Shipping a narrowboat to France?

[Boaty Jo]

One thing to be aware of is that some of the northern French waterways are commercial and pretty large, some say not ideally suited to narrowboats.

This is partly because on-boat bollards are not ideally situated and gunwales and fore decks are not easy to walk around, particularly if you're in a panic.

With this in mind it's worth considering being dropped in mid-France, Migennes or St. Jean de Losne for example where there is access to smaller (and lovely) waterways.

The other point is that there is debate about how long these smaller waterways will be open due to funding. There are mutterings about closures so don't hang about too long.

[Scholar Gypsy]

9 hours ago, lifeintheslowlanes said:

 

Do they not even have a vhf set for in case of emergencies? I figure i'd rather rely on a vhf set than my mobile playing ball. Would be interested to know more! Shall give the article a read...

 

Link doesn't work, tries to redirect to a local iP address... assuming it's a file you have stored on a network storage device at home? Could you try and share the pdf via filebin.net or a similar service as it sounds like an interesting read? Cheers

No, Denver and Salters Lode don't use VHF, and haven't for a number of years. I am a big fan of VHF for tidal trips, but not this one.

 

Sorry about the link,  the words on the screen were correct, but remnants of the internal IP address remained in the link. This should work:

http://judgefamily.synology.me/scholargypsy/articles/Sarah_Henshaw_channel_Aug2016.pdf 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Scholar Gypsy

[magnetman]

Transport. 

 

I had my 16 tonne 32x11ft x 10ft high steel fishing boat moved by a company called ES Frisby and son (Peterborough) a week ago. 

 

This 

 

 

Boston, Lincolnshire to Reading, Berkshire. 140 miles.  £1000 for the transport. Add lifts at each end it came to under £1500 overall. 

 

Not sure if they do EU but worth asking. I hadn't come across them before but they did the job perfectly well. They shift a lot of the output from Fairline including big motor yachts.  I thought that was quite a good price but I think I may have benefitted from a back load ie fitted in with their existing plans. The job was done 4 days after I bought the boat so not much waiting !

 

ETA another transport company to ask is boat-shift.com. A forum member here used boatshift to move a small Branson barge to France.  They don't do large boats but a 45ft nb is ok I believe. 

 

They were also the best quote I received for my fishing boat but I would have had to wait an extra 10 days to fit in with them and get the good price. 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by magnetman

[Onewheeler]

7 hours ago, Boaty Jo said:

One thing to be aware of is that some of the northern French waterways are commercial and pretty large, some say not ideally suited to narrowboats.

This is partly because on-boat bollards are not ideally situated and gunwales and fore decks are not easy to walk around, particularly if you're in a panic.

With this in mind it's worth considering being dropped in mid-France, Migennes or St. Jean de Losne for example where there is access to smaller (and lovely) waterways.

The other point is that there is debate about how long these smaller waterways will be open due to funding. There are mutterings about closures so don't hang about too long.

All good points. However wash from the big boats is not really a problem when moving and they are mostly considerate. Mostly. Drag when moored is more of an issue. There have also been a lot of closures in recent years due to lack of water on the smaller and sometimes bigger canals.

 

Another thing to consider is how to operate locks. Are you single handing? Some of the locks are deep and need lines moved as you go up. You'll need to work out a procedure for going up and down. The usual method is to take a line from the front to a bollard and keep tension on it with the engine. Harder without a crew to control the rope.

 

[blackrose]

20 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I am using Ray Bowern ( Boathaulage.co.uk) (Bargemovers.com) next week.

 

 

I used Ray before. He's a good guy and will get you a decent quote.

[lifeintheslowlanes]

On 19/10/2019 at 07:10, Boaty Jo said:

One thing to be aware of is that some of the northern French waterways are commercial and pretty large, some say not ideally suited to narrowboats.

This is partly because on-boat bollards are not ideally situated and gunwales and fore decks are not easy to walk around, particularly if you're in a panic.

With this in mind it's worth considering being dropped in mid-France, Migennes or St. Jean de Losne for example where there is access to smaller (and lovely) waterways.

The other point is that there is debate about how long these smaller waterways will be open due to funding. There are mutterings about closures so don't hang about too long.

Yeah a few people have mentioned the wider stuff isn't as fun in a narrowboat. Shall Investigate that option too then cheers

On 19/10/2019 at 14:33, Onewheeler said:

All good points. However wash from the big boats is not really a problem when moving and they are mostly considerate. Mostly. Drag when moored is more of an issue. There have also been a lot of closures in recent years due to lack of water on the smaller and sometimes bigger canals.

 

Another thing to consider is how to operate locks. Are you single handing? Some of the locks are deep and need lines moved as you go up. You'll need to work out a procedure for going up and down. The usual method is to take a line from the front to a bollard and keep tension on it with the engine. Harder without a crew to control the rope.

 

Everything noted, will mostly be single handed, guess that's just something you pick up with time handling the boat in some of the deeper locks.