Living Aboard In London

Richard Rogers reflects on the many joys (and occasional hardships) of city life on a 41ft yacht.

Living aboard a sailing yacht in the city is not normal, not even for boaties. Central London is awash with houseboats of varying types but not many that have sails and hardly anything that actually goes to sea.

Last year we sold our 41ft Beneteau, Nereid, after nearly eight years as liveaboards. We learned plenty in that happy time, sailed all season, and still went to work in our suits! Now Alice and I have had time to reflect, we thought we’d share our experience.

Believe it or not, when we bought Nereid we had not a clue. We had her delivered from Plymouth and joined the delivery crew at Dover for the first of many trips up the Thames. When they tied her up in St Katharine Docks and went on their way, we had no idea what to do next. The trip up from Dover was our first taste of sailing and we had been no more than passengers. Within three weeks the heating had broken down and with two inches of snow on deck, life was suddenly challenging. But we gritted our teeth and got through. After that, nothing was ever quite as uncomfortable again, which may well be one good reason we lived aboard for so long.

We learned quickly: we had to. If you want to give yourself the maximum incentive to keep a boat up together, live on it! When something breaks you have to fix it or life can become uncomfortable or inconvenient very quickly. In the first year we had quite a bit of trouble with the diesel heating, the engine and the sails. All of it got fixed. And while that sounds relentless, it really wasn’t. When out sailing we saw huge numbers of boats that never go anywhere because they are not maintained. I suspect that owners of up-together boats tend to live close by, while the owners of neglected boats probably live far away. It can be gruelling to get up early on a Saturday morning, pack some tools and spares into the car, drive to the quayside, row out to a cold, damp boat on a buoy and start work.