Coffee and Cake Boat
Novice boater Libby turned a project narrowboat into a liveaboard craft before opening a café from its unique side hatch
Four years ago, Libby had never even set foot on a narrowboat. The Mancunian is now a seasoned continuous cruiser who’s renovated her own liveaboard craft and opened a floating café.
“I’d always really wanted a narrowboat,” she reveals. “When I was younger, I watched YouTube channels, looking for ideas about boating. But when I bought my boat in London, I’d actually never even been on one before. My mum asked me if I needed to go and get some experience first, but I just said that I’d be fine and I’d learn along the way.”
The boat Cast No Shadow, a 58ft narrowboat, was the first that Libby went to see when she began her search. Experience might have told her that it was a risky purchase but, buoyed with pure enthusiasm, she took the plunge.
Everything from the electrics and plumbing to flooring and furniture was required.
“The boat had previously suffered fire damage, so the people who I bought it from had stripped it right back to basically nothing. I didn’t even get a survey done. I was really lucky that it all worked out okay.”
Three years on, Libby has transformed the interior of the boat, adding all the essentials and creating a cosy home for herself, her daughter and their dachshund, Bob. “It was a huge renovation project, and I learned a lot along the way. There’s always something that I’d like to do or change, but it’s practically all done now. There are just a few aesthetic things that need finishing.”
Libby has renovated the boat herself to create a cosy, Scandi-inspired interior.
One of the features of the boat that attracted Libby from the outset was its unusually large side hatch, which opens up not only the side of the boat but also a section of the roof. Unsure of its original design intention, Libby has utilised the feature to great effect as the window-front of her floating café. “It was like it was written in the stars,” she exclaims.
This is an extract of a feature that appears in the On The Cut section of the December 2024 issue of Waterways World, click here to read the full article.
To find out where the Coffee & Cake Boat will open next, check out Libby’s Instagram page @canal_life_uk.