The waterways around Warrington carry more boats than most people driving over them realise. The Bridgewater Canal runs through Lymm, Grappenhall and Stockton Heath, the Manchester Ship Canal cuts along the north edge of the borough, and there are moorings and marinas within half an hour in almost every direction. Autumn is when owners haul out and start work, and a narrowboat refit needs materials that no car will carry. Arranging van hire in Warrington is the easy part of that.
Everything Has To Cross The Gap Between Car Park And Boat
This is the difference between a boat job and a house job, and it governs everything else. A van can get to a marina car park and no further. From there, every sheet of ply, every length of timber, every bag of insulation and every tin of paint travels by wheelbarrow or by hand along a track, down a pontoon or across a towpath, and then through a hatch or a door that is narrower than anything in a house. Some moorings are a hundred metres from the nearest parking and a few are considerably further. That single constraint means the useful question is not how much the van will carry but how many barrow trips the load turns into, and whether the material can be cut to a size that will actually go through the hatch when it gets there.
Cutting Materials To Size Before You Load
Full sheets of ply and insulation board rarely fit into a boat and almost never fit down a hatch, so most of them get cut down anyway. Doing that at the merchant, or at home before you set off, saves the worst part of the day. It also changes the vehicle you need, because cut panels lie flat in a shorter load area where full sheets do not. Work out the internal dimensions of the space you are lining before you order, allow for the curve of the cabin side, which catches everybody the first time, and remember that a boat is never square. Keep offcuts rather than discarding them, since the curved and tapered sections at each end consume far more small pieces than a house ever would.
Choosing A Van For A Marina Track
Marina access roads are frequently unsurfaced, narrow, and shared with people towing trailers, and the car park at the end of them is usually laid out for cars. A short wheelbase medium roof van is the sensible default, because it turns in a small yard, copes with a rough track and still gives standing height for stacking timber and boards. Where the load includes long timber or larger cut sheets, a long wheelbase high roof van takes them flat, though it is worth checking with the marina first that there is somewhere to turn it. In wet weather a laden vehicle on an unmade track is exactly the situation to think about before you commit rather than after.
Stoves, Batteries And The Heavy Items
A refit usually involves at least one thing that two people struggle with. A solid fuel stove is dense and awkward, leisure batteries are heavy for their size and must stay upright, and a new water tank or engine part is a genuine lift. None of those enjoy a wheelbarrow along a pontoon. Plan the heavy items as their own trip rather than burying them under the timber, take a sack barrow with pneumatic tyres rather than hard wheels, and get help rather than improvising on a wet pontoon. Batteries in particular should travel upright, secured, with terminals protected and nothing metal able to fall across them.
Keeping Materials Dry On The Way
Timber, ply and insulation are all ruined by a soaking and a refit runs through the wettest months of the year. An enclosed load area is worth more than easy side loading for this reason alone, and anything that has to sit in a car park while you barrow the first load down needs covering rather than leaving open. Once it is aboard, get it inside rather than stacking it on the roof under a tarpaulin, which is how boards end up with a curve in them. Paints, varnishes and adhesives should not be left in an unheated vehicle overnight in a cold snap, since many of them are ruined by freezing.
Upholstery, Cushions And Interior Fittings
The last stage of most refits is the soft fitting out, which brings its own transport problem. Cushions and berth mattresses for a boat are made to fit an awkward shape and are usually collected finished from a workshop rather than bought off a shelf. They are bulky, light and easily marked, so they want a clean load area with nothing sharp in it and no timber dust from the previous trip. Our advice on moving an upholstery or sewing workshop covers the handling of foam and made-up covers, and the same care applies when you are collecting a finished set rather than moving the workshop that made it.
Booking Around Haul-Out And Yard Hours
Boatyards and marinas keep their own hours and many are quieter midweek, which is usually when it is easiest to get a vehicle close to the water. We are open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 4pm and closed on Sunday, so collecting first thing gives you a full day for a merchant run and a barrow session at the other end. A refit spread across several weekends is far better served by one longer hire than by repeated day bookings, and short and long term hire are both available with no deposit required on most vehicles. Owners with moorings out towards Lymm van hire and Irlam van hire are a short run from our Tilley Street depot, and there is free secure parking on site.
Tell us what you are collecting, whether it can be cut down first and how far the mooring is from the car park, and we will point you at something that suits the track as well as the load. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 before your next materials run.
