Site Subscription

I’ve invested many thousands of hours in the site’s development since then. Each of my weekly newsletters takes a full day to write, edit, publish and add to the newsletter archive. Each day I answer dozens of emails from the site’s 6,000 newsletter subscribers and 10,000 monthly site visitors

I juggled working full time at Calcutt Boats with blogging and my helmsman training and experience days for the first five years. I stopped working at Calcutt Boats in April 2015 so that I could explore the waterways network full time and concentrate on adding more useful and interesting information to the site. I met and married my lovely wife Cynthia, failed to find a way of getting her into the UK, and sold my boat so that I could leave England and be with her full time. We explored Europe in a motorhome for seven months, but our passion was living afloat. We returned to the water, this time on the Dutch network over the summer months, where I continue to blog about the lifestyle.

We drove 30,000 miles through eleven countries in our Hymer motorhome and cruised 1,500 miles on the Dutch waterways. Much as we enjoyed our nomadic lifestyle, I realised that my spiritual home was on England’s muddy ditches.

Cynthia and I returned to the English canal network in December 2018. Cynthia lost her seven-year battle with leukaemia in April 2019, so I resumed my life as a solo boater.

I still work long days adding content and maintaining the site’s often problematic content management system. However, this website costs me a fortune to maintain. The hosting cost alone is considerable, and then there are all the bells and whistles which allow me to send regular emails to the boating enthusiasts on my subscriber list.

I’m struggling to find enough time and money to add content to the site and maintain it. I need some help. I hope that you are in a position to do so.

I need to reduce my marina workload so that I can maintain a decent work/life balance. And increase the free time I have for website content writing. Many aspiring boat owners don’t have any money to spare. I wouldn’t like them to miss out on the tremendous amount of information available to them here.

Maybe you have found this site useful or helped you make an informed decision about life afloat. Perhaps something you’ve read here has made your boating life easier or saved you money. If that’s the case and you are in the fortunate position to be reasonably financially secure, maybe you could help. Perhaps you can do your bit to keep this site a comprehensive and free resource for aspiring narrowboat owners from all over the world.

Several boaters have suggested setting up a Patreon account. I’ve thought about following their advice, but the model seems to encourage creating subscription tiers which exclude low-income enthusiasts from useful content.

This is my all-inclusive version. I hope you can help me continue to share my experiences with aspiring narrowboat owners.

For the price of a fancy high street cup of coffee, you can bask in the warm glow of a job well done. You are a star, and I salute you. I have nothing to give in return other than my thanks and eternal gratitude.

Researching narrowboat buying and the liveaboard lifestyle is usually a lengthy affair. It’s a process which takes many people years, often intensifying as they near retirement. This option entitles you to a Discovery Day cruise. You’ll join me on the cut for a day of helmsman tuition, lifestyle discovery and fresh air. The day is worthwhile just for the seven-hour cruise through rural Warwickshire. But the knowledge you’ll gain will give you food for thought for many months after you return.

Thank you for reading this far, but I will be eternally grateful if you can go one step further help me help others live a life an idyllic and problem-free life afloat. Just one hundred subscribers at the lower tier will enable me to maintain this site indefinitely. I hope you will be one of them.