Updates – Escape the Rat Race

Llangollen Canal Breach Update: Reopening Target Set for Christmas 2026

The Canal & River Trust says the breached section of the Llangollen Canal near Whitchurch could reopen by Christmas 2026, almost exactly a year after a dramatic embankment collapse that stranded boats and emptied part of the canal into surrounding fields.

For anyone planning long-term life afloat, it’s one of the biggest ongoing closures on the network right now.

Repair work is ramping up, with engineers carrying out surveys before rebuilding the failed embankment. The Trust says around 10,000 cubic metres of material need moving.

The canal supplies water to a reservoir serving around 60,000 homes, which is why temporary pumping operations have been running continuously since December.

Like many boaters, we’ll be watching this one closely. The Llangollen remains one of the most rewarding canals for longer journeys when it’s fully open. It’s hard to fit in to the typical week or two you have on narrowboat hire, but it’s an incredibly beautiful sight to behold.

Hopefully this progress means it will soon be available to anyone planning long-term cruising next year. If you planned a trip now you could perhaps be one of the first to pass through again once it’s fixed!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86dg42g0q1o

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/west-midlands/llangollen-canal-breach

Relaunching the Blog

We’ve been involved in long-term life on the canals for nearly twenty years. Over that time, we’ve seen people step away from work, test retirement, work remotely from the towpath, take sabbaticals, or pause long enough to reassess what comes next. Some stay longer than planned. Some leave earlier. Most do what they set out to do, then return with a clearer sense of direction.

This blog has been patchy in the past. Boats, like lives, have a way of demanding attention elsewhere. Going forward, we’ll be publishing regularly, focusing on the things people usually only discover once they’re already aboard.

As well as keeping you updated on the business and some reflective pieces, we really want this blog to be about the practical realities of spending three months, six months, or a year on a narrowboat instead of wherever you currently are – Not just romanticising life afloat (even though we love it).

We would love to hear some of your suggestions for topics that we could cover? In the meantime, expect us to roam freely and broadly through all sorts of topics and locations associated with the canals!

We are planning to cover some of our favourite canals and some of the practicalities around route planning: what tends to go wrong; the 14-day continuous cruising rules; what it’s like sharing sixty feet with another person; and what winter living is really like when your heat comes from solid fuel and the canal freezes over.

We’re also planning to cover solo living, busy summer cruising, waterways that see less traffic, and the engineering decisions made two centuries ago that still shape how boats move today. How people deal with it. What living aboard is like while balancing work – remote or otherwise. Why some arrangements work well, and others don’t.

This blog exists to support anyone who is considering extended time on the canals, already doing it, or quietly working out whether it’s the right choice. We have learnt a great deal about what people actually need when they’re living aboard rather than visiting briefly – and it feels like the right time to start writing some of that down.

We’re proud to have helped so many people Escape the Rat Race over the years, operating 26+ boats at different points in the process – This is one way we hope to stay in touch, wherever the journey has taken you since!

We hope you enjoy, and stick around, whether that’s because you love the waterways or are curious about one day living aboard for the long term!

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