Life Jackets and Buoyancy Aids

Start with the kit you wear rather than the kit you stow. On a canal, the water is usually calm and the bank is close, so many boaters get away with a buoyancy aid — typically 50N of foam buoyancy, comfortable enough to wear all day while working locks. On rivers, estuaries and anywhere with a decent current, weir pools, or a long swim to the bank, step up to a 150N automatic life jacket. It will turn an unconscious wearer face-up, which a foam buoyancy aid will not.

Fit matters more than price. A jacket that rides up around your ears is worse than useless. Adjust the straps with the jacket on, bounce on your heels, and check the chest strap sits high rather than across your stomach. Replace gas cylinders and firing mechanisms at the interval the manufacturer recommends, and check the indicator window before every trip.

• Adults: 150N automatic life jacket for rivers; 50N buoyancy aid acceptable on sheltered canals.
• Children: properly sized junior life jackets worn at all times on deck, in locks and on the towpath edge.
• Dogs: a buoyancy vest with a lifting handle makes recovery far easier.
• Guests: keep two or three spares aboard, plus a throw line within reach of the helm.

Fire Extinguishers, Alarms and Gas Safety

Fire aboard a narrowboat is frightening because there is nowhere to retreat to. The Boat Safety Scheme requires at least two extinguishers, and sensible owners carry three or four: one dry powder or foam near the stern door, one near the galley, one near the cabin exit, plus a fire blanket in the galley. Dry powder is messy but effective on most fuels. Water extinguishers should never be used on electrical or fuel fires.

Alarms do the real work. Fit a smoke alarm in the cabin and — critically — a carbon monoxide alarm in any space with a solid fuel stove, gas water heater or gas hob. Carbon monoxide is odourless and is the most common serious hazard on inland boats. Test alarms weekly, and treat a chirping low-battery warning as a job for today, not next weekend.

• Gas: turn the cylinder off at the bottle when you leave the boat and overnight.
• Smell gas: don't touch switches, open hatches, get everyone off, and isolate the supply.
• Ventilation: never block low-level vents, even in winter. They keep you alive.

Mooring Gear You Will Actually Use

Mooring is where most accidents happen, usually to fingers. Carry more rope than you think you need, in decent diameters — 14mm to 16mm is a good general size for a narrowboat. Your standard set is a bow line, a stern line and a centre line, with a couple of longer springs for rivers and tidal moorings. Nylon rope stretches, which absorbs shock; polypropylene floats but chafes quickly.

• Fenders: at least four, with two larger ones for locks and a spare or two in a locker.
• Mooring pins and a lump hammer: the soft, well-trodden pins near popular visitor moorings pull out easily.
• Boat hook: indispensable for retrieving ropes, hats and the occasional windlass.
• Windlass: carry two, because one always goes over the side or gets borrowed.
• Handcuff key: needed for some anti-vandal locks on paddles and swing bridges.

Anchors, Throwing Lines and Man Overboard Kit

If you ever cruise a river — the Thames, the Trent, the Ouse, the Severn — carry an anchor with chain and a warp of at least 15 to 20 metres. An anchor is your brakes if the engine fails above a weir or in a strong stream. Store it where you can reach it in seconds, not under three crates of coal.

Rehearse what you would do if someone went in. The drill is simple: shout, throw something buoyant, stop the propeller, and approach from downstream if there is any flow. A throw line in a bag, kept by the helm, is far better than a coil of rope that tangles the moment you need it.

Tools, First Aid and Everyday Essentials

You cannot pop to the shops mid-pound, so a modest toolkit earns its locker space: adjustable spanner, screwdrivers, mole grips, spare fuses, jubilee clips, insulating tape, cable ties, and a spare engine belt if yours is the type to fail. Add a torch or head torch per person, spare batteries, and a basic first aid kit with plenty of plasters, antiseptic, burn gel and a tick remover.

Keep a waterproof bag with a charged mobile phone, a power bank and a paper note of your location and emergency numbers. On the waterways, 999 works, and the lock or bridge number on the nearest marker post tells the emergency services exactly where you are — a genuinely useful piece of information to know.

A Last Walk-Round Before Casting Off

Before you untie, run the same short check every time. Life jackets on for anyone on deck. Engine oil, water and weed hatch checked. Bilges dry, gas off unless you are cooking, alarms live. Ropes coiled and clear of the propeller. Weather and river conditions checked — strong stream warnings and flood alerts on rivers should change your plans, not just your speed.

None of this gear is glamorous, and most of it you will never need. That is rather the point. Good kit, checked regularly and stored where you can reach it, is what lets you relax and enjoy the cut, the herons, the slow bend in the river and the pint at the end of the day.