an island on the Thames

sometime in 2003

When the second Catflap was built she was exhibited at the Braunston Historic Boat Show to show off the builder's skills. (For some reason she was never Catflap 2, always just Catflap). Anyway, she spent the next 3 years moored in Braunston Marina. We brought her back to the Wey Navigation close to where we live and she spent about a year on a National Trust Mooring before returning to Braunston where she spent the next 10 years while we explored the midlands. On the way back to Braunston we came up the Thames and came across a little uninhabited island where we moored for the night.

This fine water can was painted for us by our friend Phil Speight who has been awarded an OBE for services to canal art.

Then and now

These pictures show the original paintwork for Catflap (below left, 1998). We were never happy with the quality of the paintwork which never matched the quality of the build. So, let's "gloss over" (pun intended) the paintwork and say that the builder was in a hurry to get the boat finished in time for me to move it from Macclefield, where she was built to Braunston where she was to be a centre piece for that year's Braunston Boat show and had to be put in place before the organisers fitted a temporary footbridge across the entry to the marina. That was an exciting trip.

After numerous unproductive discussions with the builder, we decided to cut our losses when I discovered that Phil Speight had an unexpected window in his five year waiting list so we had her repainted in 2003 by Phil Speight. The photo below top left shows her original livery from 1999. The photo to the immediate right (marked 2003) shows the boat just turning out of the Coventry canal at Hawkesbury Junction/Sutton Stop on our way back to Braunston from Phil's).

The other four photos show her current paintwork from 2018. This was an excellent job by Chris Weston of OXON BOAT PAINTING COMPANY, who before I bit the bullet and asked for a berth in Fairport's disabled camp site regularly moved the boat for us from Banbury (where she is now moored) to Cropredy for Fairport's Cropredy Convention. He is a painter par excellence and bloody good at getting boats moored for Fairport's Cropredy Convention.

1999 2003 2018