My First Boat
Misspent 1
Misspent was my first boat, a 24 foot fibreglass cruiser. It saw an active duty of about 2 years, navigating about 1000 miles of rich country and the villages and towns that made up much of northern England.
At the time, I simply didn't have enough cash to buy a narrowboat and we weren't permanent residents either so a bank loan was out of the question. I saved up my pennies and bought this little boat for £1750. It had been sitting on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal up at Burscough for many years, gradually rotting away. It was a one off design built in 1969.
There is a bit of a story behind the boat purchase, other than the fact that I wanted to see England beyond expensive hotels and tourist traps.
I was working at the Canal and River Trust (the charity who maintain the waterways), as a fundraiser. To this day, I'm still a "friend" of the Trust. I pay a small amount each month which collectively helps them maintain infrastructure like the canal towpaths.
I signed up and received my training just before the winter of 2018. I had been working there about 3 months. It was honestly one of the best jobs I had ever done. I was working outdoors, right next to my beloved canals which I had become so fond of I was willing to do my bit to help promote the waterways to the wider public. If you wish to become a Friend of the Trust, you can do so here.
My team leader would send out a roster each week with the details of where they wanted me to work. It was a dream job. I worked in areas I probably would never have seen, even travelling on my boat. I visited the town of Hebden Bridge on the Rochdale Canal in Yorkshire, Saltaire on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal near Leeds but I often worked close to home in the city of Manchester, on the Rochdale canal near Castlefield Basin, the Peak Forest Canal at Marple or the Macclesfield Canal.
The Incident
(that prompted me to buy the boat)
It was a cold, bleak morning in November in Ancoats, a suburb on the fringe of Manchester on the Ashton-under-Lyne Canal. At this point I was confident enough to work alone. Normally we'd work in pairs but on this occasion I was left to my own devices.
I had set up my table as I normally do and had been working for about an hour when I was approached by 3 youths, which I've learned since are known as "Chavs". They started throwing rubbish into the canal so I asked them politely to please not do this. I mean, I was passionate about the canals at this point so when I saw, right in front me other people abusing my beloved canals, I took issue.
One of them approached me, walked right up to me and into my personal space so his nose was almost touching mine. As I went to gently push him away, I copped a kick in the head and back from behind. The youths then proceeded to throw my table into the canal all the while shouting obscenities at me. In a state of shock, I knelt down and began to cry. When I gathered my thoughts, I immediately phoned my team leader to inform them of what had happened. I also called the Manchester Police and made a statement. The events of this day shook me to my core. I never expected this for a doing a job I was so passionate about. But it was this incident that led me to make the decision to "stuff the job", and buy a boat. And so I did.
My little boat when I first purchased her
At the time, all I knew was that I wanted a project boat and wanted to start travelling around England. I knew absolutely nothing about how to renovate a boat. I was scared of engines so had literally no clue about my Honda 8hp outboard, how it worked or what needed doing to make it work.
At the time of the boat purchase, I joined the River Canal Rescue, an organisation to help boaters in their time of need whenever something went wrong. This lovely engineer by the name of Paul visited on more than one occasion to try and fix my little engine which he managed to do but the motor really needed a service, which we arranged later on as well. Trying to remove an outboard engine from the water was a challenge unto itself.
Eventually, I managed to get the boat down to the Bridgewater Canal near Altrincham, a suburb on the outskirts of Manchester. There my little boat sat for months on end while I spent almost every day over that winter making it my own. It was a painstaking task as the weather was freezing cold and I had no heating on board of any kind. This poor little boat was in dire need of some TLC. I brought it back from the dead.
The location of the boat was such that I could travel from where I was living in Stockport, via train and walking about 2 miles to where it was. Looking back, I do wonder how I managed to succeed given the state of repair and how bitterly cold it was while I was doing it.
I bought myself a 100L backpack so I could carry tools and supplies to the boat from our house in Stockport. Throughout the winter, I would carry often up to 30 or 40kg of wood backwards and forwards. I lost 8 stone during that period.
Remember, I had never renovated a boat before so this was all new to me. I started by ripping out most of the interior. Most of it was all water logged, rotting or covered in mould anyway so had to be removed, leaving me with a shell.
At about the same time, I started the design process of building me a composting type toilet. The boat had an existing pump out style toilet which uses a lot of water and power to pump your excrement into a holding tank for disposal later. This was the first to go.
I had actually designed and made the compost loo well before I bought the boat. I bought a urine separator unit from a company who also had downloadable plans to make a toilet. It used a bucket for the solids and a 2L plastic cereal container for the liquids.
Broken but not defeated
This was the hardest project I have ever undertaken. It almost broke me. I had a couple of breakdowns during the renovation which took about 6 months to do...remember I did most of this in the middle of winter, on the canal, not on land which is what most would do in this situation...but remember I had no clue really what I was doing.
The Yoghurt Pots - Facebook group
Shortly after I started the renovation I began to struggle. I started looking for a support group online, a potential source of information that would help me in my journey to renovate a boat. I looked everywhere but all the groups on Facebook were dedicated to narrowboats. So, I started my own, The Yoghurt Pots.
The Yoghurt Pots was a derogatory name given to many owners of plastic boats by narrowboat owners. Still, the name stuck and so I thought it would be fun to have a group called this. I'm no longer a member of the group but I believe it has grown into a following of over 3000 members. To this day, I still get people I meet (other boaters) who come up and thank me personally for creating this support network.
Perseverence Pays Off
I persevered...over the cold winter months. Towards the end during the coldest part of the winter when the canal froze over, I would stay at home in the warmth and play some PS4 and enjoy some much needed downtime before tackling the next job.
Design for my wood stove. It took me weeks to decide on the position and a lot of courage to drill a large hole in my roof to accommodate the flue/chimney.
Designing my flip-top roof. The existing roof was so high there was no way it would fit under many of the low bridges. It too had to be replaced with something.
I cut an interior door in half length ways to provide me with exterior doors to the boat.
My fresh water tank was just 80L so I made this sink from a bain-marie and installed a Whale foot pump to pump the water.
90% of the rebuild used recycled materials...from the wood I managed to salvage from the boat to pallet wood and anything I could find in skip bins in the local area where the boat was moored. I would carry the raw materials to the boat and cut it to size onsite with nothing more than a hand saw. The only other tool I had was a cordless drill apart from a few screwdrivers and a hammer. That was it. That was my only toolkit.
Almost there
Just before Easter 2019, I had just about completed the project after 6 long, hard months of renovation. I managed to get the engine serviced and working again and made the interior as homely as I could. I made some curtains from one large pair of curtains with clips to hold them onto the wire. I added some cushions and voila!
I packed up our 2 cats, vacated our property in Stockport and cruised up the canal on my new adventure. By this time, Duncan had already moved out as he got a promotion with work down south so he moved out a few months prior to Hemel Hempstead.
For a period of about 2 years, we hardly saw each other. He would visit me of course, to drop off my Amazon deliveries but it was a tough couple of years being separated from each other and him being so far away. It would often take him several hours to drive up to where I was on the canal. Additionally, what made it even more challenging is that I was on a very strict budget of just £200/month. Of that I had to pay my licence (£55), my fuel (£100) and my food...about £45....per month!!! I had little else to spend my money on. Pub visits weren't even on the horizon and certainly no entry into many of the museums I discovered along the way.
Canal Kitties
They absolutely adored boat life. Initially, I didn't allow them to leave the boat. I had a couple of harnesses fitted so they couldn't escape but after a while I would let them roam and they were very happy cats. They stayed with me for the full 4 years I lived on the canals.
Cooking, Food and Power
As my budget was so strict, I began investigating alternate food sources. That's when I discovered Stinging Nettles. So on a few occassions, I'd grab some potatoes, and went foraging for nettles, being careful not get stung. The result was basically a spinach type soup but it was my staple diet for a while, along with packet pasta and tinned food cause I couldn't afford much else.
Given I knew nothing about electrical or gas, I ripped it all out. I mean, the electrical wiring was all rusty anyway and I could smell gas coming from somewhere so to be 100% safe, I ripped it all out. I replaced the cooker with an alcohol type which used bio-ethanol or methylated spirits to cook with.
I found this portable battery unit on Amazon. It had a 40Ah Lithium-Ion battery inside plus a couple of USB outlets and a small 100W inverter, just enough to charge up all my devices from my single 100W solar panel. Later on, once I knew more about 12v electrics, I installed a more complex system and when I could afford it, a small suitcase style portable generator.
Vegan staple diet
(Stinging) Nettle Soup
My original 40Ah battery
Alcohol Stove
The Finished Project
My first night on the Peak Forest Canal
As challenging as it was, I still have very fond memories of my time on Misspent. I navigated almost 1000 miles in this boat. I broke down frequently, had to harvest rain water to survive, forage for firewood to keep warm and learned to enjoy edible wild plants. It was the adventure of a lifetime and one I will never forget.