Wych Way, or 'Tywyn' as she was in a previous life is was built by Dragon Boats for Black Prince around 1998 and she has an air of 'built for the hire trade' simplicity and indestructability. She was run by Black Prince from Festival Park, Hanley, Stoke on Trent for 4 years before being sold at the end of her hire life to the person we bought her from. She spent 2 years with her new owner as a residential craft moored at Reading before we bought her and moved her all the way back up here (Trent & Mersey).

Wych Way is a narrowboat, 61ft10 long and we reckon comes in somewhere around 20 tons. She has a stainless steel fresh water tank of around 190 gallons, a diesel tank of around 54 gallons, 12v fridge, diesel fired central heating and hot water with calorifier which warm up 3 radiators and an 11 gallon hot water tank. We have two gas bottles stored in the front locker and these run a domestic sized oven. The engine is a 4 cylinder 37.5hp Kubota diesel. She is fitted with a Tecma macerating toilet. According to the sales literature the toilet holding tank is 76 gallons, according to a) my simple maths and b) the time we get between emptying it I think it's closer to 200 gallons.

The diagram below is vaguely to scale.

What have we done to her then ?

When we first got her she was open plan past the galley, to fit everyone in we needed an extra bed so for the time being we have just put in a normal domestic single bed. As mentioned elsewhere on this site I have now got an 'office' and we have installed a washing machine with tumble drier.

Most of the changes have been to the electrics. She already had a mains hook up fitted and this ran a series of sockets down the left side. When we sorted out our mooring we were told that we would not have a mains supply so I planned on being somewhat self sufficient as far as electricity went. As it turns out we did get a hook up but the systems remain in place and we now have things set up so that a few simple plug swaps allow us numerous combinations.

We retained the original mains distribution system but added more and moved some sockets to more suitable locations, all of the 'mains' remains down the left side. We installed a 2kw inverter that powers a run of sockets down the right hand side of the boat. By moving a few plugs we can feed 'mains' down the 'inverter' side of the boat, thus running everything from the hook up and this is how we normally leave things. When cruising we swap the plugs back over and just use the inverter feed. The 2kw means that we can run anything we have on the boat (including the kettle or microwave) as long as we don't try to do everything at once. Running the computers off of the inverter has the bonus of providing an uninteruptable power supply as our hook up has a habit of tripping if too many others on the marina get too power hungry. Finally on the electrical front we have a 5kw generator that is capable of running everything electrical on the boat simultaneously, albeit somewhat noisily.

We fully plan to use Wych Way for extended cruising within the next few years and we have tried to make ourselves as independent as possible. With 'normal' use we expect to need to top up the following :-

Water 2 - 3 days

Diesel  2 - 3 weeks

Holding tank 3 - 4 weeks

Petrol (gen set) depending on number of washing machine uses but appx 3 - 4 weeks

Gas 3 months

We've done a bit of painting to de-hire the boat, got rid of the various patterns that were painted on the back and front of the cabin and replaced the back one with a very large, striking, white pentacle (five pointed star). Got rid of a large dent on the left bow (took a whole tub of filler) and painted the hull between gunwale and rubbing strake a slightly different shade of blue. As time goes on we'll get around to painting the rest of the boat too. Applied the new name in vinyl lettering and put graphics on (silhouette of a witch on a broomstick) courtesy of those nice people at the Wychwood Brewery who not only gave us permission to use the artwork but sent us a good copy to work from. As a mark of respect we keep several bottles of their finest products in stock.

What for the future ?

Well not much really. We expect the kids to be with us for a few years yet so we still need lots of beds. The current idea is to get rid of the single bed and replace it with a dinette double. We had this in mind when we had the 'office' built as it was made 4ft wide to act as the head of the bed and also has a hanging wardrobe built in. We also intend to put a freezer under the dinette to increase our food storage capability but haven't decided yet on mains or 12v.