A newbie at the Crick Boat Show

Exploring all things canal related

25 May 2024

Over the past few years, I have become interested in the canals of the UK and narrowboats. I guess my interest in boating stems from when I was a kid as I used to play on and in the River Thames, and for three summers I worked for a company hiring out rowing boats on the river.

A video of this blog post is available on YouTube:

Anyway, last year I took a narrowboat helmsman course with the Royal Yachting Association (RYA). In the spring of this year, I put my new skills into practice for three days on the Oxford Canal. It was great fun. And now I’ve been to the Crick Boat Show.

The Crick Boat Show is well known amongst the boating community in the UK and seems to be one of the biggest canal boat shows around. It is a show about narrow and wide beam boats, and also a social gathering for boaters.

The show has been held annually since 2020 at the Crick Marina (///curving.fall.movements) on the Grand Union Canal.

I arrived early, got a great parking spot, and went for walk a along the canal to look at all the narrowboats that had gathered for the show. And there were some beautiful boats.

The walk was great. Beautiful weather and it was great to be walking along a canal on a lovely early summer’s morning.

By the time I got back to the show site at 9:30 a.m, there was quite a big queue waiting to get in at 10 am.

As I entered the site, the first thing that caught my eye was the VIP Marquee. What sort of show had I come to?

From the entrance, after I had passed the VIP Marquee, I entered the main show area. There was so much to see.

The show had everything a boater could need.

There were stalls selling captain’s chairs and sofas.

There was a company offering to make beds any size and shape. Triangular bed anyone?

You could buy all your boating needs from nuts and bolts, windlasses, anchors, mooring pins, paints, ropes etc. You name it, and the chances are that one of the chandleries or exhibitors on site had it.

There was also the big stuff on display such as traditional diesel engines to power your boat and electric engines.

And even a hydrogen fuel cell. (Where do they get the hydrogen?)

As I discovered at the show. Talk to any boater and the conversation soon seems to turn to toilets.

At the show, there were traditional ‘portapotties’, cassette and pumpout toilets on display, and I saw one stall with composting toilets. And then this one caught my eye.

The photo below is of an incinerator toilet. This one, as the salesman explained, you use a bag to make your deposit (the bag looked a bit like a giant coffee filter), and then it drops into an area below the toilet where it is incinerated to ash.

Just along from the tent selling the boating supplies, was the craft tent, and one thing that caught my eye was an artist teaching someone how to paint traditional roses and castles canal art. The work was exquisite.

The designs, colours and details were amazing.

The exhibitors’ area also had a large food court selling coffee, teas, pastries, fish and chips, burgers, pizza etc.

And next to it was the beer tent and the main music stage.

The beer tent was running a mini-beer and cider festival with wide range of beers and ciders available.

But the thing I was at the show to see was the boats. And the main marina basin was full of boats.

There were some amazing wide beams — talk about floating palaces.

And some great narrowboats.

Most of the narrowboats you could get on to have a look. And the level of craftsmanship in the boats was amazing. It was incredible how well the space was used, and how much was on the boats.

One boat that caught my eye had a traditional triangular cover over the bow, which was the bedroom. An interesting and cosy design.

There was also a sail away (a boat that has been built and is ready for fitting out by a new owner) to look at.

And across the marina from all the new boats I spotted some old traditional narrowboats and I had to have a look.

The traditional boats were amazing, They were built for one thing and that was shifting cargo. They had an amazing amount of space for the cargo, a small engine room, and a surprisingly small boatman’s cabin where the boatman would have lived with his family.

These traditional narrowboats were of very sturdy design and build.

I was surprised by the number of dogs at the show. They were everywhere. And generally well-behaved.

One dog didn’t appear very impressed with a talk by Rich and Fran of Floating Our Boat fame.

Other dogs seemed happier.

The show was smaller than I was expecting and yet also bigger. The site was small, but what was packed in was incredible. For a newbie, it was overwhelming. There was so much to see and learn about. The show had everything from screws, nuts and bolts to fix up your boat, through to the finished boats, and even a large crane to lift your boat into the water. There was also clothing on sale, a food court and a beer tent running a beer festival.

I wandered happily around the site taking it all in.

My day spent at the Crick Boat Show was thoroughly enjoyable, and I learnt so much about narrowboats, narrowboat design, and life on the waterways of the UK. Sadly, I didn’t stay for the ‘music festival’ in the evening as I was exhausted.

Thanks, Crick, it was a fun and educational day out. No doubt I will be back.