Inland innovation

Wilf Lower relives a European inland adventure

- Wilf Lower

Most Polish-built boats are finished well, have CE marking and are competitively priced, but there’s always the odd exception, as I discovered a few years ago when invited to see a new boat designed especially for inland waterways, and built-in the beautiful (and relatively unknown to UK sailors) Mazury Lakes region in the northeast of the country.

Motor cruisers and craft designed for inland waterways are often referred to as hausboote (houseboats). But in this instance the company – an established builder of sheds and summerhouses – had decided to enter the leisure boating market, producing a motorised version of the static houseboat/holiday home common in the UK.

The company’s concept was simple: plonk one of their sheds (about 24ft long) in the center of a 12m (40ft) raft, create balustraded balconies at each end, drop a Volvo saildrive through the middle of the raft, add a rudder and hey-presto, a hausboote… or perhaps schuppenboot (shed boat) might have been more appropriate!