Exclusive Q&A With Narrowboat YouTuber Robbie Cumming

Anyone who is a keen narrowboater has probably heard the name Robbie Cumming. He is best known for his YouTube channel, which features regular videos of his experiences of living on a narrowboat while travelling the UK's canals. Borne out of a love for boating and the British canal system, Robbie's channel has gained nationwide media exposure – and become his career.

He began his YouTube channel back in 2016 and has since gained over 20,000 subscribers who follow his many journeys onboard the Naughty Lass, the 42ft narrowboat in which he resides.

We spoke to him about his channel’s success and what it's been like to travel the waterways during the UK lockdown. 

Let's start with a little bit of background about the YouTube channel. Why did you start vlogging?

I started because I was in the middle of nowhere.

I'm in the North West, in a place called Runcorn. It's not a holiday destination, and it's not trying to be that. So, when I got there, there were no other boaters around, and I thought: 'Do you know what? This is not why I started.' I wanted to meet other people and meet other boaters.

I thought: 'I'm already able to make the videos.' I've always tinkered with filmmaking since school – I would borrow all the cameras I could get hold of and edit video using whatever software I had. I've never had professional equipment. 

I just used what I had, which was my phone, and made a little vlog. The first vlog was just a review of where I was and what it was like to moor. I put it out there to take people on a journey, and it just clicked straight away. I got positive comments coming through, and that was great because then I could communicate with people. It was for communication purposes, really, and it's just gone out of control – well, in a nice way.

Are you surprised by how much the channel has grown?

I knew there was an interest in all things narrowboats and canals. This interest has been growing and growing ever since I got involved in this strange little world of living on boats. 

In 2012, I had my first go at narrowboating and fell in love with it. I saw it as an up-and-coming interest, and now there are more boats than there ever has been on the water. Even since the canals first started popping up, narrowboating is just a massive thing. 

But I was just focused on trying to help other people and sharing what I've learnt, because I only started it after a year of travelling on my boat myself. I wanted to make sure I'd got everything fairly safe before I started filming.

Has the channel's growth been steady, or did you ever notice a point where your following shot up?

It's been very steady. Even when I was featured on the BBC, I still had a very small number of subscribers, and the growth was continuous. But I'd rather have an organic growth than an explosion of people suddenly jumping on board, as it were, because I don't think I could deal with it. Mentally, it would be too much wondering where all these people have come from!

What do you think has made your channel so successful?

When I take a moment to think about it – and I do try to because this has become my career now – I just think: 'Why do people like certain types of videos?'. 

I think the channel has become as popular as it has because of the feeling I give to people. It's about making them feel like they're on the journey with me. So, my channel's success comes from making it very personal, because YouTube is a very personal medium. It's not quite like TV, where everyone sits around watching the same thing. It's more of a one-on-one experience. 

So, it's that and just taking people on a journey and showing them this secret world that I enjoy myself and sharing this with them. 

Another reason why it might be more popular than other channels is because of the additional details like my own music and the look and feel of my videos, which are a bit different.

The reason I started creating the videos is that I was looking at other people’s vlogs and thinking that's just not how I see the boating lifestyle. I want to paint my own picture of it and show people what it's like from my experience. 

How has lockdown been for you?

Well, I was still working, and lockdown made it very lonely. I couldn't have anyone on board or speak to anyone, really. 

I was due to start filming for the BBC, and we weren't allowed to start filming until June. Although some of the pubs were open, it was very solitary and distanced. It wasn't what I set out to do.

But overall, I'm thankful for the extra time I’ve spent with my girlfriend and her daughter in her house – even if I am spilling paint everywhere! 

Another positive of lockdown was that I had a lot more of the waterways to myself a lot more as there were fewer boats around.

There was a build-up of weed on the canal, like a blanket weed, so that was slightly surreal. The sheer amount of weeds I had to sail through made me feel like one of the first people who had travelled along the canals after they'd reopened.

How has the lockdown impacted your content creation? Have you had to change what you put out?

It's made me realise how important it is to keep creating. Recently I've been trying to film things, but it's difficult when I'm not even on the boat a lot of the time, in lockdown in different locations. I'm also unable to do any long journeys. 

We've had a lot of stoppages as well, so I've been faced with stopping the boat anyway and having to leave it for a while, just because I couldn't go anywhere.

I’ve also had to stop running my ‘pub of the week’ segment for obvious reasons. I've just been doing beer tastings instead, so I've tried to find local beers and done a beer of the week. I haven't quite done a jingle to go along with that yet!

I’ve also had to put off visiting places like museums which I could normally stop off at along my journey. 

So, lockdown has changed the entire narrowboating experience. It's almost made it more about living on the canal rather than holidaying on the canal. It's made it less leisure and more liveable.

Robbie's second season of Canal Boat Diaries is due to air on BBC Four this spring, but you can catch up with his travels on his YouTube channel here. 

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