Chinese narrowboat on residential mooring near Uxbridge

There's a nearly-new narrowboat for sale on 'The Duck' this week.  It's on a residential mooring in Uxbridge, within walking distance of the station.

£52k for a 44ft with all mod cons, and under £2k/year mooring charges. Looks like just the sort of boat a young singleton or a close couple would like.

If the liveaboard aspect is more important than the actual boat, this seems great value. Note that it's a residential mooring; that's what you are buying, effectively. You'll probably think of that first, and the boat second.

Where it gets interesting is that this is an East West Marine boat. These are narrowboats made in China, on a production line, with little variation between models. 

(Until now, most canal narrowboats have tended to be bespoke, built individually and reflecting the ideas of the owner.  But this comes at a price, not just the higher wages of British craftsmen, but the inefficiencies of the boatyards.  And the alarming risk of boatbuilders going bust, and taking your money with them - viz the tale of Marmaduke, who got their boat back by a whisker.)

I'd imagine you can buy one of these Chinese production boats for much less risk, and you clearly get a quite highly-specified boat for your money, with many features.

About five years ago the Polish Gdansk boatyards (the selfsame ones that incubated the Solidarność trade union) started building narrowboats, and those Aqualine models seem well-built to me, but a bit generic.   

These Chinese boats are also generic, but with a difference - they mostly have bamboo interiors.  It figures; bamboo is the defining wood of China.  I like bamboo; when my new floor was fitted a couple of years ago I chose it for its texture and durability.

I've love to take one of these boats to Roger Fuller , say, and watch him deconstruct it. Would he say 'how do they do it for the price?', or 'how do they get away with it?'

This blog post started as ' boat on residential mooring for sale' and ended up as 'about Chinese-build narrowboats'.  I'll never make a conventional journalist - my narrative winds like a Brindley canal.

Comments

[Pete Harris]

I have one as well, great boats but you are right about that after sales service. It's all done by one man (Tommy Tighe) whose workmanship and timekeeping is not the best! Better off doing it yourself. East West need to sort it out before it's to late.

[Grahame Robinson]

I have one of these boats and they are truly remarkable value as to what you get for your money. However, I am still trying, after a year , to get the snagging list that will inevitably appear with a new boat, sorted out.

The boats are good, but the after sales service is to put it mildly...rubbish!

Hossman