Narrowboat Isabella Lessons Learned

Isabella:-

Fit-Out:-

Interior Specification

Cost

Fit-out your own boat

Chelmer Canal Photos / info

Associated Link Pages

Tow Boat!!

A little about us

Lessons Learned

Layout. We are very happy with the handling and performance of the boat (35ft), layout and facilities installed, and, 2 years on would not change anything if we were to do the same again on the same size boat. Of course different people have different expectations, different size families and different boat usages. For accommodation requirements no boat can ever be to large, but for boat handling the smaller the better, also the smaller the boat the lower the cost, both in investment and running costs.

We use Isabella mainly at weekends and holidays. Our longest stay on board is 10 days. At the end of the 10 days we wished we could have spent more time on board, and not had to go back to work. We are sure we could spend 3 weeks or longer on board without the need for more space / more facilities etc. Of course, living on board for 3 weeks in the summer is much different to 3 weeks in the winter…… especially when there is no central heating.

There are two areas we feel could be improved on: -

· The shower tray size of 600mm (24”) is too small. Next time we will have a full size 750mm tray. This however would mean adding another 150mm (6”) to the length of the boat.... The hot water and shower functions are great, but with only a shower curtain it is a bit cramped. We are looking to replace the shower curtain with glass or plastic screen, but can not find anything to fit a 24" tray.

· The wardrobe could be bigger. We keep warm weather clothing permanently in the wardrobe, this leaves little space left for cloths we take down onto the boat. The wardrobe is 600mm wide, next time it will be 900mm. Another 300mm (one foot) onto the boat length!

So the conclusion is if we were doing the same again the boat would have to be 36’-6” long and not 35ft!!!!!

Exterior Painting. In hindsight we should have paid Liverpool Boats extra for an additional 2 coats of black International Intertuf to the bottom sides (instead of the one coat supplied, which is normal for sailaway boats). After 9months in the water she was starting to go rusty along the waterline, so we hired a crane to lift her out, remove rust and apply additional coats of Intertuf. Although the crane out was shared, it still cost £75 for lift out, and another £75 for lift in, plus paint and time.

The main exterior painting was much more time consuming than we had estimated. Although it is satisfying doing the work yourself, and the results are pleasing I would seriously consider having all the exterior paint work done by the boat builder before delivery, at least all the prime and undercoats. Most of the time and effort is in the preparation work (removing rust, sanding and cleaning) not the painting, but if this work were done inside the shell builder’s factory, a lot of the preparation time would be reduced. It would also be much easier to do the work inside, rather than from a canal side bank, with the boat floating on the water. With these factors taken into account it would, perhaps be not too much more expensive to have the painting done before delivery. This would also have the attraction that you could concentrate on the boat fit-out inside and not worry about the outside.