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Narrow boat, but where?


Pluto

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Doesn't look like an English narrow boat. 

 

There were some quite narrow boats in France so I agree with the above post plus the architecture. 

 

Not really looked into it but Canal de Briare comes to mind for some reason. 

Edited by magnetman
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Boat looks definitely English (or S. Wales maybe) but never having been to Wisbech I don't know. still looks French to me, especially with those little dormer windows in the church roof. S'pose there could be flemish architectural influences in that part of the world? I think what I am saying is that I have not got the foggiest.

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54 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Doesn't look like an English narrow boat. 

 

There were some quite narrow boats in France so I agree with the above post plus the architecture. 

 

Not really looked into it but Canal de Briare comes to mind for some reason. 

That was my first thought. Hasn’t Athy been to that canal?

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It's a very, very basic narrow boat, double ended (and possibly not floating!) - while France had narrow boats (Berrichon) and they made it to the Canal de Briare this doesn't look like one. A traditional Berrichon had  a square stern, and having seen so many french boats a couple of weeks ago, that's a very common feature of wooden boats of all sizes in France. But the church really doesn't look English at all!

 

Unless those openings are bridges for boats with no cabins, then it's at a terminal basin, and I can't think of such off the Canal de Briare although my knowledge isn't 100% comprehensive. I wonder if this boat has wondered off the canal system altogether and found it's way onto some fenland like waterway!

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53 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

That was my first thought. Hasn’t Athy been to that canal?

We hired from Briare recently, but cruised in the opposite direction, down the Canal Lateral A La Loire - so, nearly!

10 minutes ago, Pluto said:

A lock on the same canal, again circa 1910.

DSC_0040.jpg

Did any French canal lock gates have balance beams? Most (all?) of the ones I've seen have been wound open and closed by a wheel.

Curiouser and curiouser.

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10 minutes ago, Athy said:

 

Did any French canal lock gates have balance beams? Most (all?) of the ones I've seen have been wound open and closed by a wheel.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Yes they did and some (such as the canal d'Ille et Rance) still do - the winding mechanism was an improvement probably in the 19th century

 

I've also seen on the Canal de Nantes et Brest abandoned locks that had neither babalnce beams or gears, but rods fastened to the gate mitre that one pulled on to open and pushed on to close

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The photos are pf the Wiener Neustadt Kanal, which linked Vienna with the coalmining area around Wiener Neustadt. It was around 30 miles in length, and was built as an English narrow canal after the engineer, Sebastian Maillard, visited England in 1795. The canal opened throughout in 1803, though the planned extension to Trieste never materialised. I have been working with local canal historians and the museum at Traiskirchen on a new exhibition which features a half-sized boat, as seen in the first photo. The second photo is of the Canal de la Sauldre, which is about 30 miles south of Orleans. I visited it last month whilst at the Festival de Loire. The canal was primarily for agriculture, and was built in the 1850s. After the Napoleonic War, the French had a national scheme for canals and navigations, with narrow canals being of the second class, and tub boat canals third class. Over 1000km of second class canals were proposed, with only the Berry, l'Ourq and Sauldre being constructed, although there were a couple of narrow locks on water supplies to wide canals.

DSC_0018.jpg

DSC_0072.jpg

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The Sauldre was apparently built to link two rivers, neither of which was navigable. Sounds like a winner.

I'm rather perplexed by your last post. When you say "photos", are you referring to the two old ones which you posted earlier? If so, did you actually know the answer before you asked the question?

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3 hours ago, Bee said:

Well thats a lot of stuff that I didn't know. Was that canal 7` x 70 ish? If it was can we expect hundreds of narrowboats appearing on it?

The Wiener Neustadt Kanal was originally very similar to English canal dimensions, though the lock and bridge width was increased to around 8 feet on those parts built during the later phase of construction. French 'narrow' canals usually had locks 2.7 metres wide, with America also having a number of canals with 10 feet width, usually built 1820s to 1830s, and often widened within twenty years of opening.

 

The narrow canal seems to have been capable of supporting the development of existing industries, but was too small for new industries. The last to be built here, the Birmingham & Liverpool, 1825-35, probably marks the start of full industrialisation, with the period prior to this being more 'revolutionary', where new industrial techniques were introduced. From the 1830s, these techniques were refined, which required a much more academic approach to technology. UK technical education was, and probably remains, poor, which accounts for why the rest of Europe caught up with our industrial developments in the second half of the 19th century. They always had much superior academic technical education, though those within this system prior to the 1840s did not have the necessary practical skills needed to develop industry at that period. The UK, where almost all 'engineers' were craftsmen until the 1840s, did have the necessary knowledge for such developments. but did not have the requisite educational system to keep their lead as industrialisation continued. Sebastian Maillard, who was the first engineer for the Wiener Neustadt Kanal, wrote a book about canal building, published in 1817, in which he shows he was far in advance of our 'engineers' in terms of developing a theoretical understanding of civil engineering, such as developing formulae for stresses in lock gates and for soil stability.

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