Can you get a 68ft narrowboat down the Rufford Branch?

[Bob12348]

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this. 

 

I have a fairly stupid question, and I know this topic has been talked about quite a bit, but they are all fairly old. I have a 70ft ex black prince narrowboat, if I take the 2ft stern fender off and possibly the front one, we can get the boat down to under 68ft. I know it has been said that max narrowboat that has got though was 64ft, but I've measured the locks on Google maps, the locks are 70ft long and take away 2ft for the cill and the gates to open, you might just get a 68ft through, it's highly doubtful. But when the time comes and I'm in the area, I will give it a go none the less.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Have you measured the actual length of your boat? This can vary quite a bit from the official length!

Are you planning to do the Ribble Link? If so, you'll have trouble booking it if your boat exceeds the max length/beam limits. Computer will say no, based on the length that CaRT have in their system for your boat. These limits are based around negotiating some sharp bends in a narrow channel, more than the lock sizes.

Jen

Below, a 60' boat going backwards down the top Salterhebble Lock on the Calder and Hebble, officially 57'6" and the hardest one to do in an over long boat.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Jen-in-Wellies

[Bob12348]

Well, officially it is 69ft 6in, so even if I do make it though the severn locks, I probably can't book in anyway. I wonder how that 64ft managed to get on the ribble link? As for the Calder and Hebble, I know I don't have a chance in hell, so it'll be back down the huddersfield narrow and rochdale when we do those 🤣

[dmr]

49 minutes ago, Bob12348 said:

Well, officially it is 69ft 6in, so even if I do make it though the severn locks, I probably can't book in anyway. I wonder how that 64ft managed to get on the ribble link? As for the Calder and Hebble, I know I don't have a chance in hell, so it'll be back down the huddersfield narrow and rochdale when we do those 🤣

 

Not sure I fully understand what you are saying.  You can do both the Rochdale and the HNC individually as there and back routes, but you can not do them as a ring as the Calder and Hebble gets in the way.  Actually from the Rochdale you can get into the SalerHebble top lock to use it as a winding hole, but you can't get the gates shut, 😀

[Bob12348]

1 hour ago, dmr said:

 

Not sure I fully understand what you are saying.  You can do both the Rochdale and the HNC individually as there and back routes, but you can not do them as a ring as the Calder and Hebble gets in the way.  Actually from the Rochdale you can get into the SalerHebble top lock to use it as a winding hole, but you can't get the gates shut, 😀

That's what I mean, I can't cross the pennines so we have to go back down both of the canals. The huddersfield narrow is only 20 miles long and has 74 locks, luckily I do like locking.

[Bod]

6 hours ago, Bob12348 said:

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this. 

 

I have a fairly stupid question, and I know this topic has been talked about quite a bit, but they are all fairly old. I have a 70ft ex black prince narrowboat, if I take the 2ft stern fender off and possibly the front one, we can get the boat down to under 68ft. I know it has been said that max narrowboat that has got though was 64ft, but I've measured the locks on Google maps, the locks are 70ft long and take away 2ft for the cill and the gates to open, you might just get a 68ft through, it's highly doubtful. But when the time comes and I'm in the area, I will give it a go none the less.

Try the same exercise, with a 68 foot long, 7 foot wide rectangle.

Remember the boat has width, as well as length.

 

Bod

[dmr]

and also note that the Google image is not looking directly down on the lock, but looking at a slight "upstream" angle. I don't know if Google correct for this but when I compared a Google image with real on the ground measurements there was a small but not insignificant difference.

[Pluto]

These were the dimensions in the 1890s. German's Lock is the shortest, with a maximum of 67.4 feet. I did stop a full length narrow boat in the top lock once after they had been able to close the gates and start draining the chamber. The boat was starting to sit on the cill when I got there.

[Clanky]

According to Nicholsons max length on the Rufford branch is 62ft.

[magpie patrick]

On 03/07/2022 at 11:33, Bob12348 said:

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read this. 

 

I have a fairly stupid question, and I know this topic has been talked about quite a bit, but they are all fairly old. I have a 70ft ex black prince narrowboat, if I take the 2ft stern fender off and possibly the front one, we can get the boat down to under 68ft. I know it has been said that max narrowboat that has got though was 64ft, but I've measured the locks on Google maps, the locks are 70ft long and take away 2ft for the cill and the gates to open, you might just get a 68ft through, it's highly doubtful. But when the time comes and I'm in the area, I will give it a go none the less.

 

Unless your boat has a bowsprit for the front couple of feet it won't fit behind that bottom gate

 

I took my own 62 foot narrow boat thought, which is the notional maximum, you could add a couple of feet but no way could you have added another six. 

The risk is, going down (which is the direction you'll have to go) that you'll catch the cill with the front end already jammed into a corner at the bottom end of the lock - messy... 

[Bob12348]

3 hours ago, Pluto said:

These were the dimensions in the 1890s. German's Lock is the shortest, with a maximum of 67.4 feet. I did stop a full length narrow boat in the top lock once after they had been able to close the gates and start draining the chamber. The boat was starting to sit on the cill when I got there.

Wow, OK thanks for that, extra info. Starting to see the problems now.

[Bob12348]

18 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

Unless your boat has a bowsprit for the front couple of feet it won't fit behind that bottom gate

 

I took my own 62 foot narrow boat thought, which is the notional maximum, you could add a couple of feet but no way could you have added another six. 

The risk is, going down (which is the direction you'll have to go) that you'll catch the cill with the front end already jammed into a corner at the bottom end of the lock - messy... 

Yep to big of a risk, In fact I think it would less risky to take it out on the sea and around to the ribble link, which I will not be doing 😅

 

The way I see it I have 3 options, shorten the boat, which is a logistical nightmare, and expensive. I could get it craned there for 2k, but is it really worth it? Finally I could buy a wilderness beaver, which I want to do anyway, so I can trailer it to isolated canals like the montgomery and Mon and brec.

 

I just wish the crt would extend the 7 locks, just by 6ft to allow full length boats to get to a FULL LENGTH BOAT CANAL.

[dmr]

1 hour ago, Bob12348 said:

Yep to big of a risk, In fact I think it would less risky to take it out on the sea and around to the ribble link, which I will not be doing 😅

 

The way I see it I have 3 options, shorten the boat, which is a logistical nightmare, and expensive. I could get it craned there for 2k, but is it really worth it? Finally I could buy a wilderness beaver, which I want to do anyway, so I can trailer it to isolated canals like the montgomery and Mon and brec.

 

I just wish the crt would extend the 7 locks, just by 6ft to allow full length boats to get to a FULL LENGTH BOAT CANAL.

 

The new locks on the Ribble link were built to 70foot as I believe the Historic NarrowBoat club requested this arguing that extending the Rufford Arm locks to full length is not a huge job and might just be possible in the future.

[magpie patrick]

3 hours ago, Bob12348 said:

Yep to big of a risk, In fact I think it would less risky to take it out on the sea and around to the ribble link, which I will not be doing 😅

 

The way I see it I have 3 options, shorten the boat, which is a logistical nightmare, and expensive. I could get it craned there for 2k, but is it really worth it? Finally I could buy a wilderness beaver, which I want to do anyway, so I can trailer it to isolated canals like the montgomery and Mon and brec.

 

I just wish the crt would extend the 7 locks, just by 6ft to allow full length boats to get to a FULL LENGTH BOAT CANAL.

 Get the Wilderness - you know you want to!

 

If you really want to do the Rufford Branch/Ribble Link you may want something more like my Viking 23 for crossing the Ribble, or just cadge a lift with someone else  

[Mike Todd]

We took our 60ft down to the last winding hole before Tarleton today and found it a tight squeeze to turn around. Bear this in mind if trying with anything just a bit longer.

 

When we came down the locks a few days back I looked to see what spare room we had, bearing in mind we still had fenders down.  The shortest seemed to be the lower 4 to 6 but being shallower the cill really did not emerge so went by cill markers. I would not want to try much more than our length although diagonal might add a little more.  I doubt anything over 62 has a chance and I would not want to advise on over 60, really.