You first experience of boating.....

[Guest]

A post in another thread got me thinking about what was my first ever experience of boating in the inland waterways.

 

Mine I can still remember vividly was age around 10 or 11 and was when my farther hired a Broads cruiser form Jenners of Thorpe (Near Norwich). So it would be around 1969-70. We travelled by train from Darlington changing at York which made the whole thing a bigger adventure. Several more broads holidays followed with us subsequently setting out from Wroxham in later years.

 

The first boat was a Windboats 26 exactly like this one with a Seacrete hull at a time GRP was becoming popular in place of wood. The yard we hired from has long gone along with many others that were around at the time.

 

All our photos are on slides so cant post up as I don't have a slide scanner.

 

What was your first experience of boating?

[Boat&Bikes]

Not been boating long compared with many here. We/I was out looking at a new Ducati bike I fancied but happened upon a marina. The rest as they say is history. Brought a Nb and never did buy the bike.

 

Ian.

[Ray T]

A rowing boat on Wick River circa 1959, unless you count hand cranked boating lake paddle boats, then circa 1956.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Ray T

[cuthound]

My first experience of boating was on the Rivers Cam and Great Ouse in a boat hired from Bantams of Cambridge by my grandparents. It was 1959 and I was 5 at the time and have little recollection of the holiday.

 

Later at 19 I had my first canal holiday, in a camping boat hired from Union Canal Carriers. It was organised by the Scouts. I had fallen in lust with a girl who belonged to this mixed venture scout group, went along to a scout meeting to be with her and they announced their plans for a canal holiday. She signed up, so I did too. Come the holiday the romance was well and truly over, but the canal bug bit hard and hasn't yet let go!

 

Edited for spellugn.

Edited May 27, 2015 by cuthound

[wreckferret]

Hire boat trip with school when I was 14/15 on the L&L ?

Six kids and two teachers, loved every minute if it

[Lysander]

1974 on the Leeds & Liverpool. Eight of us, plus a baby, on nb Ingleton hired from Pennine Cruisers in Skipton. We loved it and always said we'd do it again. We didn't. Then in 2012 we bought a boat...

[Speedwheel]

In a Moses basket when I was a few days old.

[onionbargee]

I bought my first boat at Alvechurch, and was faced with the tunnel or the lock flight. I chose the tunnel, and scraped and bounced my way through it. Baptism of fire ?

[churchward]

Good question and has got me thinking. In terms of staying on board on the canals it would have been on a camping boat when I was 9 or 10 in 1968/9 . I don't remember the name of the boat but it was an ex-Wren boat I am sure. Otherwise it was row boating on the upper Thames around Buscot and Lechlade in the 1960s. The first time I hired a boat myself was a Wood/GRP cruiser on the Thames from near Reading when I was 17 in 1975 and when the Cheshire ring opened we went round that in '76 or '78 not sure without checking, Manchester and the Rochdale 9 were quite a challenge in those days.

[Jess--]

In a Moses basket when I was a few days old.

Don't know if I had a moses basket, but it seems we had the same early experience

 

Photo is from braunston puddlebank, roughly Jan / Feb 1976

 

Edited May 27, 2015 by Jess--

[The Bearwood Boster]

Really enjoyed a French boating hoI in 2002.Got home & husband convinced me to try English canals-wasn't sure as didn't fancy not having lock keepers to help us,he said he'd do most of the work,especially steering as I'mshort sighted in one eye & totally blind in the other one ! Easter hol on hire boat,May half term on hire boat & 2 wks in Summer on hire boat...& me doing all steering into locks & loving it.Got very expensive so ordered our own boat which we've now had since 2004.We love it & are now looking forward to more time spent boating as we've both taken early retirement.

Trina

[Speedwheel]

Don't know if I had a moses basket, but it seems we had the same early experience

 

Photo is from braunston puddlebank, roughly Jan / Feb 1976

 

 

:-)

 

[LankyStreak]

Family holiday, Easter 1968 in the British Waterways hire boat Water Fern on the South Oxford. Sitting in the bow with my sister in this photo. I was 8 and following this wonderful experience was hooked for life on the canals. We did two more family hire holidays in the 60s and early 70s, then as a teenager I crewed for friends' boats. In the 1990s and 2000s my wife and I hired boats as our children grew up. Finally, finally, in 2012 I fulfilled my lifetime's ambition and bought my own boat. I've never been happier.

[Jess--]

apparently I used to be hung in front of a window on the towpath side.

 

and a tiny note was put in the bottom of the window that read "My My, Aint we f*****g Nosy!"

[casper ghost]

My parents had boats before I was born, so I have always been boating.

Casp'

[Catrin]

Family and friends hiring Olive from Wyvern shipping at Easter 1969. Somewhere my OH has deeply embarrassing photos.

 

I believe that I am not the only forum member who started a life with canals at the same time from the same location.

[Timleech]

Earliest canal boating, probably a hired rowing boat with my father on the Bude canal. No idea of the year, maybe 1960-ish.

 

Tim

[The Toad in the Hole]

my inlaws bought a narrowboat in 1991 (?) went over to help them move it from Braunston. The thing I remember, and it's still a really evocative thing for me, is that smell of diesel and dirty water that you get around canals, more so than any visual cue.

[Starcoaster]

We used to swim in the River Dart when I was a toddler, not sure if that counts?

My first go on a narrowboat or other UK waterways boat was when I bought Springy, and CarlT moved it to Braunston for me. I had three goes at steering, totaling about 90 seconds, which was enough to scare the everloving shit out of me. I moored it (someone moored it for me) in the far corner of the marina and resolved never to try to move it again.

It was a good three months til I did, and a good year in total before I'd go out on my own. It's fair to say I was not/am not a natural.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Starcoaster

[DHutch]

I also dont recall my first canal experience, although I don't know the details, or if it was even this trip, I have this photo.

 

 

My first memory of being on a canal boat was EmilyAnnes launch, with visiting the boat a few months earlier being my first datable memory at all. The boat was launched 'spring 1992' which would put me at about 4 and a half. Clear I approved....

 

 

For much of my childhood I more often visited my grandad on the than at home, although the first big stint I did was in the summer between GCSEs and A Levels, which triggered enough inerest to find and join this site, I then went boating again between A Levels and University.

 

Met Joe Fuller in my first year at Loughborough, ehi introduced me to the historic boat crowd.

 

And started taking the boat out 'on my own' with university freinds.

 

 

Daniel

[FadeToScarlet]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FXLjgqnOPag/SF415s-Z4sI/AAAAAAAAANg/L7ELPhR9DQ4/s1600-h/james+aged2.jpgQ

 

Autumn 1989, apparently. I think the second photo's the bottom of Watford.

Edited May 27, 2015 by FadeToScarlet

[MoominPapa]

This must one of my first boating experiences. The boat belonged to my grandad and was kept on the Shropie somewhere between Ellesmere Port and Chester. I have a couple of vivid memories of it from later than this picture. Firstly it was my job, where we arrived to pump the binges with a semi-rotary hand pump that was fitted: the purest disappointment I have ever felt was when there was no more bilge water to pump. Second , the engine was under that curved cover, a two cylinder Stuart-Turner petrol, I think. It hand started via handle inserted into a hole in the back of the cockpit and onto the flywheel. I was repeatedly and sternly told NOT to put fingers into the hole.

 

MP.

 

ETA the boat was had a wooden hull, and was called Greyhound, or possibly "The Greyhound".

Edited May 27, 2015 by MoominPapa

[mattlad]

First boating experience was when Mum was expecting me, she was about 8 months gone, Dad hired a small cruiser from Ashwood. There wasn't enough headroom for Mum to stand up and, obviously, with a big bulge it ended up being a rather uncomfortable experience for her. Mum and Dad weren't put off though, the went and bought and ex-Leonard Leigh's 45' tug that formed many early memories. Apparently my little sister was conceived on board!

 

Parents sold the boat when I was about seven or eight and then we spent a number of years dingy sailing. Finally got back into narrow boating about 25 years ago, first with a hire boat and then they bought and fitted out their own boat. Wonderful times!

[John V]

[/url] by mudlarker2, on Flickr

 

 

 

This was at Ryton (River Tyne) early 50's on a family picnic outing on my Uncle's boat

or my avatar about 1956/7 on the river Wey

Edited May 28, 2015 by John V

[dave moore]

No photos,I'm afraid. My first contact with boats would have been in the early 50s. I used to accompany my Grandfather when he collected his pension from the council offices in Old Hill. We walked through fields at the bottom of our street ( fields is a bit grand, they were reclaimed mine workings ) and crossed the Dudley No 2 at Waterfall Lane bridge. One day, there were a batch of empty Joey boats tied there, Stewart's and Lloyds the tube manufacturers were nearby and the boats belonged to them. Grandfather lifted me into the hold of one and I clearly recall the smell of coal. The empty boats still had pea coal in the corners.

 

As a boy I played in the fields with others, a great place to build camps, climb trees and explore the derelict boilers that lay around. Strangely, I never went to the bottom where the Dudley canal lay. In 1960 I became a " Grammar Grub " and attended the local school. They kept a converted Stewart's and Lloyds Joey at Harris's yard at Bumblehole. It was called Bumblebee. Some woodwork lessons were spent on the boat doing odd jobs. I joined the school boat crew and attended the famous rally in Stourbridge in 1962. That opened the boating door, as it were. Shortly after I met Malcolm Braine at Bumblehole, he brought Cactus and Penguin, both Joshers, there to renovate them and I was drafted in to help....memories of knocking rust from rivet heads in the hold and then applying raddle red to it all. Malcolm opened my eyes to a wider canal world than the school boat. I went on to join the Staffs and Worcs Canal Society and helped restore the Stourbridge 16 before heading for Gas St and Birmingham & Midland in 65.

 

Cheers

 

Dave