Everything Takes Longer On a Boat - Narrowboating Your Way Through Life & Business

-1° this morning at the marina. It's on cold mornings like this, when the central heating goes off in the night and has to be rebooted first thing, that I remind myself of the quote from Les Brown about being an entrepreneur:

"You must be willing to do the things today others won't do, in order to have the things tomorrow others won't have."

Some of you might know my story and, for those who don't, here is the reason why there is a picture of the icy bow of the narrowboat I'm now living on:

Four weeks ago one of my closest friends, Raj, and I set off from Thames & Kennet Marina in Reading in a three-day trip down the River Thames, through 14 locks, to arrive in Weybridge three days later. A day later than planned. Both of our narrowboat experience was precisely zero. We'd never cruised a narrowboat before, let along be in charge of taking a boat through a lock. And, oh yes, Horace (as it was then called) is 21 metres long. That's longer than two Routemaster buses end-to-end. 

The Thames is REALLY wide - even that far upstream - and narrowboats with their shallow drafts aren't designed for big wide rivers. Sedate canals - that's what they like. So every single experience on the first day was completely new and often terrifying. At the end of day 1 the heady cocktail of excitement, fear, and complete ignorance of what to do was too much and we moored up just outside Marlow. Exhausted. Especially as, while waiting for Raj to open the sluice gates on the last lock of the day before mooring (yes, we'd got the hang of it), I made the schoolboy error of parking the boat at a jetty with a VERY LARGE post on it. Then it was time to move off into the lock and in seconds the tiller (the bit at the back you steer with) had got caught on the post as 20 tonnes of boat moved slowly forwards bending the tiller. I was able to put the boat into reverse quickly but the damage was done. The tiller was now about 45° bent out of shape and for the remainder of the journey I had to steer the bent tiller standing precariously perched on the side of the boat, instead of comfortably (and safely) in the middle. Boat 1 : Magnus 0

The next day we nearly crashed into Windsor Bridge. 

"You know what," Raj said as he shivered, his light jacket no match for the sideways rain which had started at the beginning of day 2 and simply didn't stop, "boating is a metaphor for life."

"How so?" I replied as I cut the engines to avoid being told off yet again by another fellow boater for speeding and causing too much wake (I was getting impatient and wanted to get home).

"You can't rush things. You have to point the boat in the direction you want to go, get it all set up, go through whatever it is you have to go through, and be patient as you work your way towards your destination. And, locks, they just take the time they take. Boating - you know where you want to go and it just doesn't work when you try to rush things." There you go - 'Zen and the Art of Narrowboating'. 

Raj was right. There's a pace to a narrowboat that you can't do anything about (you get told off if you're speeding), so you just have to get everything lined up and keep going until you get there. Like Windsor Bridge.

Windsor on one side. Eton on the other. Boats everywhere. Even one of those amphibious duck things drove into the water and sat on my tail. So, as we approached Windsor Bridge there was both a lot of traffic and a lot of people looking at us. And SO MANY rowers. They were everywhere. Including a posse of them sitting under one of the many arches of Windsor Bridge right where I was headed. Windsor Bridge is basically three arches with two big stone pillars going into the water. I was planning to go through the middle of the bridge, which was the easiest and clearest channel. But the rowers weren't getting out of the way. So, what did I do? Carry on with my 20 tonnes of boat, knowing that they would shimmy off as I go near? No, I decided that it was my responsibility to switch arches. Just a few metres away. and, in case you don't know this, boats don't stop straight away.

As we neared the stone pillar at a speed which basically meant we were about to hit it, Raj looked up at the bridge and caught the eye of a concerned passer-by. He had stopped, a look of horror on his face as he witnessed the now inevitable crash. On the tiller at the back of the boat I had a moment of panic. I was facing the very real prospect of crashing my two-day old boat into Windsor Bridge in front of hundreds of people. I'd probably sink it. I might even make the national news. All this flashed through my mind in less than a second as I threw the boat into reverse, pushed the tiller as far as it would go to steer the boat away from the pillar. We missed it. I have no idea by how much but the main thing was that I wasn't going to be on the national news that night and my new home was still intact. Raj looked up and gave a thumbs-up to the passer-by as safely we passed under the bridge; even at a distance the look of relief on his face was very clear. Meanwhile the rowers had shimmied off. Moral of the story. Don't lose heart and change course at the last minute because it might just end in disaster. Magnus 1 : Bridge 0. Just.

Day 3. The final additional day we hadn't expected because everything takes longer on a boat. This had rapidly become my new catchphrase. Because it does. Or, maybe, in reality, everything takes longer to do properly than you think it is going to take. So, head in the right direction, stay the course, and it will take longer than you thought. But you'll get there. Which is what happened on day 3, when I came off the Thames at the originally named Thames Lock; the entrance to the River Wey, which is the canal on which we are going to live. Of course, it was 1:05pm and lunch time. So, I had to wait until 2pm until the lock keeper emerged, dusting crumbs from his mouth, back on duty to let me through. Everything takes longer on a boat.

Horace is now called Aloha, which is native Hawaiian for "the joyful sharing of the present moment", and is moored at Pyford Marina. It took two weeks to get the gas working and four weeks to get to the point now, where I am sitting in my office at the desk that has just been made. It's frosty and cold outside but with gas central heating on, the log burner fired up, and a warm cup of coffee steaming next to me; it's pretty toasty.

Joyful sharing of the present moment. I am taking each day in turn. Living on a boat because I want to keep my costs as low as possible in order to have the time and focus on The Business Buddha, the business I've started with my co-founders, with a purpose to hasten the world's transition to Conscious Organisations; where people enjoy purpose, wellbeing and creativity at work. We believe we are doing something significant by changing the way we work and, fortunately, increasing numbers of people are agreeing with us. But to get there I've got to do the things other won't do. Like living on a boat.

The photo is of the icy bow this morning. The bow is the front of the boat. To use it as a metaphor; the bow is pointing forwards. On cold mornings like this, I'm reminded that everything good takes work. Boating is a metaphor for life - head forwards in the direction you want to go, stay the course, and it will take longer than you thought. But you'll get there.