Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 5:15pm

My wife and I are new to boating only having spent one weekend on a narrow boat but have been bitten by the bug. We were surprised at the number of abandoned boats along the canal and wondered if these are ever sold by the river authorities to people interested in obtaining a boat and would like to take on a major restoration job. Sorry if this has come up before but as I say, we are new to this. Regards Bernie Hurford.

Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 8:04pm

To be honest you will have to contact the relevant navigation authority for each river. Some are BW run, some are run by the Environment Agency and a few have their own navigation authority. British Waterways do remove boats after legal proceedings and then, if they are considered worth it, sell then. The rest, probably the majority, they crush. The river authorities have further problems in that unless the boat is causing a danger to navigation they might not have the right to remove it. That may belong to the riparian owner of the land where it is moored. Please think hard about this because many of those boats probably started off as "major projects" until the owner found out just how much it costs and how long it takes. Tony Brooks