I guess the seeds for our adventure started back in 2013 when planning our 2 month trip "John O Groats to Lands End". We needed a break in the middle, so I thought it would be a good idea to spend a few days on a narrowboat on the Mon & Brec canal in Wales. 4 days of down time was just what we needed & left a lasting impression of a perfect holiday.
Wind forward to Australia Day 2017 & the seed started to germinate. Jon was unhappy at work, I wasn't. He wanted to up & leave straight away, I didn't. If we are going to do this, it has to be done right & we had to have enough funds to carry us for 2 years. I crunched numbers & came up with July 2018. Tah Dah!
New or Used? If we bought used, we had no assurance of the condition of the boat unless we could find a boat surveyor. There was no register to check if we were even buying the boat from the actual owners. How long would it take to find a boat that we liked & were able to secure? We think we'll go down the other road & buy new. We can have what we want in a boat, & make it our home. We spent hours researching narrowboats, watching YouTube boaters & looking for that all important builder. We checked out about 8 builders. Not all had build slots for Jul 18 & for one reason or another they were crossed off our potential list except one which got us very excited when we found an article on their latest boat in "The Canal Boat Magazine". Ortomarine were fresh, new & innovative. They were right for us, a marriage made in narrowboat heaven. Build slot booked!
All we need to do now is make choices:-
Length - 58.5 ft (travel on most of the canal network)
Layout - Reverse (bed at the bow, galley at the stern)
Heating - Eberspacher (we thought initially of having a woodfire)
Engine - Diesel/Electric Hybrid (more efficient, less pollution)
Toilet - Pump Out (best of the options available)
The list goes on.........., but we have not regretted any decisions we made in that selection process.
Then one morning a video clip arrived in my in-box at work of a narrowboat dangling on the end of a crane. Is that my boat? It's hard to comprehend all these decisions made on paper have produced this black thing dangling on the end of the crane. Game on! A whirlwind of decisions, furnishings, washing machines, solar panels. I started a buy list of all the things we needed to kit the boat out, & we just shopped til we dropped to get through that list.
One way ticket, one suitcase, we're here!
I feel like I've been taken along on a ride that just took a life of its own. We never intended to build a boat like Watt Knot, she just evolved by the decisions we made into what you see today. Of course, we are very proud of her. We are told, "That's a good looking boat", & we heartily agree.