Narrowboat Maintenance

There's a great deal of regular maintenance which needs to be done on a Narrowboat, especially one which isn't made completely out of steel, such as Rambling Rose. This includes blacking the hull, painting the superstructure, resealing windows, varnishing the wooden bits. Every so often the boat has to go for its BWB Certification, and then items such as the gas and wiring have to be thoroughly checked. Qualified Lister engineers are few and far between, so we tend to stick with the ones we know, like Johno at Union Canal Carriers in Braunston, who's rebuilt the gearbox recently. Sometimes the steel plates which form the hull have to have patches welded onto them or the sacrificial anodes need replacing which helps prevent corrosion.

Here I am, up to my waist in freezing cold water, blacking the hull in Stoke-on-Trent's Festival Park Marina. It was March at the time - bbrrrrrhhhhh.