time on our hands our association was even greater. However, by late August of the same year it was clear that our views on several aspects of the business differed from that of the new owner and we parted company just a few days before we set out on the longest cruise that we'd ever taken.

We travelled via Braunston and Oxford where we joined the River Thames, travelling first to Lechlade and then retracing our steps to Oxford and continuing on through thePool of London to Limehouse where we rejoined the canal network and made our way home.

We were fortunate in travelling with another boat throughout this cruise. This enabled us to obtain lots of pictures (mostly taken by the crew of the other boat). A selection of those images can be found on this site by following the link at the foot of the pages describing the trip.

Winter 2010/2011 was largely spent at home, because of the bad weather before Christmas and then recovering from an operation afterwards. In addition, with work on our boat now limited to upgrades which we'll tackle during the warmer weather, we turned our attention elsewhere.

Having maintained the weekly diary pages on this site for over four years we chose this time to bring the regular update to an end. We'd planned to use the diary to describe the fit-out which was now complete. We'd expanded the diary to include tales of our trips and the increasing amount of Trip Boat work that we were getting involved in, much of which extended the fit out time. we intend to maintain the site but the regular weekly updates ended after the autumn 2010 trip. Instead we will add pages from time to time to relate tales of trips that we've made.

We know a few people have followed our story on a weekly basis and some have even been to see our boat at various stages of the build. We offer our sincere thanks for all the support to each and everyone of you and to all the people who have helped us as we've sailored on.

Please use the links below to view the pages that relate the story of the boat as it developed. Links to the most recently added pages are shown first.

2011

2010

1	Week 166	12	Week 177	23	Week 188	34	Week 199
2	Week 167	13	Week 178	24	Week 189	35	Week 200
3	Week 168	14	Week 179	25	Week 190	36	Week 201
4	Week 169	15	Week 180	26	Week 191	37	Week 202
5	Week 170	16	Week 181	27	Week 192	38	Week 203
6	Week 171	17	Week 182	28	Week 193	39	Week 204
7	Week 172	18	Week 183	29	Week 194	40	Week 205
8	Week 173	19	Week 184	30	Week 195	41	Week 206
9	Week 174	20	Week 185	31	Week 196	42	Week 207
10	Week 175	21	Week 186	32	Week 197	No Link
11	Week 176	22	Week 187	33	Week 198	45	Week 210

2009

1	Week 114	14	Week 127	27	Week 140	40	Week 153
2	Week 115	15	Week 128	28	Week 141	41	Week 154
3	Week 116	16	Week 129	29	Week 142	42	Week 155
4	Week 117	17	Week 130	30	Week 143	43	Week 156
5	Week 118	18	Week 131	31	Week 144	44	Week 157
6	Week 119	19	Week 132	32	Week 145	45	Week 158
7	Week 120	20	Week 133	33	Week 146	46	Week 159
8	Week 121	21	Week 134	34	Week 147	47	Week 160
9	Week 122	22	Week 135	35	Week 148	48	Week 161
10	Week 123	23	Week 136	36	Week 149	49	Week 162
11	Week 124	24	Week 137	37	Week 150	50	Week 163
12	Week 125	25	Week 138	38	Week 151	51	Week 164
13	Week 126	26	Week 139	39	Week 152	52	Week 165

2008

1	Week 62	14	Week 75	27	Week 88	40	Week 101
2	Week 63	15	Week 76	28	Week 89	41	Week 102
3	Week 64	16	Week 77	29	Week 90	42	Week 103
4	Week 65	17	Week 78	30	Week 91	43	Week 104
5	Week 66	18	Week 79	31	Week 92	44	Week 105
6	Week 67	19	Week 80	32	Week 93	45	Week 106
7	Week 68	20	Week 81	33	Week 94	46	Week 107
8	Week 69	21	Week 82	34	Week 95	47	Week 108
9	Week 70	22	Week 83	35	Week 96	48	Week 109
10	Week 71	23	Week 84	36	Week 97	49	Week 110
11	Week 72	24	Week 85	37	Week 98	50	Week 111
12	Week 73	25	Week 86	38	Week 99	51	Week 112
13	Week 74	26	Week 87	39	Week 100	52	Week 113

2007

1	Week 11	14	Week 24	27	Week 37	40	Week 51
2	Week 12	15	Week 25	28	Week 38	41	Week 52
3	Week 13	16	Week 26	29	Week 39	42	Week 53
4	Week 14	17	Week 27	30	Week 40	43	Week 54
5	Week 15	18	Week 28	31	Week 41	44	Week 55
6	Week 16	19	Week 29	32	Week 42	45	Week 56
7	Week 17	20	Week 30	33	Week 43	46	Week 57
8	Week 18	21	Week 31	34	Week 44	47	Week 58
9	Week 19	22	Week 32	35	Week 45	48	Week 59
10	Week 20	23	Week 33	36	Week 46	49	Week 60
11	Week 21	24	Week 34	37	Week 48	50	Week 61
12	Week 22	25	Week 35	38	Week 49
13	Week 23	26	Week 36	39	Week 50

2006

1	New or Old	7	Planning the Electrics	13	Work Starts	19	Week 7
2	Choosing the builder	8	Building Continues	14	Week 2	20	Week 8
3	Paying for it	9	The Roof's On	15	Week 3	21	Week 9
4	Planning the layout	10	The engine	16	Week 4	22	Week 10
5	The build starts	11	The Launch	17	Week 5
6	Planning for the First Trip	12	The Inaugural Trip	18	Week 6

We've tried to include anything that we consider relevant; this includes our thoughts and ideas (or lack of them) and any errors that we make or problems that we encounter. Some of what transpires will no doubt be our own silly fault and some will be because we didn't know better. Even though, at the time of writing this paragraph, the metalwork of our boat is still not complete, we're already discovering that we may have already gone wrong - and we don't mean by simply buying and planning to fit out the boat ourselves. We would offer the following words of caution to anyone who comes upon these pages as they start out on the road to boat buying / fitting out. Read whatever you can, including this web site, ask as many questions as you can and don't rush headlong into anything, no matter what the reason.

We rushed (slightly) into placing the order for the hull to meet a specific delivery date. This forced us to decide on the outline plan for the boat in a relatively short period of time, including setting the locations of windows and hatches. The morning after we saw the boat with all the apertures cut out we looked more closely at the plan to try to work out how much sheet material we needed to buy for the lining out. We discovered that, in two places, it was impossible to bridge the gap between window centres with a single 8' x 4' sheet - but only by a few inches! Had we taken our time in considering the positioning of the windows, we may have realised that by altering their position slightly there would have been a significant difference on the impact on the detailed design of the interior. We had hoped that we could get slightly larger sized sheet material to solve the problem. Unfortunately, we have now learnt that the larger sized sheets are only available in 19mm thick MDF. So, it's back to considering the options.

Finally, on this page, for those who are wondering, we can tell you that we're calling our boat On Schedule ! Although we've only recently decided to definitely go ahead with the idea of purchase, we've often talked about it. I've spent most of my working life involved with timetables and we wanted an unusual name for the boat. As a result, I've always said that I thought it was appropriate to call it On Schedule ! The name also has something to do with the fact that we're usually trying to keep to a timetable on the trip boats that we've worked on, part time, for the last twenty or so years.

The family also called me Captain Press On when we were on canal holidays because I believed that if you hired a boat you should make the most of it and not stop every five minutes to look at all the flowers and hedgerows along the way. I'm determined that On Schedule ! will give us the chance to take things a bit easier, for the first time in our boating life.

On a small technical note, the pages of this site use a simple Java script to show the date that the page was last amended. Windows doesn't seem to like this and displays a warning message. We can assure you that the script's sole purpose is as indicated and is nothing sinister.

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