The kit that earns its locker space

A narrowboat feels like the safest place in the world. Four miles an hour, a foot of freeboard, a towpath within arm's reach. That comfort is precisely why safety gear so often ends up shoved under a bunk and forgotten until the day it is needed. On the inland waterways, help is usually further away than it looks: a gated lane, a flight of lock steps, a stretch of towpath with no vehicle access for two miles. For the first ten minutes of any incident, you are the emergency services.

The reassuring part is that the essential kit is neither heavy nor expensive, and it fits in a couple of lockers. Think of it as four jobs — staying afloat, reaching someone who isn't, putting out a fire, and patching up a person — plus the habit of checking and stowing it all so it can be found in the dark, with one hand, while the other is holding a tiller.

Life jackets and buoyancy aids

This is the one piece of kit where the difference between the right thing and the wrong thing is measured in seconds. A 150N gas-inflated life jacket turns an unconscious casualty face-up; a 50N foam buoyancy aid keeps a conscious swimmer afloat but will not right them. For canal and river cruising, choose a life jacket, and insist on a crotch strap — a jacket that rides up over your head is worse than useless.

Wear it, don't stow it, whenever you are on the gunwale, the well deck or the roof, and always for locks, mooring up, lock wheeling and single-handed cruising. Cold water shock is the real danger on the cut: even in high summer, canal water sits well below 20°C, and the first gasp can rob a strong swimmer of their breath before they have time to think. Children and non-swimmers should wear theirs from the moment they step aboard to the moment they step off.

Look after it and it will look after you. Check the gas cylinder is tight and unpunctured, the firing head is correctly armed, and the auto capsule is in date. Have inflatables serviced annually, or at least follow the maker's schedule, and replace anything bought second-hand and unserviced. If you cruise in driving rain, a manual jacket is worth considering — an automatic one can fire when simply soaked through.

A throw line you can actually throw

A throw line is the single most useful rescue tool on a narrowboat, and the one most often left in its bag, stiff and forgotten. Buy a proper kit: roughly 20 metres of floating line in a bag or valise, with a grab handle at the throwing end. Keep one by the tiller and a second at the bow, so wherever you are when someone goes in, a line is within a few steps.

Learn the movement properly and practise it once a season on the towpath. Hold the handle, keep the bag low, and throw underarm across and beyond the casualty rather than at their head. Then get yourself low, brace, and take the strain by walking backwards — not by hauling hand over hand, which is how rescuers end up in the water too. If the casualty cannot grip, use a boat hook, a stern ladder or a mooring line. Never jump in after them; one casualty is a bad day, two is a catastrophe.

Fire extinguishers, blankets and alarms

Fires on boats are usually small, and usually start in one of three places: the galley, the engine bay, or around a solid fuel stove. Keep at least two extinguishers aboard as a working baseline — one by the main exit so you can fight your way out, and one within reach of the cooker — and check the minimum requirement for your boat against the Boat Safety Scheme, which varies with your engine, heating and cooking arrangements. Dry powder is messy but versatile; foam suits solid fuel and fabric; CO₂ is good for electrical fires and the galley, though it offers no protection against re-ignition.

Add a fire blanket mounted beside the cooker, with the seal intact and the tape ready to pull. Fit a smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide alarm, test them weekly, and remember that CO is odourless, colourless and produced by engines and stoves alike. Never bring a disposable barbecue aboard or sit one on the well deck. Above all, know your escape route before you need it, and get everyone off the boat first — call 999 from the towpath and give the bridge number or mile marker, which is the quickest way to tell them exactly where you are.

The first aid kit, and the things people forget

Burns and scalds top the list on a narrowboat, followed by cuts, splinters, twisted ankles on wet lock steps and the occasional knock from a winding handle. Build a kit that reflects that:

• Assorted plasters, sterile dressings, bandages and medical tape
• Burns gel and a burns dressing, plus cling film from the galley for larger areas
• Disposable gloves — several pairs — scissors, tweezers and a tick tool
• Antiseptic wipes, eye wash, blister plasters and a foil blanket
• Paracetamol, ibuprofen, antihistamines and rehydration sachets

Then add the personal bits that no shop-bought kit includes: regular medication, spare glasses, a note of allergies, and a CPR face shield. It is also worth knowing where the nearest public defibrillator sits — many village halls and marina buildings have one. Keep the whole lot in a labelled waterproof box in the galley, not in a bag at the bottom of a wardrobe.

Stow it, check it, use it

Stowage is a safety decision, not a storage one. Extinguishers by the exit. First aid kit where the kettle is. Life jackets at the door you actually use, not in the bow locker under three crates of coal. Throw lines on deck, not buried in a locker behind the fenders. Anything you cannot reach in ten seconds in the dark is decoration.

Finally, make one day each spring your safety day, before the season properly begins. Shake and check the powder extinguishers and confirm the gauges sit in the green. Inspect life jacket cylinders and firing heads. Replace the throw line if it is frayed, stiff or has been left in sunlight. Restock the first aid kit and bin anything past its date. Test the alarms, the torch and the handheld radio batteries.

Do that once a year and the gear becomes second nature — quietly there, ready, and never needed. Which is exactly the point.