How to steer a narrowboat

When I first thought about steering a narrowboat I was truly intimidated. It seemed HUGE! It is 18 meters long and with a weight of 17 tons it has enormous momentum once it is going. At least you are never faster than walking speed, but you can still create quite a crash when hitting a wall or bank. I have seen several severely damaged bridges on canals that must have been hit hard by boats....

My first lessons

The first problem is that the engine and the steering called tiller is at the back of the boat. Therefore you are standing at the back of the boat too, and try to look along your 18 meter monster in order to see where the front is going. To make things even more complicated steering a boat is opposite to steering a car. If you want to turn left you have to turn the tiller right. Although I should have been used to that from paddling I still got very confused in the beginning and ended up with pointing my hand to right hand side in order to make me realise I have to steer in the opposite direction. Unfortunately this very illogical system got me so confused in the end that I stood there with my two arms pointing in different directions and no hand on the tiller..... I freely admit that it took me more than 3 days to even steer the boat in a straight line and John confessed afterwards that he had regarded me as a hopeless case.

But somehow it sort of "clicked" after 3 days and the steering became sort of automatic. I managed to keep a straight line and even got around bends - still screaming "John, help me" every time I was about to crash into a bank or wall. My straight lines sometimes looked very zigzaggy, but I started to feel more confident.

Going into a lock after a bridge

Unfortunately, boating is not only going along in a straight line on a broad canal - there are various obstacles to master. First of all there are other boats around trying to pass and that means you better get out of the way without hitting them or getting stuck on the shallow sides of the canal. And then of course there are tons of bridges. New bridges tend to be very wide and pose no problem but the old original bridges are very narrow. And if bad comes to worst the are located in a bend of the canal. With an 18 meter boat you cannot turn directly under the bridge or the back of the boat will hit the bridge. Therefore you have to "thread in" already in the right angle - not easy for a beginner. And because bridges were difficult and expensive to built, some canal companies preferred lift bridges that are so narrow that a boat can just pass through - a nightmare for me in my first steering lessons.

Perfect lock approach

The most difficult part though is going through locks and it took over a week until John would allow me to try that. But to my big surprise I seem to have a hidden talent for locks as I never crashed into one despite the fact that the locks are so narrow that there is just centimetres of water on either side of the boat when in a lock! When approaching a lock I felt like a pilot trying to land a jet on a airplane carrier on the ocean. Again you have to get the angle 100% correct before you enter the lock as you cannot steer once the front of the boat is inside - and the front is almost 18 metres away from where you are standing and trying to figure out which way to go. Also you have to approach very slowly or you are not able to stop the boat before it hits the front of the lock.

The worst is over once you are inside the lock but you still have to pay attention. When water comes rushing into the lock while going up the boat is bashed around a lot. In a single lock this is not too much of a problem but when alone in a double you have to be very careful not to damage the boat. Boats have fenders in the front and on the back which lessen the impact when hitting a lock gate a bit. When going down you have to watch out not to get stuck on the cill - or you will end up like the boat in the picture. This is one of the worst possible accidents for a boater as you cannot float the boat again without drowning it - you have to get a crane to lift it out.

Opening a lock gate

I still feel a bit frightened and claustrophobic when inside a boat in a lock and the water comes rushing into the lock chamber bashing the boat around. It feels like a big relief when the lock gates open and you can get out. By the way: Opening and closing the locks is hard work, too. You run up and down the locks always trying to prepare the next one while the first one is in the process of filling up or draining with water. Sometimes John even uses a foldable bike to cycle between locks and speed up the process. Opening the panels on the locks can be hard. If the water level inside the lock chamber and outside are not absolutely the same you are not able to open the gate. Luckily most locks have grips on the gate area to help you push the gate open.

Threading into a tunnel

My biggest nightmare are tunnels: Usually narrow as locks they are not only difficult to get in, but even more difficult to steer once inside as there is hardly any room for steering corrections. On busy canals there are 2-way tunnels and they are wide enough for two boats to pass each other - but no matter what you do you will most likely scratch along the tunnel walls or hit the other boat.
Don't take a wrong turn in a canal as turning around in a boat is a difficult operation. You can reverse in a boat, but steering in reverse is almost impossible. Basically you just hope for the best and correct by going forward again. By the way: Braking is also done by reversing.

Disappearing into a lock

All this sounds really complicated and it definitely is very difficult for a beginner - but it is also great fun. After having been classified as a hopeless case and then re-emerged as a natural lock talent I became really addicted. So in the last month John has mostly been twiddling has thumbs (and silently praying) whilst I was doing all the steering and becoming better every day. I might not have been John's fastest student, but definitely his most enthusiastic. I am very sure that this has not been my last time on a narrowboat.

The Narrowboat

I must admit that I did not have much clue about what to expect on a narrowboat; I mean before John had bought one I did not even know that there is such a thing as a narrowboat! So when I arrived I did not expect much - and was surprised a lot. After having spend the last 4 years mostly in a tent a narrowboat seemed like a palace!

Cream Tea on the boat

Let's start with some figures: John's boat is 18 meters (60 ft) long and weighs 17 tons. When I first saw it I would never have believed that I would once be able to steer that monster into narrow locks without even touching the walls... At least they do not run very fast: You are mostly ambling along at walking speed and you are legally not allowed to go faster than 4 mph. Most standard narrowboats including John's have the following areas: A sleeping area with a double bed, a bathroom with a toilet and shower/bathtub, a kitchen, a dining area with a table and seating and a lounge with comfy chairs and a book shelf. After having cooked on a camp stove with one pot only on my JoGLE hike I was mostly impressed with the kitchen: A real stove with 4 flames, a grill, an oven, a microwave, a fridge and of course, hot and cold running water. And to make luxury complete John even has a washing machine on his boat! Oh, I did forget to mention the TV...

Rainbow Lorikeet

Now you will wonder how all this is run. These boats have two separate battery systems: One small battery to start the engine and one big battery for all the electric applications on the boat. Both batteries are re-charged when the engine is running. There is a 450 litre water tank - that takes ages to fill up at the water points. The water is heated when the engine is running and can get so hot that you could burn yourself. In fact, the water is used as a cooling system for the engine. I was surprised to see that almost all waste water like for example from the washing machine or the shower is disposed directly into the canals. Only human waste is collected and disposed in sanitary stations. The boat is heated with a stove burning either solid fuel or Diesel like the engine. Considering the luxury such a boat offers I was surprised how little fuel it needs. The fuel tank holds 225 liters and John assured me that he usually only fills up once per month for around 120 £.

John bought his boat second hand from an Australian couple and that might explain its name: Rainbow Lorikeet which is an Australian parrot. The pre-owners apparently were great bird lovers as there are bird pictures and statues all over the place including a knitted sulphur-crested cockatoo. I noticed another peculiarity of the boating community: People are not called by their own name but by the name of their boat. John thus became Rainbow... Well, it could be worse.

The British Canal System

James Brindley,
engineer of the first canal

My first big surprise with the canal system was to find out how old it is. I had somehow assumed that all those canals had been built at the same time the railways were built in the second half of the 19th century. But in fact the canal system is 100 years older: The first long canal was constructed in 1761 and the heyday of the canals was in the second half of the 18th century. The main reason for those huge projects was to get coal from the mines into the big cities. Transport with horses on roads was expensive and unreliable whereas canal boats were much cheaper and predictable. With the advent of the canals the price of coal was halved! More and more canals were built by different companies and were sometimes running parallel for several miles. But 50 years later the canals got a big competitor: Railway - and railway would eventually and almost completely replace canal transport.

In the first half of the 20th century most of the British canal system had fallen into disrepair. Only very few working boats were left and due to lack of maintenance some canals could not even be navigated any more. But in 1939 British writer Tom Rolt decided to spend his honeymoon on a narrow boat touring the canals and write a book about it. Very unexpectedly this book would trigger the renaissance of the British canal system after an unpromising start. First WW II intervened and then no publisher wanted the manuscript because there seemed to be no market for it. But when it was eventually published in 1944 it became an immediate success with both public and critics and stirred a new interest in canal boating as a form of recreation. The timing is very important here: The decrepit canal system was nationalised in 1947 and many canals were facing closure. Rolt's book and the Inland Waterways Association, a group co-founded by Rolt prevented closures through campaigning and created a lot of public interest in the canal system.

Lock

Today British Waterways runs the 2,200 miles long canal system that is used by approximately 35,000 boats. There is almost no commercial traffic left on the canals. Almost all boats are serving a recreational purpose and many people actually live on their boat year round. British Waterways maintains the canals, bridges, locks and tow paths and supports the boaters with water points, sanitary stations and rubbish disposal. The use of the canal system is free for hikers and cyclists on the the towpaths, but boaters have to pay for a license in order to use the canals. The price depends on the length of the boat: John with a 18 m boat pays 790 £ per year for his license that allows him to use the canals and all its services including short term mooring for up to 14 days at one spot. Only long term mooring costs extra. Boating has become incredibly popular in the UK and has created its own subculture. There are magazines ("Canal boat"), an internet forum ("Canal world") and tons of boat yards, marinas and boat shops.

On a boat to nowhere....

John

 After finishing my JoGLE hike I had planned to visit my former British cycling partner John. John and I had coincidentally met in Australia over 2 years ago and ended up cycling together for 7 months in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. In September 2009 we split up: I went back to Germany to prepare my next trip and John completed his round the world cycling trip in the US. Over two years we have always stayed in contact and I observed with great curiosity how John was dealing with similar problems I have had: Where and how do you live after such a long period of nomadism?

John has found a great solution for this problem: He lives on a houseboat on the English canals now! Before he gets too upset when he reads this I want to correct myself: He lives on a narrowboat - but anyone who is not intimately familiar with the canal boat scene in the UK will probably not understand the difference between a narrowboat and a houseboat: A narrowboat is a houseboat that is narrow enough to fit into the small locks and bridges of the British canal system.

Me having fun on the boat

When he got back from his 3 year long round the world cycling trip he stayed with family first. When some other German cycling friends (he seems to be stuck with Germans wherever he goes) he knew from his RTW bike trip came to the UK, he went on a cycling trip with them around his home country. As many bike routes in the UK follow tow paths he saw a lot of narrow boats - and decided very quickly that this is the way to go. Without much hesitation (and no prior experience in boating) he bought a boat and started living on it. When I heard about his new investment, I was more than skeptical: John has never showed any interest in boats before - for Christ's sake he can't even swim!!! I was not very keen on the house boat part, but I wanted to see John again and therefore he eventually persuaded me to visit him on his boat after my hike. He promised that I would not have to do anything (especially not walking) and that I could cook 3 course dinners every night on something better than a camping stove. Although all this sounded very tempting I had planned to stay only a couple of days and then fly back to Germany.

Well, things turned out to be very different: I ended up running several kilometers each day between locks (so much for no more hiking) and my stay extended from a couple of days into an entire month - because I started to like narrowboating so much!!! In fact I like it so much and became so interested in it that I will write a couple of entries about it.