David Johns

David Johns is a popular YouTuber.

He has 243K subscribers on his YouTube channel, ‘CruisingTheCut.’

David is also a DIY campervan builder.

Introduction-

David Johns was born in 1969 in Droitwich, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom.

He grew up in Droitwich.

His father is a former marine electronics engineer and was into sailing.

David has a sister, Deborah.

Education-

In 1987, David joined Loughborough University to study for a BSc in Computer Studies and graduated in 1991.

Then, in 2004, he joined University of Kent to study LLB Hons, Law and graduated with a First Class Honours degree in 2009.

Career-

For about a decade, David worked in IT and here, he shifted from pure IT to a TV related role and then returned to IT.

From 1996 to 1998, he worked as a presenter & scriptwriter for Kinexus Ltd, where he produced and presented videos.

Then from January 2001 to December 2002, David worked as a Video Producer for culturejam.tv.

From December 2002 to June 2005, he worked as a Broadcast Journalist at Kent Messenger Group and he was also an evening show presenter at KMFM radio station and at that time, radio was his passion.

From January 2005 to December 2005, David worked as a Freelance Radio and TV Broadcast Journalist.

Then, from 2006 to 2009, he worked as a Broadcast Journalist at ITV.

While working here, David was taught the fundamentals of television, filming and editing which later helped him in the production of his YouTube videos.

From January 2009 to August 2012, he was the Founder and Director of Airscape Media Ltd.

From December 2010 to October 2015, David worked as a Reporter for ITV.

He also worked for BBC.

Since October 2015, David has been a full-time YouTuber.

Deciding to shake up his life, thanks to midlife crisis-

Around 2007, David attended the London Boat Show and took a look at Dutch barges and narrowboats and was attracted towards living on them but as during that time, he was in a job and had some ambitions, he let the thought of living in a narrowboat pass.

In 2015, he was working as a reporter and was bored with his job and wanted to radically change up his life, that is, get out of rut.

In March 2015, David observed a beautiful picture of Brixham Harbour in Devon, England on a 2015 RNLI calendar on his kitchen wall at home and thought of living by the sea.

So, he went for a few days to Brixham and even though he liked the boats, he decided to not live by the sea.

Then, David decided to purchase a campervan and tour Europe and so, he started attending the campervan shows.

But he quickly realised that he would need to keep moving in the camper but he didn’t like driving and campsites and also, he wanted to be in proximity with his ageing parents but camping around Europe wouldn’t allow him to do so.

Settling on a narrowboat-

As David ruled out living on a motorhome or campervan, he started thinking of alternatives and that’s when he recollected about canal boats which he saw in 2007 and finalised living on a narrowboat, he was confident that living on water would offer him peace, tranquillity and a sense of adventure.

He was also impressed by the fact there are thousands of miles of canal in the United Kingdom particularly around the Midlands where he could stay in proximity to his parents.

So, David along with his father attended the Creek Waterway Show and looked at many boats but he found all of them very expensive and he also started visiting many brokers but couldn’t find a reasonable narrowboat.

At last, he stumbled upon ABNB at Creek and here, he fell in love with a narrow boat by the name Wreyland and purchased it.

Wreyland is a 55 feet 11 inches long steel-hulled narrowboat built in 2000 by G & J Reeves company and fitted out by the Milburn Boats Ltd.

Experience & research-

Prior to finalising on living a narrowboat, David paid for a one-day narrowboat experience to a narrowboat dweller in Branston and after living on his narrowboat and interacting with him, he was amused by the experience especially the nature and decided to buy a narrowboat for himself.

Prior to purchasing the narrowboat, he thoroughly read the Canal World forum for many days to gain knowledge of narrowboats.

Selling everything to live on a narrowboat-

David quit his day job and sold his house in Kent to live on the narrowboat.

He moved from Kent to Midlands and started living on the narrowboat in proximity to his parents.

Selling his house and getting rid of the things in his house wasn’t difficult because he didn’t have a lot of stuff in his house.

David sold off a lot of things on eBay and gave some things to his friends and a few very old things like his sofa and dining table went to the junk.

He bought his narrowboat, Wreyland, in a pretty good condition, so it didn’t need much fixing and he did a few little tweaks, replaced the charger and inverted and fixed solar panels on the top.

In the initial couple of months of owning the narrowboat, it was out of the water as David was doing little tweaks to it and painted the hull with a bituminous paint to stop the steel from rusting.

On 21 October 2015, he completed selling his house and started living on his narrowboat.

Starting CruisingTheCut-

On 15 July 2015, David started his YouTube channel, ‘CruisingTheCut.’

Initially, his intention with this channel was to keep this channel as a repository of his videos for himself and for his mother but eventually, his channel started gaining momentum and so he started working seriously on it.

His prior experience with working on television and a few other YouTube channels helped in the success of CruisingTheCut channel.

Prior to starting CruisingTheCut, David had other YouTube channels namely, ‘UKAirscape,’ ‘DavidExpertTV’ and ‘TubeShooterMag’ and after starting ‘CruisingTheCut’ channel, he started a couple of YouTube channels namely, ‘Vandemonium’ and ‘David Reads Stories.’

He also has a website.

As of December 2023, David has 243K subscribers on his ‘CruisingTheCut’ channel.

He earns from a variety of sources like advertisements on his YouTube videos, selling merchandise, affiliate marketing and he also accepts donations on Patreon and PayPal.

David used to also write for the Canal Boat Magazine and occasionally do corporate commercial video filming.

His video episodes are also available on Amazon Prime.

His gear-

David uses a Sony 4K HD Video Recording Camcorder and a DJI OSMO Action Camera.

He edits his videos with DaVinci Resolve.

David uses Nicholson Waterways Guides and Pearson’s Canal Companions.

Selling his narrowboat to settle on land; later, buying another boat-

In 2021, David stopped cruising on his narrowboat.

After living in his narrowboat for six and a half years, in 2022, he sold his narrowboat, Wreyland with ABNB to purchase a house.

David took this decision because he felt that living in a house in his upcoming old age would be more comfortable than living on a boat and as the house prices are constantly increasing, he had to sell his boat to buy a house in 2022.

Also, he lost the joy of cruising on his own.

In the last couple of years prior to selling his boat, David was moored at Kings Orchard Marina in Huddlesford, England.

In the place of publishing his own cruising videos, he started publishing documentary videos related to narrowboats and canals on his YouTube channel.

In November 2023, he bought a 48-year-old Microplus 600 boat. The boat is 20-feet long and made of fibreglass.

Personal life-

David is a divorcé and is single.

Some interesting facts about David & narrowboating-

• His favourite canal is Macclesfield Canal in England.
• While living in the narrowboat, winter wasn’t an issue for him as narrowboats usually have wood burners, stoves and central heating but summer used to be an issue as narrow boats are essentially a steel tube which heats up due to the greenhouse effect.
• While boating, spring was David’s favourite season because in spring, the temperatures weren’t too hot and also, there was a lot of new life on the canals especially ducklings and there weren’t too many boats around.
• He loves cheese and cheese sandwiches.

So, how are you inspired by the success story of David Johns?

Share with me in the comment section below.