NARROWBOAT & WIDEBEAM SAILAWAYS

Begin your journey with our Professional Design & Planning Service

Start your sailaway project with The Fit Out Pontoon and not only will you perfect the planning and design process, you’ll receive the ultimate foundation for successfully managing the fit out process. Investing in the planning stages now will save you time and money throughout the fit out, maximising your chances of meeting budgets and timescales.

Our ‘Sailaway Design & Planning Service’ brings the instant benefits associated with expert knowledge of canal boat design, planning and fitting out. We’re here to help you avoid those innocent yet inevitable mistakes made from lack of knowledge and/or experience.

The Fit Out Pontoon’s ‘Sailaway Design & Planning Service’ will help you finalise the specification, importantly ensuring the on-board equipment is aligned with your intended usage. We’ll take you through our comprehensive canal boat design process which includes unlimited revisions. Once the design is finalised we’ll produce you a 1:25 scale detailed production drawing including the specification, layout, electrical & plumbing schematics, full dimensional detail and a separate 2D paint scheme illustrating exactly how you’d like the boat to look externally.

“Save the initial outlay of our ‘Sailaway Design & Planning Service’ through the substantial savings we offer on canal boat equipment. As canal boat builders we have trade accounts throughout the industry and are happy to pass on trade discounts for bulk orders* of canal boat equipment.”

In recent years there has been a huge growth in the shell only and sailaway market, partly down to people looking for a cost-effective way to get on the boating ladder and secondly due to a surge in demand from those looking to put their own take on a canal boat interiors. Many shell and sailaway buyers are first time boat buyers, with little or, no knowledge of boats/boating. If you fall into either of these categories you’ll quickly see when looking around and talking with boat builders the buying process for narrowboat or widebeam shells and sailaways is quite daunting.

Boat Builders rely on your direction, you’ll need to understand all the options, evaluate which ones you’ll need, and as required where they’re to be positioned/installed. The secret to buying a canal boat shell or sailaway is planning, it’s how to avoid costly mistakes and steep, painful learning curves. The only way to make the decisions involved with a shell or sailaway is to plan the boat to a fully fitted stage and work backwards.

As an independent canal boat design consultancy we’ve directed over 200 boat builds. We know all the options, which of these will best suit your needs, how they are installed and any associated considerations. Combine this with our industry leading design and illustration skills and we’re sure you’ll agree we’re positioned perfectly to plan, and manage the design of your canal boat shell or sailaway.

Our sailaway design service is recognised throughout the boat building industry. The Fit Out Pontoon have frequently worked with many of the UK’s leading boat builders, production builders and bespoke builders. This experience has given The Fit Out Pontoon a very unique, broad knowledge base relating to fitting out processes, all of which we openly share with you! For anything we may not be sure on as member of the British Marine Federation we have open and unrestricted access to their technical team who are only too happy to help with your questions.

1-2-1 DESIGN CONSULTATION
The first stage of our service is to preferably meet you at our design studio (although we’ve often done this over Skype for overseas customers, or telephone for those in the UK that can’t get to us) for a 4-5hr design consultation. During this tailored consultation we look to achieve three things:

1) Getting to know each other & question time – We here to give you our impartial knowledge
First step is to get to know you and understand why and how you are intending to use your canal boat. Find out where you are in the buying process so we can get a feel for how we need to tailor the consultation to your needs. We’ll also look through any material you’ve brought with you such as photographs and sketches.

This is also a great time to ask as many questions as you like relating to canal boats and canal boating. We want you to leave us feeling like you’ve learnt plenty, experience shows our customers really appreciate an opportunity to get honest impartial feedback whether it be relating the lifestyle, boating itself, and of course anything related to purchasing or fitting out canal boats.

2) Detail a Specification – Tailored to your intended usage & budget
Here we start to get technical and together we’ll run through our detailed requirements list, looking at all the options associated with buying a sailaway and explore the decisions you’ll need to make during the fit out process. In summary we’ll look at the overall boat requirements – style, shape and size, integral parts, propulsion, plumbing and electrics, layout, appliances, materials and finishes.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to gain a grasp of the more technical details, quite often we’ll go off on tangents explaining anything you’d like to understand in detail.

3)  Begin the Design Process – Exploring initial layout ideas
At this stage of the consultation we’ll have all the information required to start looking at the initial design of your canal boat. We have various scaled canal boat templates that we can can print off and start sketching on. At the end of the consultation the aim is to put an initial design together which will form the foundation for the design process.

PRELIMINARY DESIGN STAGE
Following on from the design consultation the rest of the process can be done remotely with us talking over the phone, bouncing emails and sending you pdf drawings to review. The preliminary design stage is focused around the layout and location of all the equipment and appliances, ensuring they will work in practice when it comes to the fit out process. There are no time restraints during this stage nor are there any limitations of the number of drawing revisions you can request.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT STAGE
Once we’ve locked down the layout we can start adding further details such as window and hatch positions, plumbing and electrical details. Again there are no time restraints during this stage nor are there any limitations of the number of drawing revisions you can request.

TECHNICAL DRAWING PRODUCTION
With the design now fully developed and refined we can move to the final drawing creation which includes the specification, layout, electrical & plumbing schematics, full dimensional detail. Once we’ve completed the main drawing we’ll explore the external paint scheme and produce a separate drawing illustrating exactly how you’d like the boat to look externally. If you look further down this page you will see some finished examples of our technical drawings.

DISCOUNTED EQUIPMENT PACKAGES
Benefit from substantial savings on canal boat equipment. As canal boat builders we have trade accounts throughout the industry and are happy to pass on discounts for bulk orders* of canal boat equipment. We can put together numerous packages ranging from propulsion systems, electrical systems, wiring looms, plumbing systems, diesel central heating systems, toilets systems, stainless steel water tanks and more.

* Minimum order value of £2500, no maximum order value.