Explore Canals is a free, community-built guide to the services boaters need on Britain’s canals: dry docks, slipways, boatyards, marinas, moorings and more. It isn’t a business. There are no adverts or paid placements, and nobody pays to be listed.
Why it exists
Finding a dry dock that takes your length, or a marina with a free berth, still means ringing round. The information is out there, scattered across operators’ websites, Canal & River Trust data and word of mouth. Explore Canals brings it together in one place, with the details that matter and the date they were last checked.
It was started by a liveaboard narrowboater and is built for boaters.
How listings are written
- Facts come from the operator’s own website first, then CanalPlanAC and Canal & River Trust open data. Anything we can’t verify is left out.
- Descriptions are written in our own words, not copied from anyone’s website.
- Detailed listings show when they were last checked.
- Where one site offers several major services, such as a marina with moorings and a dry dock, each has its own listing, linked together under “Also at this site”.
Help improve it
Anyone can suggest a correction or a new place, and every change is checked before it goes live.
- Spotted something wrong or out of date? Suggest an edit.
- Know somewhere that’s missing? Add a listing.
- Run a yard, marina or service? Claim your listing and keep your own details up to date.
Open data
Listing text and data written for Explore Canals are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence (CC BY-SA 4.0). You’re free to reuse them, as long as you credit Explore Canals and share any changes under the same licence.
Some content comes from others and keeps its own licence:
- Canal & River Trust data: Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Photos from Geograph: CC BY-SA 2.0, credited on each image.
- Business names and logos belong to their owners.
