Why am I doing this? A bit of background.

In the past 25 years of my life I think I have been on 6 narrow boat holidays spanning a total of 8 weeks on the water. The calm and escapism of it all is unbeatable. There is nothing better than eating an egg butty for brunch while cruising down a canal on a narrow boat.

As it has now been a few years since going on a boat and every time I see one I am itching to go on it I think it is now time I bought a boat for myself so I can enjoy the boat when I want to. I have actually been thinking this for probably a couple of years now, but in the last 6 months things have really picked up in working out what I want to do.

If I had all the money in the world I might get the perfect boat built for me, but as I haven't and actually the fun of building something is as much fun as using it at the end I have decided to go for a self build.

You can buy narrow boats as just an empty shell just consisting of a bit of steel and some paint to stop it rusting. This would be a bit scary for a first time fit so luckily for me there are quite a few companies that do sailaway boats. These are boats that even though quite empty inside have all the basics like engine and heating installed. This is what I choose to go for, but there were still many decisions to be made...