Wanted:Bluewater high powered Narrowboat

[GILow]

Originally Posted by CruiserDerrick

Hi.....if you are going to single hand.....and have a narrow boat over 50 ft and you are looking...try to find one WITH a Bow thruster......some of the turns are right angle and more and its difficult to do without a "hand" on the bow.

Great post, thank you. Agree about the tight turns. Getting from the North Stratford onto the Grand Union took a bit of thinking with the 60 footer.

[CaptJPMcGuire]

Originally Posted by jmh2002

Look up and watch the TV series "Great Canal Journeys" to see a lot of cool adventures

https://trakt.tv/shows/great-canal-journeys

New York and Canada have a great canal system. Readeau to Ottawa and back through lake Champlain. Was great in s GB 42

[CruiserDerrick]

Whoa...…..this is not boating as we know it in North America...this is moving your house along a ditch filled with water and occasionally or not....lifting the boat or lowering the boat in that ditch. Because they are shallow...i.e. fall in, stand up....you tend to collect the detritus that normally sinks to the bottom...this is in the genre of sleeping bags, bicycles, dead things and in some instances old mattresses...the access box to the propeller is not a nice to have, its a must....you cannot dive the prop on these boats.....well, you can...but its an exercise in moving mud.

chartplotters…...you have canal books, port to port is a nice to...if you see the boat coming and you happen to be on the port side of the canal....otherwise, its pass as you see fit.

you can spend months going a few miles and for some reason....or reasons...its very satisfying...which is why some people, i.e.
David on Cruising the cut have severed land ties to some extent and find satisfaction in moving your house hourly...…

when we cruise the cut, one of us often hops off and walks alongside the boat for exercise and to meet the locals....people, dogs, cats, cows and sheep.....all part of the canal culture....

[weavis]

I have a long history of Canal affiliation. Years of 2 weeks a year and many friends on the Lancaster Canal to which I owe a debt of gratitude for the introduction to different local beers.. I had the fishing boats for the sea, then moved on up to sail boats... and they had the peaceful pottering homes that I grew to love.

Its boating. Its amazing and wet and rainy and sometimes solitary... but always boating. Its called cruising on the canals.

There is a problem. A person could indeed get used to the quiet and the surroundings of nature. It then becomes an addiction.

[jmh2002]

I remember the first time I went into the canals in Holland - putting along and looking out the surrounding green fields, and having the dairy cows looking back at me. Strange, different, and interesting, compared to classic saltwater boating, but as you said, still always boating.

Originally Posted by CruiserDerrick

...most narrow boats have a solid fuel stove...which you will want to use on those wonderful dreary English summer nights...lol...…

the pubs are great...but it plays hell with your cruising budget.....they are not cheap...

Note to self, a canal boat must have not only it's own heating setup but also it's own beer keg setup too

[weavis]

Originally Posted by jmh2002

I remember the first time I went into the canals in Holland - putting along and looking out the surrounding green fields, and having the dairy cows looking back at me. Strange, different, and interesting, compared to classic saltwater boating, but as you said, still always boating.



Note to self, a canal boat must have not only it's own heating setup but also it's own beer keg setup too

Here in Seville, I pay about €1:25 for a pint (£1) ... In UK is £3 and upwards with Guinness being £5. A glass of wine here is about £1:50 and in the UK is £4 upwards....

Probably be cheaper for me to dig a canal network in Spain...

[GILow]

As Toad says...

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats"

[ben2go]

Some of the Luxe Motor and Tjalk barge boats are fairly narrow, not 6'10" canal boat narrow, and are rated by the EU system to be seagoing. My favorite is Branson's Amy.


Luxe Motor 34 and 40ft Dutch barges | Branson Boat Design Dutch Barges


I am looking at building the 45' Teign Motor Barge by Selway Fisher to use coastal in the US. I received the study plans this weekend for review to decide if I want to buy the full plan set to build. So far, yes, I think I will build her.



Motor Boats over 30'

[GILow]

Originally Posted by ben2go

Some of the Luxe Motor and Tjalk barge boats are fairly narrow, not 6'10" canal boat narrow, and are rated by the EU system to be seagoing. My favorite is Branson's Amy.


Luxe Motor 34 and 40ft Dutch barges | Branson Boat Design Dutch Barges


I am looking at building the 45' Teign Motor Barge by Selway Fisher to use coastal in the US. I received the study plans this weekend for review to decide if I want to buy the full plan set to build. So far, yes, I think I will build her.



Motor Boats over 30'

I assume you have read KnottyBouyz build thread?

[ben2go]

Originally Posted by GILow

I assume you have read KnottyBouyz build thread?

Yes, among many many others. He is building a stretched TW28 in stitch-n-goo. I was following his blog but blogger is acting up and not sending updates.

[Buzzman]

Originally Posted by fatherchronica

I read years ago a book called " The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow". The author took his boat for a couple hundred miles on canals through England, then when he got to the Thames, decided to cross the English Channel as an end to his voyage. But then he decided to try some French channels. He eventually went all the way to the Black Sea, via canals and the Danube. It was sort of a bare bones boat to be sure, but his budget was small.

The author of whom you speak is Sandy Mackinnon, an Australian who was teaching at a private English boys school back in the last century, and who sailed a **Mirror dinghy** he called 'Jack de Crow' from near Bristol to the Black Sea, having loads of adventures on the way.

Along with Frank Dye he is a legend of the 'dinghy cruising' fraternity.

He has only recently retired from teaching at Geelong Grammar's Timbertop school in Victoria, the place where Prince Charles was schooled for a year or so back in the Fifties.

I have had personal communication with him and published this as an interview in 'Furthest South' the Journal of the Australasian Branch of The Arthur Ransome Society.

Sandy is a huge fan and was to some degree inspired by Ransome's Swallows & Amazons adventures in dinghys.

"The Unlikely Adventures of Jack de Crow" is an excellent read. Still in print, available online. Google it.

The article from FS is here if anyone would like to read it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19qqmpqllq..._2017.pdf?dl=0

[fatherchronica]

My cat is named after Pye.

[weavis]

What I can tell you regarding canal boats... you can get ANYTHING that you desire and its available used or built to order. I have a price limit in place, and its down to just finding it......... but its out there..

The other thing I noticed, I had some hard fixed requirements, but the more I look the more I see some matter and some are flexible. I have a length requirement for 57 foot max, and yet the more I examine vessels, I have seen that one particular layout at 47 foot more than adequately fitted the bill, and that 60 foot maximum would not restrict my cruising locations at all.

Research is essential.

The red lines indicate that a 60 footer might struggle in the locks, but I am assured that placing the boat in the lock on an angle will work.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by weavis

The red lines indicate that a 60 footer might struggle in the locks, but I am assured that placing the boat in the lock on an angle will work.

The WHAT? I can only assume you are not talking about the narrow canals here. The greatest angle you could get a boat at in one of those is about 0.0003 degrees from dead straight.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by GILow

The WHAT? I can only assume you are not talking about the narrow canals here. The greatest angle you could get a boat at in one of those is about 0.0003 degrees from dead straight.

Well .. you will have to disagree with several cruisers who regularly cruise the Calder and Hebble and who get their 60 footers through the locks...