The Dawn Piper

So one night, I was lying in the bath and thought

‘I know, I’ll buy a narrow boat’.

Dawn Piper was commissioned in 1971 by a couple that simply wanted a narrowboat to play out on and is therefore one of the first leisure boats ever built and claims historic status as such.

This was particularly unusual as in those days the canals were only seen as weed encrusted, litter choked cuts in the landscape where the wildlife mainly consisted of water rats the size of cats.

They chose the highly regarded David Piper to build their boat, only the 12^th he had ever built. Besides boats, David must also have had a passion for prog rock band Pink Floyd as he named the boat after their 1967 album Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

David’s engine of choice in those days was a single cylinder Sabb engine, usually found in Norwegian fishing vessels. The boat still has this original engine in her. I consider this engine to be the bane and beauty of my life as it’s given me no end of trouble and delight.

I’m the 4^th owner of the Dawn Piper. She has a long history of being well loved, with the owner before me having kept her for 30 years. His last wishes were to have his ashes scattered next to her moorings, which I think is a charming end to a man who loved his boat so much.

I bought her on a whim to be honest, she just looked so beautiful to me and a perfect size. If I’d known then what I know now I might not have been so hasty. That little boat has seen me spend all my savings, all my financial safety net and more on her restoration, refit and perpetual breakdowns.

However, I didn’t expect to love her so much either.

The original idea came from a post covid life asserting drunken epiphany, which lets be honest, we’ve all had, haven’t we? I had decided that using my skill set of colour, furniture design, restoration and painting, it would be a doddle doing a narrowboat up.

It became a woman versus boat wrangle of the highest order, with the boat mostly winning as I lost well over 20lbs in weight and half my hair with the stress and graft of this wildly underestimated project.

Remind me never to have a life affirming drunken epiphany ever again, will you?