New Narrowboats

A narrowboat is a major investment, so something to spend some time considering before any purchase, there are many boat builders who can supply what you are looking for, so the question to start with is what are you really looking for and can the builder meet your expectations.

Bespoke Narrowboat Design

For the client who knows what they want we provide a full bespoke design and build service, we can produce plans & designs to meet your requirements followed by the full build and fit out to your specifications.

The first choice for any new boat is the hull design, for a holiday boat a cruiser or semi-trad stern may be more suitable for those planning to spend time cruising, whereas a making your home permanently aboard may be more suited to a traditional layout, maximising the internal space.

Once you have chosen your hull its time to work on the internal layout and finishes, traditional hardwood finishes are the most popular and most durable, with Ash and Oak being the most popular, not to mention the American Cherry favoured by ourselves.

Coates & Company Designs

Our popular live board design, the 57ft traditional "Club" is featured in the designs section and many of the photographs on this site are from this style of narrowboat.

With a tried and trusted internal layout that can be personalised to your own specification the "Club" is an ideal floating home, designed for two and of course allowing for the occasional guests.

Coates and Company design narrowboats are based on the various respected manufacturers steel hulls and fitted out to our own exacting specifications at our own premises.

Build Slot & Build Schedule

Once a design has been finalised to the customers specification the hull will be ordered and a build slot allocated for the new boat.

For all boats the clock starts ticking once the shell is in the workshop, for any build we aim to have the boat out on the water 20 weeks from taking delivery of the shell.

When building to commission we like to see the customer and we have found that they appreciate the chance to see their boat being build, even if everything does seem to start slowly with the fit out every visit shows more progress to the boat being launched.