About Us

With us your whole rental is personal. We were one of the first, and remain the only, long term, dedicated private hire, canal boat operator in Southern England.  We specialise in helping British, ex-pats and foreign visitors experience our stunning canal system.

I’ve been boating for over 40 years – many of those living by and travelling on the water. I’ve hotel-boated around almost the whole connected waterway system and have many years in hire boats and tourism. This makes me uniquely placed to share all of this experience and enthusiasm in helping you plan and enjoy the most amazing extended holiday experience.

Due to ever-growing demand for longer lifestyle cruising the Long Term Narrowboats fleet has grown rapidly to 9 boats in 2023. But I’ve been asked many times whether we hire barges because they are so much more spacious. So we have acquired ‘Merryweather’ which, because she is a wide beam boat, is based on the famously beautiful Kennet & Avon Canal.

Long term hire is a part of my wider holiday hire businesses and so you benefit from a great and dedicated team of staff, all boaters themselves, who provide all the support needed to ensure that your hire is hassle free and backed up with our extensive boatyard support systems, wherever you are cruising in southern England.

I very much look forward to personally welcoming you aboard…..

David Dare

Owner and Director