NARROW BOATS

A

anchorout

New member
I have been watching two series on Amazon Prime, "Cruising the Cut" and "Travels by Narrowboat". They are about living aboard and traveling the canals of England.

Apparently during the industrial revolution in England, during the 1700s, the main means of commercial transportation were narrowboats on the 2,500 miles of man made canals. Today these canals are maintained by the state for recreational use only. They are much like the Erie Canal and the network of canals in the north of our country.

These boats, today, are about 10 ft wide by +50 ft long, with a tucked under prop and a tiny diesel engine. Top speed is 4 kts. I would guess they draw a foot or two and are mostly made of steel. Most are very modern and houseboat like. Some of these canals are wide but many are 25 ft or so, and watching helmsmen maneuvering these long narrow boats around curves, junctions, through tunnels, passing, etc. is amazing to see.

Both of the series cover several seasons and are quite fascinating.
 
I have had the opportunity to travel on a narrow boat in England for a day and I also photographed a canal boat journey in the Netherlands back in my photojournalist days. Both were enjoyable trips and would be a fun way to explore Europe. They are slow, so lots of patience is necessary.
 
We saw a lot of these narrow boats when we were there this last summer. We got to talk to a few owners here and there. the boats come in several sizes depending on which canal they travel and what product they were transporting. the narrowest boats were for the transport of china and pottery. It seems that the breakage rate of china transported by wagon was so hi that it was more cost efficient to dig the canals, as long as they were half the width of the coal barges, and trans port the pottery by barges. One guy said that it dropped the breakage rate by 95%. its amazing what the free market can create when it needs too.
 
As Localboy notes the "Narrow" boats of England are no more than 6'10" or 72 feet long. When you get to the canals of Europe the beam goes up to 18 feet for the major canals. Draft in the English system, (and Ireland) is maybe 3'6" max, but they suffer from lack of dredging and most of the recreational boats are less than 2'6". In Europe the canals some used to be 8 feet deep, but to be safe 5 feet is probably best. The major coastal canals are still about 9 feet deep.

What I found interesting is that some of the boats are iron planked. True forged. iron is quite rust resistant. We saw one boat (in the 1980's) which was still working and was 100 years old, with only a few "planks" replaced. The planks are riveted in place. Because of water and air draft we were restricted to only a very few canals in, France, Belgium, and Holland. There is still commerce in the European canals.

Slow, but idyllic cruising in nature.
 
I follow several narrow boat VLOGS. Cruising the Cut is great as is Foxes Afloat (really good video), and Journey with Jono (my favorite boat dog on this one). I find that YouTube does for me what TV never did, I get to actually interact with the sites/owenrs, often they reply to posts quickly and even the most pro video has an element of the natural about it. Here is one that is worth a few minutes (and perhaps we can use dynamic rope recovery to have a smaller boat recover a larger one):
Matt's Off Road Recovery (truly a nice human being owns this one)
bob jarrard
 
I could never quite get interested in English narrow boats after renting a DIY cruising barge in France. Better beer in England, but better wine in France. Greasy fish and chips versus French haute cuisine. Kidney pie versus goose liver pate. I've gone back to do this in France and would again, skipping the English skinny boats. Photos in my "2017 Travels" photo album.

Mark

102_0171.jpg Evening on a remote tie-up on the River Lot.
 
Mark, what an unforgettable way to see France. And you had bicycles that afforded you broader range of exploration by land. Outstanding.
 
If you want to spend some really pleasant time online, watch the series “Great Canal Journeys”. A BBC thing and you can find many of them on YouTube. I can’t get enough.
 
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