Uk Coastal Cruises

Coastal, river and canal cruises in the UK

ABOVE: On Voyager's canal, Voyager's smallboat couple Snipe and Taurus are chatting in a sluice. Majestic Line takes a couple of renovated fisher boats to Argyll and the Inner Hebrides. Coast-fishers, narrow-boat skippers and bargemen may no longer be as important to British trade as they were a hundred or two years ago, but their spiritually descendents are still on the British coast and along canals.

Today, however, it is more likely that seafood is eaten on board than taken from the ocean, and the load has been largely substituted by ocean shipping - or, more precisely, by travellers seeking a more private cruise adventure than they would find on a 4,000-passenger Behemoth of the Seas or even a 400-passenger MS Croesus.

British Isles offers various kinds of cruises with small ships (or, in some cases, small boats): Coast cruises on ships with 12 to 50 people, exploring small harbours along the coast and isles of Scotland and England. Seven-foot-wide or less narrownboat cruises on channel ships that sail individually or in twos and have less than a ten people in what could be described as "compact luxury".

Barque cruises on rebuilt Holland's coals, cereals or cargo boats, which normally transport eight to twelve people. They are much bigger than small boats, so they are more likely to be found on the Thames or the Caledonian Canal than in the small rustic and commercial channels dating from the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Please note: In this paper we focus on coastal, narrownboat and barges cruises with experienced skippers and crew and not on self-drive vessels that can be rented. For those interested in skipping a small vessel, visit our page with a link to Canal Boots Rentals. Featured photographyright © Neil Thomsett. Inserted picture copyr © The Majestic Line.