Women on Barges FB group is the best place to start.
Carole Erdman-Grant is the found of Women on Barges Facebook group. The group is growing daily and Carole welcomed new members with the history of Women on Barges:
A BRIEF (or not-so-brief) HISTORY of WOMEN ON BARGES, in case anyone wondered:
About four years ago my husband, Barrie and I were on the train back to Sandwich from Sterling, Scotland and the reenactment of that epic battle of Bannockburn (the Scots won again, for the 750th time !!!!!) and with nothing else to do for four hours decided that we women who live or holiday - or would like to - on barges needed our own network on Facebook. It took me a few minutes to decide the guidelines which have been slightly modified since but this illustrious group was up and running. I had no expectations except connecting us, and within 24 hours I had 26 women join me!!!!!!!! What a delightful shock.
A few months later I met Jackie Parry who had completed their second almost circumnavigation in their yacht and who was in the UK visiting family while looking to purchase a barge. I invited her to join me as an Administrator since I knew her connection to all things boating fitted in well. We had already sold our yacht and narrowboat and had purchased the challenge of our life, our dear ancient Tjalk and were in the middle of refitting her from a derelict hull to a comfortable live-aboard ship with the plan of eventually sailing across the Straits of Dover to Europe.
A BRIEF (or not-so-brief) HISTORY of WOMEN ON BARGES, in case anyone wondered:
About four years ago my husband, Barrie and I were on the train back to Sandwich from Sterling, Scotland and the reenactment of that epic battle of Bannockburn (the Scots won again, for the 750th time !!!!!) and with nothing else to do for four hours decided that we women who live or holiday - or would like to - on barges needed our own network on Facebook. It took me a few minutes to decide the guidelines which have been slightly modified since but this illustrious group was up and running. I had no expectations except connecting us, and within 24 hours I had 26 women join me!!!!!!!! What a delightful shock.
A few months later I met Jackie Parry who had completed their second almost circumnavigation in their yacht and who was in the UK visiting family while looking to purchase a barge. I invited her to join me as an Administrator since I knew her connection to all things boating fitted in well. We had already sold our yacht and narrowboat and had purchased the challenge of our life, our dear ancient Tjalk and were in the middle of refitting her from a derelict hull to a comfortable live-aboard ship with the plan of eventually sailing across the Straits of Dover to Europe.
The stunning MV Silk Purse after being brought back to life (she is now for sale - link at end of article). Women on Barges expanded regularly mostly by word of mouth, friends telling friends. Around this time I designed a flag, a distinctive swallow tailed item of bright pink for girls, orange for the historic Dutch barges (of which ours was one) and a purple W around the edges for WOMEN.
Colour and shape were easily identified from a distance. Shortly the waterways of Europe were coloured with these little flags, signaling "one of us" was on board! I recall one conversation where two women said they had been in the same marina for almost a year and had never met, but this little colourful flag brought them together and a lovely friendship resulted. Not long later another administrator was added, Veronica Hayes joined us too. Our Admins have come and gone on to other things but WOMEN ON BARGES continues to expand. We have a new Administrator, Charlie Stockford who is the mastermind behind some coming changes to the IT aspect of the menus and files and hopefully many more improvements to our group. Bravo, Charlie for taking up the challenge!!!
Not only did women on barges join us but so did women on narrowboats in the UK and in Europe, women on power boats (cruisers) and women on sailing yachts, many in far distant locations. Women from many different countries have joined us, I think from at least 15 countries are represented, but I haven't counted them. Many of us live aboard full time, many of us spend part of the year on our boats, many take holidays on them, many run their businesses from them, many are single, and many are researching the possibilities of this wonderful floaty lifestyle, deciding if this is for them. On my first ever sail in a small dinghy on Glenmore Dam in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I knew within ten minutes that I HAD to live on a boat. It took me fifteen years to get to that state, once my children were launched but we have never doubted that this was the perfect way of life for us.
I think that the success of this group is mainly due to the gracious participation of the members, sharing their experience, fears, questions, likes, their destinations and opinions. We have kept this group relatively free from impoliteness and we all feel that there is no need for snarly or sarcastic comments. I started it partly because I experienced some of those unfriendly and sometimes nasty comments in other FB groups and feel that that attitude is completely uncalled for, no matter what the topic or experience of the one posting. Of course our Fridays are somewhat reserved for boats for sale or wanted, *other* topics like your crafts, knitting, blogs, art, pets, grandchildren, anything dear to your hearts that isn't necessarily boating related. It just gives us all a window into your lives that we may not see otherwise.
So there you have it, four years and almost 2500 women strong, our WOMEN ON BARGES group (WOBs with our DOBs - dogs on board or COBs - cats on board, with or without our BOBs - blokes on board) is exploring other avenues that we can reach out to other women who are "in the same boat" more or less. When we get men asking to join us (You'd be surprised at how many apply!!!) I usually suggest that they join the men's group, Blokes on Boats who thought it wasn't fair that we women had all the fun.....
For me, life would be pretty dry without a boat!!! My OAK (husband) likes to say sail fast but live slow. That's what we are doing for the foreseeable future, currently on our lovely old Tjalk (for sale) but hopefully soon on a different type of boat that we can continue our love of off-shore sailing.
That's the rest of the story, and I am looking forward to meeting more of our WOBs on board, out for coffee or drinks or perhaps just in passing, faring on the canals and rivers of Europe and beyond. We continue to welcome you, with or with out a barge -- or a boat of any type.
That's the rest of the story, and I am looking forward to meeting more of our WOBs on board, out for coffee or drinks or perhaps just in passing, faring on the canals and rivers of Europe and beyond. We continue to welcome you, with or with out a barge -- or a boat of any type.
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