Following our trip, here’s a summary of the boats and boat companies from my subjective perspective.
Le Boat has one big advantage: it has a lot of bases, so you can start one place and end another (as appealed to me with Castelnaudary to Port Cassafières). This also means you’ve got guaranteed free parking space a few times along the way. As noted elsewhere, they have the usual monopoly type position – the product isn’t very good and service is underfunded, with the actual operational staff having to cope with the tension while the company owners skim off the cash.
Locaboat Holidays is the next biggest in terms of bases and boats; their boats look quite new but they’re mainly of type “penichette”, where the driving position is always indoors, which I wouldn’t have enjoyed anywhere near as much.
Third is Nichols, which is mainly based at the lovely Le Somail. Their boats all seemed to be well maintained and that would be the pick if we ever come back to the Canal du Midi – a long weekend on a Nichols boat from Le Somail to Narbonne and back again.
Fourth and final is Les Canalous. I did see some nice craft from this firm, but most of them were shambolic and definitely didn’t have bow thrusters leading to some of the worst lockwork I witnessed. Avoid.
Timsformational 