As with most great ideas, this one came about by chance. I was 22 and had been living with my girlfriend in our first proper flat for almost two years. We’d been slowly building a collection of crockery and assorted kitchen paraphernalia, as well as furniture, pets, and general house filling junk. It was a bit of a dive, and never really felt like home, but it was a house and it was not our parents’. Our neighbour was an absolute arsehole too, he used to listen to Boyzone at full volume on a Wednesday night after the pub, a worrying trait for a 40 year old builder I thought.

Then one day, out of the blue, it all changed. She left. I, of course, took it like a man and cried for days, but little did I know at the time, that that event would be a catalyst for everything that happened since. Now everything that happened since is a lot, and I’m not going to go into it all since this is not a book about my life, it’s a blog about my boat; but to suitably introduce why I’m writing a blog about my boat requires I tell at least a little.

So back to the scene. I’m all miserable and feeling sorry for myself after the loss of the only thing that made the flat that never really felt like a home just about bearable. I needed to move, but not to another flat, I wasn’t going to risk being stuck next to another 40 year old can’t quite get out of the closet built like a brick shit house Boyzone fan!

Then the thought occured. A canal boat! I lived in Chorley, I’d spent most of my life growing up with the Leeds-Liverpool on my doorstep, why not? It was quiet, it was peaceful, it was cheap. It was perfect!

Now I feel that this introduction is dragging on a little and as it is still a blog and it is still not a book, I’ll axe a huge chunk of this tail, skip by some facts, and jump on to the juicy bit…

Narrow boats are bloody expensive! £55,000 was the best boat I found; not pocket money, and to my dismay, I found marine mortgages are not very poor person friendly. 20% deposit and a maximum loan term of 10 years in this case. I looked for progressively cheaper boats; narrow boats as low as £16,000. Small motor cruisers for £7,000. Sailing boats for £6,000. I had the cash for none of them. I had to abandon the dream, along with my newfound freedom as I moved back into my parents house.

That period in time had one outcome, it firmly planted a seed in my head that I absolutely had to have a boat, a sailing boat. Since I was now back at my parents I managed to scrape together enough money to buy my first boat, a Leisure 17.

Ok, I can’t sit here and pretend I was a reformed spendaholic. The aforementioned ex girlfriend lent me a considerable amount towards the boat out of her student overdraft. I towed the little dayboat back from York to Douglas Marina at Hesketh bank, near Preston. There she sat on a Pontoon in the the River Douglas and I loved her. Jalina was her name, and she was my pride and joy. In fact there’s a couple of lengthy stories to tell about her, but now is not the time.

Axing yet more story; I ended up selling Jalina in a fit of stupididty, and for reasons I shan’t disclose, and thus paused my boating career.

After about a year of boaty dreams interrupting my thoughts on at least a weekly basis, I finally succumbed to the temptation and bought a Thompson T24, placing the winning bid on my mobile phone in a layby somewhere in Gloucester, as I drove to my Grandads for Christmas. The Thompson, ‘Pirimela’, had been in an accident and the mast had smashed through the cabin roof.  I thought I could manage the job easily, but it turned out to be much bigger than I thought and well beyond my ability and timescale. After removing ALL of the cabin and decking from the mast bulk head to the transom, I gave up and sold her, to a lovely chap who had both the ability and time to restore this wonderful boat. I still would love to sail a T24 by the way, I imagined she would cross the biggest oceans with ease as I walked around her huge keel where she lay at Preston Marina…. perhaps not, but pride in one’s boat seems to add quite a lot to it’s performance figures.

Then, the liveaboard dream came back proper. Having just sold the T24, I spotted a Stag 28 for sale at the same yard in Preston. It had been taken by the marina after the owner vanished for years without paying any fee’s. I didn’t have ANY money, but put in an offer for the boat anyway – half the asking price. To my surprise the boat yard agreed, and I set about finding the money to pay for it. I went in to the brokerage office at Preston and handed over the £700 I got from selling the Thompson. I then had a month to find the rest of the money under the terms of sale. I financially contorted, convulsed and sweated until I raised the money, and a month later, to the day, I paid the remaining sum.

Now you may be thinking that I must have robbed a bank to raise, in a single month, enough money to pay for a Stag 28, a very fine boat for a 28 footer, but the truth is I’d taken on another project. The boat was essentially brand new. It had never been in the water since the hull was moulded in the late 80’s. The previous owner(s) had fitted her out almost completely down below, but she needed finishing. Standing rigging, running rigging, stern gear, the engine needed plumbing in… the list was endless but I didn’t care. I finally had a boat that I could feasibly live on. She had standing headroom throughout AND room for a shower in the heads. Brilliant. All it was going to take was hardwork and every penny I would see for the next 2 years…

.. but then fate stepped in again. “Nathan, we’re closing the Preston office. You can either work from home or move to London”. It was a no brainer really. I couldn’t work from home. I’d go stir crazy being sat in my bedroom at my parents all day. I just couldn’t do it, so I sold the Stag and moved to London, which brings me almost towards the end of this lengthy introduction (my apologies if this has eaten your entire lunch break).

You’d think that living in central London couldn’t be further from anything with a mast and sails, but oh how so wrong you would be. Everyday for the last year, on the way to work, just before I get my morning Mocha from the French guy with a coffee machine in the back of a rickshaw (best coffee in London by the way), I stroll along the dockside of St Katherine’s. Once a working dock bringing all kinds of exotic wares to the capital, it’s now home to everything from the huge ‘Playbuoy’ (sigh) motor yacht, to even a Thompson T24 (If it’s yours, PLEASE let me come and have a look ). Once again I’ve found myself nagged by boats each and every time I walked to work. I finally cracked a few weeks ago and started looking with a vengeance for another boat.

Since moving to London I have quite literally doubled my salary, but once again my spendaholism prevailed and I had no savings. Whatever boat I got had to be cheap, and it had to be complete; I didn’t have the time to be working on a project boat anymore. I was spending most evenings browsing boatsandoutboards.co.uk and the other sites who’s names allude me, and had narrowed my list down to a few potentials. Then the though occurred to me. Where the hell was I going to keep it!? I made some inquiries and found the price of moorings in London was almost as much as the rent on my house.

Once again my dream was smashed with a cold wet dose of reality. I just couldn’t afford to pay £400 a month on mooring as well as my rent. The only way I could afford a boat in London would be if I didn’t have any rent… wait a minute! If I LIVED on a boat in London I wouldn’t have any rent. I could afford the mooring. Oh this is perfect, I thought. The plan was back on.

But hold on, I have no savings, and the boats I’ve been looking at are circa 21ft. I can’t possibly live on that, can I? I had almost convinced myself that I could when I started reading Ellen MacArthurs book, she told of her little Corribee ‘Iduna’ and how after sailing around Britain she lived on it for a while. A Corribee was on my short list. “Hell, if Ellen can do it, so can I”. I booked a train ticket to Leicester to see the Corribee and within 10 minutes and a brew had agreed to buy her.

Which, to your relief I am sure, brings me to the point of all this ranting. My little Corribee, Kudu was delivered to my parents house in Lancashire in May and I have set about preparing her to liveaboard. I’ve been traveling up from London as many weekends as I can muster, and working on her for two days before heading back down to the smoke for a working week. The blog will follow my progress, the troubles and achievements along the way until the end of August, when she’ll be transported to the South East coast and sailing up the Thames to our new home. The question is, can this 25 year old software analyst actually pull it off? We shall see.