Cruising the Cut

Why would a man quit his perfectly good job, sell his perfectly good house, and buy a long, thin boat with which to cruise the canals in England? Find out in this first episode and join the voyage of discovery as David learns what buying a narrowboat is all about.

Having bought his narrowboat and sorted out some initial problems, David could now relaunch it into the water and go on his first tentative cruises along the canals but some electrical gremlins caused problems. These were fixed, he had solar panels installed and some friends came to visit.

In which David boldy takes his narrowboat on his first solo cruise - albeit accompanied by a friend on another boat - along the Grand Union canal Leicester arm and up to the end of the Welford arm. There he attempts his first canal lock, single-handed and meets a sad horse. He also has a tantrum about his dinette cushions and explains how narrowboats store their water on board.

After a winter spent on the narrowboat in the marina, David finally sets off for a proper cruise along the English canal network which will take several months. Firstly he needs to negotiate terrifying tunnels, then cope with multiple locks - and he falls in the canal too. It's a tale of intrepid pioneering spirit for a man who's never really been narrowboating before.

Continuing his narrowboat voyage in the Midlands of England, David passes through the historic town of Rugby, saves a boat adrift from its mooring, and stops at Hawkesbury Junction where the North Oxford joins the Coventry canal. Turning north at that junction, David winces at graffiti on the bridges and detritus in the water before starting a long descent through a lock flight at Atherstone.

Our intrepid explorer continues up the Coventry canal until he gets to a spot to the north of England's second city, Birmingham. There he turns the boat and tackles the mammoth task of boating into Brum single-handed, doing 27 locks in a single day. At the end of this episode, a special feature shows how the canal locks are maintained and what it's like inside one when when it's drained.

After just one day in central Birmingham, resting after the effort of going through all the locks to get there, David has to head off again. He takes the narrowboat south out of the city and turns onto the Stratford-upon-Avon canal before reaching the Grand Union canal. At the end, there's video of the annual Historic Boat Rally at Braunston including a very special steam-powered narrowboat.

After several weeks of cruising the canals in his first year aboard, David is finally on the homeward stretch back to the marina where he started out. The weather was beautiful, the scenery gorgeous and a wonderful journey came to an end. To look back on it all, he then he joined a friend who has a light aircraft and they went flying over some of the places David had visited by boat.

At the end of a year of leisurely cruising around the English canals, what could be more traditional than inviting friends aboard your narrowboat to cook Christmas dinner for you? That's what David did in 2016, with turkey and all the trimmings on the menu. This special bonus episode shows the entire cooking process so that you too can emulate a British Christmas meal. Merry Christmas!