Dutch barge style narrowboats

[Iain_S]

7 hours ago, magnetman said:

Aesthetics are just a matter of opinion.

 

Everyone has a different view and all views are tolerated even if anyone who thinks a pram hood is a Good Idea is basically wrong.

 

 

It's alright to be wrong. Nobody died from being wrong. You just have to accept that a pram hood on a canal boat is a basic wrong thing and move on.

 

 

General Sedgwick?

[ditchcrawler]

How about this 

[jupiter1124]

17 hours ago, magnetman said:

Not sure if this one is narrow but if it is there will be problems at bridges on narrow canals.

 

There are things that can be done within the design envelope and things which will make the boat unusable.

Could this be mitigated with an extra deep draught and/or reduced headroom, particularly at the cabin corners?

I have a "normal" narrowboat with reasonable tumblehome. My boat is 5' wide at the cabin corners (vs 5'9" if the 3' cabin sides were vertical) but I have never really come close to touching bridges, I cannot picture the extra 4" of width each side making a big difference, and even if it did, I think this could be solved quite easily with a more rounded roof, cutting off the corners somewhat.

Something like this:

[DHutch]

On 02/05/2023 at 17:04, IanD said:

Love steam boats but they don't half get through a shedload of fuel, as I'm sure @DHutch will testify... 😉

Wasn't a problem at all till the last couple of years.

£220/ton £20 a day, easy to buy, best Welsh. Locally sourced, smokeless, good steam raising, delivered canalside on a pallet. 

 

However since buying anything from Russa fell out of favour, and the Welsh decided they want to keep it underground.

Coal has quadrupled in price, and massively decreased in quality. So yeah, sigh!

 

We are still a Dutch barge style steam narrowboat, however!

 

Dutch barge style narrowboats often have slightly wider gunnels, if your lucky you even get some shear on them running fore-aft.

So yes, with a wider gunnel, slightly deeper draught than some, the mild amount of tumble home 'conventional' boats have is mitigated.

 

We're around 2ft9 draft which we need for a decent prop for the slower engine anyway, and fit through all the bridge and low tunnels anyone else does. While still having plenty of room for someone 6ft2 to walk through the doorways and along the boat. The doors are full width to the top too!

 

Daniel