It’s that time of year again when we fondly look back on the 12 months just gone by and round-up the best of the blog here for you: Our 2013 year in review includes canal news, customer interviews and our useful ‘how to’ guides.

In January our local community boating project bought a new boat. The South West Herts Narrowboat Project provides hire boats to community and youth groups. New community narrowboat in Herts We also continue to support the National Community Boats Association blog.

In February The Canal and River Trust invited canal users in the south to comment on some proposed changes to the maximum stay times at popular visitor mooring sites. CRT visitor moorings consultation

Paul and Jan Tooley bought a 43ft cruiser stern narrowboat, built by Liverpool boats. It is their first narrowboat and after being guided through the process by our broker Phil they sent us some very positive feedback Buying a boat: My story. We also helped Tony Farrow to sell a 50ft cruiser stern narrowboat. Selling a boat: My story.

In March we looked at diesel stoves; a good one to read if you’re not sure what all your heating options are when buying a canal boat. Diesel stoves keep boaters toasty.

In May we went to the Crick Boat Show and thankfully it didn’t rain as much as it did the year before, on the Jubilee weekend! By June the boat festival season was in full swing. Festivals and boat rallies are the perfect place to pick up a piece of traditional canal ware. You may even find the odd roving trader selling such things from his boat on the towpath. Check out our shiny guide to lace plates and brass knockers.

We published a good selection of useful ‘How to’ articles this year. Including:

3 things you must know before survey

How to plan a canal boat cruise

How to find a mooring

9 ways to get afloat on Facebook

In August I wrote Help! I want to sell my boat! and How much is your boat worth? which is a useful guide to anyone thinking of selling a boat.

We also invited other bloggers and #BoatsThatTweet to guest post on our blog. This is a great way for our readers to discover you and your writing. Are you a blogger?

We now have more than 11,850 customers registered with Boatshed Grand Union and Boatshed worldwide has over 559,000 registered customers. Boatshed.com has over 50 locations world-wide, and more than 100 Boatshed Brokers working to sell your boat.

So whether you’re buying or selling a boat in 2014 we look forward to meeting you and making the process easy and enjoyable for you. Wishing you a very happy new year from Phil, Charly, Jan and Peggy at Boatshed Grand Union.

Image credit: Thanks to Sergey Melkonov for making this image of champagne available under a Creative Common's license. Check out his Flickr stream for some beautiful pictures of Tall Ships races.

Peggy
www.narrowboatwife.com

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Living on a Boat: The Boatshed Guide (free) / Help! I want to sell my boat! / The Bargee - film review. / Don’t miss: The Boatshed Grand Union Daily/ A slideshow of our boat of the moment./More articles.

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