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Seeking a hire boat holiday with trad stern & engine room


Mick in Bangkok

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Last September I enjoyed my first two week narrow boat holiday on the South Oxford with the Oxford Narrow Boat hire fleet, had a great time with my family and now considering my second trip this summer.

My overall plan is to come away with enough experience behind me to consider buying a boat for retirement in the coming years. For this purpose I would like my next trip to be on a more traditional boat with a trad stern and if possible an engine room and back cabin or anything close to this that is available for hire. Can anyone point me in the direction of where to look for such a boat, full size if possible.

Also I am not committed to go school holidays this year so what is a good time for best hire prices but still good weather.

Thanks for any advice.

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Tricky, not what is generally considered to be desired by a hirer.

Middlewich Narrow Boats did have the odd old trad but not with boatmans cabin as far as I remember. Anyway they are no more.

Shared ownership may be an alternative if you could arrange a short term demo?

Try Willow Wren at Rugby Wharf.  +44 1788 562183 

Edited by Boater Sam
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11 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Lovely size for a holiday. Turn her round anywhere. 

We met a couple who were holidaying on it and they were very pleased. Note that it does have a back cabin but not really an engine room.

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1 hour ago, Tonka said:

Just looked on their website and it states that they do not have an hire boat

 

That’s right, they’ve gone through several fairly standard boats since then and don’t have one for hire these days, too busy to build one.

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12 hours ago, Boater Sam said:

Tricky, not what is generally considered to be desired by a hirer.

Middlewich Narrow Boats did have the odd old trad but not with boatmans cabin as far as I remember. Anyway they are no more.

Shared ownership may be an alternative if you could arrange a short term demo?

Try Willow Wren at Rugby Wharf.  +44 1788 562183 

Middlewich Narrow Boats had Willow which had a Lister in an engine room with a cabin at the back. It had "proper" controls, i.e. a speedwheel and a push pull gear change.

 

Willow was sold many years ago and I think Middlewich Narrow Boats went bust a while ago.

 

We hired her in October 2008.

 

I do not know of any similar boats for hire now though.

 

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Edited by Ray T
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18 minutes ago, dm6045 said:

http://www.narrowboatescapes.co.uk

Have  a trad with engine room and back cabin based at Braunston marina. V smart looking boat.

WEll spotted, DM! I haven't heard of them before. Their web site is minimal, but does suggest that they have more than one boat, and that all (both?) boats have trad engines in engine rooms.

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2 hours ago, Athy said:

At least a couple of them have trad engines too - single-cylinder Sabbs, though not in an engine room.

Coo, are they still going? Our second ever hire was in Weasel, a 35 footer with single cylinder Sabb. You could pull the back steps out of the way to get at the handstart on the front of the engine. We did 2 weeks on her in ‘76, as I think I’ve mentioned before. Delightful little boat actually managed by Barney in them days.

Edited by BruceinSanity
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2 hours ago, dm6045 said:

http://www.narrowboatescapes.co.uk

Have  a trad with engine room and back cabin based at Braunston marina. V smart looking boat.

Looks smart, but how odd to have a hire boat where the number and layout of berths is apparently not mentioned, (unless I'm missing something!)

Surely the primary piece of information most  people would be looking for.

In fact a layout plan is just about universal with every other hire boat operation.

 

2 hours ago, Athy said:

WEll spotted, DM! I haven't heard of them before. Their web site is minimal, but does suggest that they have more than one boat, and that all (both?) boats have trad engines in engine rooms.


It depends which bit of the site you read!

Indeed one bit says "our boats", but the "contact us" page says.....
 

Quote


Our canal boat is moored and operated from:

 

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3 hours ago, Athy said:

WEll spotted, DM! I haven't heard of them before. Their web site is minimal, but does suggest that they have more than one boat, and that all (both?) boats have trad engines in engine rooms.

 

49 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Looks smart, but how odd to have a hire boat where the number and layout of berths is apparently not mentioned, (unless I'm missing something!)

Surely the primary piece of information most  people would be looking for.

In fact a layout plan is just about universal with every other hire boat operation.

 


It depends which bit of the site you read!

Indeed one bit says "our boats", but the "contact us" page says.....
 

 

Ive seen it out and about a couple of times and in the marina with a sign on the roof but its the only one ive seen so I think they only have the one. They also do training courses on it aparently so  I was told by one set of hirers i came across. It certainly looked very smart I wouldnt have noticed it was a hire boat until they told me. I seem to remember when i looked them up online before they had more information about it the boat i think it was a 4 berth (boatmans cabin and fixed double) so maybe they're updating the site? From what  I was told they don't hire to first timers unless they have taken one of their full training courses first. (Probably why it looked as spotless as it did!)

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