Average Height of Gunwales On A Narrowboat

[Narrowboat Vidar]

Hello there,

Does anyone know what the average height of the gunwales are on a narrowboat? From the interior floor to the interior gunwales.

Thanks

Edited June 9, 2020 by Narrowboat Vidar
Left Out Something

[Canal321]

Hello and welcome.

Average height from what? The water line, the base plate, or the interior floor level.

 

 

[Narrowboat Vidar]

5 minutes ago, Canal321 said:

Hello and welcome.

Average height from what? The water line, the base plate, or the interior floor level.

 

 

thankyou, from the interior floor, to the height of the interior gunwales

[blackrose]

I think mine are about 90cm/3ft. Are you trying to work out whether you can fit something underneath? I once cut 2" off the bottom of a thin wooden cabinet so I could get it underneath the gunwale and fit it to the interior wall of the boat.

[roland elsdon]

The average is meaningless. I have had two boats at 4’6” and one at 2’6”. Using those three to create an average would be futile.

[PeterF]

Mine are very close to 90cm as standard kitchen units with 3cm worktop fit flush under the gunwhale.

[OldGoat]

There's no absolute rule because it depends on the fabricator's practice and design, which of itself depends on the style of the boat that he's building at the time.

 

Sod's Law states that whatever you plan for will not be what you actually buy...

[Alan de Enfield]

Are you looking at the dimensions / height of the Gunwale with a view to finding a boat which can be classed as Zero rated for VAT ?

 

 

This is how it works:

• A VAT-free boat is known as a ‘qualifying ship’. There are two specific legal criteria for a qualifying ship.
• The first is that the boat has not been ‘designed or adapted’ for recreation or pleasure. The fact that your boat is designed as a live-aboard and not as a ‘pleasure craft’ means that it fulfills the first condition even if you are not intending to live aboard permanently or at all.
• The second criterion relates to gross tonnage. This gross tonnage figure must be not less than 15 tons.  Gross tonnage is to be calculated as under the Merchant Shipping Acts.  Where gross tonnage has not been certified in accordance with those Acts HMRC guidance in Notice 744C (available online) sets out a modified version of that calculation for VAT purposes.

 

 

The HMRC formula for calculating gross tonnage for vessels of less than 24m in length is as follows.

L (m) x B (m) x D (m) x 0.16 (see below for HMRC definitions of L,B & D)

HMRC then go on to specifically define the D measurement for canal boats and this is measured from under the top of what we know as the gunwale to the base plate.

As an interesting example, take ‘Panache’ the widebeam boat featured on our build diary of a huge 69’ long (L) x 11″ beam (B) with a height of 46” (D).

Let’s work out the calculation by first converting the imperial measurements to metric so we have:

21.03m x 3.35m x 1.16m = 81.35 x 0.16 = 13.01 gross tons… Not a qualifying vessel.

So here’s the interesting part in order to get a boat even of this size to qualify the standard (D) measurement would need another 190mm adding giving a (D) measurement of 1.35m. See the revised calculation below:

(21.03m x 3.35m x 1.35) = 95.10 multiplied by 0.16 = 15.21 gross tons, a qualifying ship.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Alan de Enfield

[Nightwatch]

I was going to say, ‘about that much’, which doesn’t help the OP.

[Bewildered]

Random question, any one know what the gunwales on a ship were called before the invention of the gun?

waitningfortheguntobeinventedwales seems a bit of a long winded name

[LadyG]

35 inches, my floor is about 15mm

Edited June 11, 2020 by LadyG

[Sea Dog]

Given the flavour of the replies you're getting due to  the non-standard nature of narrowboats, I wonder if a change of tack might help you get the info you need?  Perhaps coming at it from the point of view of what you are trying to achieve would help?  For example: I measured that height not too long ago but I can't recall the figure - however, I can tell you that the Nabru sofa I ordered fits under very nicely. 

 

[Slim]

On mine, in the galley, it's about 900 mm.  

[howardang]

7 hours ago, Bewildered said:

Random question, any one know what the gunwales on a ship were called before the invention of the gun?

waitningfortheguntobeinventedwales seems a bit of a long winded name

Bulwarks, possibly.

 

Howard

[WotEver]

4 minutes ago, howardang said:

Bulwarks, possibly.

And before Bulls were invented...?

[Alan de Enfield]

8 hours ago, Bewildered said:

Random question, any one know what the gunwales on a ship were called before the invention of the gun?

waitningfortheguntobeinventedwales seems a bit of a long winded name

It would be along time ago as the origin of Gunwale goes back to the 1400's

 

"Gunwale" is defined in the dictionary as the uppermost edge of a ship's side. That word originated in the late 15th century, when a "wale" was the name for a plank on a boat. ... So "wale" in nautical terminology came to represent a raised ridge line, and on boats, that was the plank running around the top of the sides.

 

According to Wikipedia :

 

Originally the structure was the "gun wale" on a sailing warship, a horizontal reinforcing band added at and above the level of a gun deck to offset the stresses created by firing artillery.

[Bewildered]

2 hours ago, howardang said:

Bulwarks, possibly.

 

Howard

That sounds as though they could be so named due to sailers climbing over them an catching themselves on their Bulwarks ?