Narrowboats and the good old USA

[ditchcrawler]

Didn't Gary Peacock have a good search engine for this group, lighthouse.

 

[PennsylvaniaKnowledge]

Well to transport a narrowboat to a river would be the issue Pennsylvania law limits the size of trailers "Total length: 75 feet (includes bumpers); trailer length: not specified; width: 102 inches (mirrors and sun shades may extend up to 6 inches on each side of vehicle); height: 13 feet 6 inches." Even our larger Tractor Trailers are around 73 feet and that is the whole thing, so the longest narrowboat that could be transported without a large verity if permits would probably be 45 feet or so and I am guessing it would still be considered overweight. It may be able to be brought up from Louisiana via the Mississippi river to the Ohio river then to the Allegheny river in Pittsburgh but the cost alone is staggering and I am not even sure if you may have to have it brought on a barge. The Mississippi may be to swift for them(narrowboats)! still researching though! I have heard a few daring people crossing the channel in them so it needs some think through. 

[TheBiscuits]

1 hour ago, Kudzucraft said:

Funny to read all the stereotyping in this thread. 

I agree that most places a Narrow Boat makes no sense. I live on the Tennessee River and one would be down right dangerous on a windy stormy day.  But the US dwarfs the UK in size and diversity and to say they wouldn't work in the US is a painting with a broad brush. There are lots of places where they would fit and work well. 

 

The only valid reason to have something as stupid in design as a narrowboat is so it fits through 7 feet wide locks in a 3 foot deep ditch.  If the narrow English canals hadn't already been built to that size we wouldn't have them either!

 

There are much better designs of boat for anything else.

 

I accept your point about there being a variety of places where they would work in the USA as well as they work in the UK (ie not very!) but I suspect that there are already many different boats in most of those locations that are a better fit for local conditions than a narrowboat.

[1agos]

I was at a dinner at my sisters  house in Wisconsin with her american friends, when the conversation came round to my canal life and how back in the day the boats were horse drawn.   One of the women commented that the canals couldn't of been very deep or the horses would drown. ???

 

[mrsmelly]

23 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

The only valid reason to have something as stupid in design as a narrowboat is so it fits through 7 feet wide locks in a 3 foot deep ditch.  If the narrow English canals hadn't already been built to that size we wouldn't have them either!

 

There are much better designs of boat for anything else.

 

I accept your point about there being a variety of places where they would work in the USA as well as they work in the UK (ie not very!) but I suspect that there are already many different boats in most of those locations that are a better fit for local conditions than a narrowboat.

Agreed, the only reason I own one is I have no choice if wanting to go very far in the UK. My widebeam was superior in every way. Peeps take em to France and other places which is just plain daft.

[Scholar Gypsy]

5 minutes ago, 1agos said:

I was at a dinner at my sisters  house in Wisconsin with her american friends, when the conversation came round to my canal life and how back in the day the boats were horse drawn.   One of the women commented that the canals couldn't of been very deep or the horses would drown. ???

 

On the River Cam in Cambridge the towpath was down the middle of the river, in about three feet of water. The Colleges did not want grubby bargees trampling on their lawns.

 

You can still feel the stone slabs with a punt pole. I have a good photo in a book, but it is (of course) on the boat ... 

[magpie patrick]

5 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

The only valid reason to have something as stupid in design as a narrowboat is so it fits through 7 feet wide locks in a 3 foot deep ditch.  If the narrow English canals hadn't already been built to that size we wouldn't have them either!

 

 

 

4 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Agreed, the only reason I own one is I have no choice if wanting to go very far in the UK. My widebeam was superior in every way. Peeps take em to France and other places which is just plain daft.

Whilst I get the sentiment the narrow boat has become a global brand - aside from it's historic wanderings to France and Vienna (as cited by @Pluto) I've travelled much of the world and there are two things people world wide seem to know about us - Premiership football and narrow boats. They've spread to Ireland and France in common use, and I've seen a very endearing caricature of a narrow boat on the Erie Canal and an awful pastiche of one on the Gota Canal. I met a guy in Alice Springs who claimed never to have left the outback but he spoke in wonder of our narrow boats cos he'd seen them in National Geographic, and on the same trip I met a guy how seemed quite serious suggesting one for a trip boat on the big artificial lake in Canberra

 

No one has yet asked me about taking one to the Irrawady or the Zambezi, but given they're made in China one on the Yangtze is surely only a matter of time...

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, magpie patrick said:

 

Whilst I get the sentiment the narrow boat has become a global brand - aside from it's historic wanderings to France and Vienna (as cited by @Pluto) I've travelled much of the world and there are two things people world wide seem to know about us - Premiership football and narrow boats. They've spread to Ireland and France in common use, and I've seen a very endearing caricature of a narrow boat on the Erie Canal and an awful pastiche of one on the Gota Canal. I met a guy in Alice Springs who claimed never to have left the outback but he spoke in wonder of our narrow boats cos he'd seen them in National Geographic, and on the same trip I met a guy how seemed quite serious suggesting one for a trip boat on the big artificial lake in Canberra

 

No one has yet asked me about taking one to the Irrawady or the Zambezi, but given they're made in China one on the Yangtze is surely only a matter of time...

Yes its bonkers. As a design they are truly awful and just about any other type of boat makes more sense. However they do have a following as you say, a bit like Sherlock Holmes I think they are looked upon as English eccentricity? 

[TheBiscuits]

8 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

As a design they are truly awful

I suppose if you want to be fair that for their original purpose - a floating skip that can be pulled by one horse - they are OK.

 

[ditchcrawler]

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

A 'narrowboat' (I use the term loosely) made it home from the US under its own power.

 

Springer boats were built to all sizes but most have two distinguishing features: a raised splash board at the bow and, less visibly, a v-shaped hull rather than the usual flat bottom. They were also among the first boats to be built entirely out of steel rather than with a wooden cabin. Springers do have a tendency to look a little boxy, which does nothing for their reputation among waterways connoisseurs, but they are still lovable boats with a colourful history that, as the years have passed, has lent them a certain rakish charm. Belying their reputation, Springer boats also appear to be impressively hard-wearing with thousands still in use despite the fact the company closed down in the mid-1990s. And Springer boats aren’t just confined to the English waterways – in 1990, the boatyard built the Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic from New York to Falmouth. Not bad for a company whose first boats were made from a scrapped gasometer.

 

http://canalrivertrustwaterfront.org.uk/heritage/a-thrifty-beginning/

 

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

A 'narrowboat' (I use the term loosely) made it home from the US under its own power.

 

 Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic

The whale was much cooler.

 

https://www.mby.com/news/whale-boat-carbon-neutral-atlantic-crossing-51826

 

 

Useless as a boat, but cool!

 

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

The whale was much cooler.

Did Sam build that one as well ?

 

[howardang]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

A 'narrowboat' (I use the term loosely) made it home from the US under its own power.

 

Springer boats were built to all sizes but most have two distinguishing features: a raised splash board at the bow and, less visibly, a v-shaped hull rather than the usual flat bottom. They were also among the first boats to be built entirely out of steel rather than with a wooden cabin. Springers do have a tendency to look a little boxy, which does nothing for their reputation among waterways connoisseurs, but they are still lovable boats with a colourful history that, as the years have passed, has lent them a certain rakish charm. Belying their reputation, Springer boats also appear to be impressively hard-wearing with thousands still in use despite the fact the company closed down in the mid-1990s. And Springer boats aren’t just confined to the English waterways – in 1990, the boatyard built the Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic from New York to Falmouth. Not bad for a company whose first boats were made from a scrapped gasometer.

 

http://canalrivertrustwaterfront.org.uk/heritage/a-thrifty-beginning/

 

 

 

I remember the bottle boat visiting Hull Marina for a week or two before its Transatlantic trip. I went on board while it was in Hull and wasn't impressed; it was extremely spartan and I would think very uncomfortable at sea.

 

Hull

 

[TheBiscuits]

16 minutes ago, howardang said:

I remember the bottle boat visiting Hull Marina for a week or two before its Transatlantic trip. I went on board while it was in Hull and wasn't impressed; it was extremely spartan and I would think very uncomfortable at sea.

 

Who Dares Swims

 

It's not quite the SAS motto but it's appropriate!

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Springer boats were built to all sizes but most have two distinguishing features: a raised splash board at the bow and, less visibly, a v-shaped hull rather than the usual flat bottom.

 

Veering off at a tangent, does anyone know why Sam built them this way?

 

Given that every expense was spared in their design and construction, a v-bottom seems to introduce a lot of unnecessary complication to construction and fit-out, and handling during construction.

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Veering off at a tangent, does anyone know why Sam built them this way?

 

Given that every expense was spared in their design and construction, a v-bottom seems to introduce a lot of unnecessary complication to construction and fit-out, and handling during construction.

 

 

 

Because 2 thin plates joined in a shallow V shape have as much structural strength as the same thickness of flat plate with 2 x 2" steel box section.

 

The V is harder to form but requires a lot less material to do so.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Veering off at a tangent, does anyone know why Sam built them this way?

 

Given that every expense was spared in their design and construction, a v-bottom seems to introduce a lot of unnecessary complication to construction and fit-out, and handling during construction.

 

 

Extra strength for very thin metal ?

[MtB]

Just now, TheBiscuits said:

 

Because 2 thin plates joined in a shallow V shape have as much structural strength as the same thickness of flat plate with 2 x 2" steel box section.

 

The V is harder to form but requires a lot less material to do so.

 

 

Ah yes, I knew there would be a reason. Use much thinner steel.

 

Must be a close-run thing though, given that subsequent bargain basement hull builders ALL choose to do it the 'flat baseplate' way. 

 

 

But interestingly, the only Springer I've even had occasion to use a hole saw to drill a waste hole through the hull on, turned out to be built from 5mm steel. Might even have been 6mm, surprisingly thick anyway, a lot thicker than the 3mm I was expecting. 

[TheBiscuits]

Just now, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ah yes, I knew there would be a reason. Use much thinner steel.

 

Must be a close-run thing though, given that subsequent bargain basement hull builders ALL choose to do it the 'flat baseplate' way. 

 

 

 

I suspect the trade-off between material costs and labour costs swung the other way over time.  Your earlier point about extra complexity/cost for the fitout is correct, but depends entirely on the two price points.

 

Don't forget Springers built flat bottomed boats too, and in fact some with semi-flat bottoms and well defined chines.

 

 

[MtB]

28 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Don't forget Springers built flat bottomed boats too, and in fact some with semi-flat bottoms and well defined chines.

 

 

My guess would be he was experimenting looking for the cheapest-to-build middle ground. Must have been a total ball-ache never being able to just 'put a boat down' and have it sit square on the ground. Particularly when the next thing to do was get inside to do more work on it. 

[mrsmelly]

9 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

I suspect the trade-off between material costs and labour costs swung the other way over time.  Your earlier point about extra complexity/cost for the fitout is correct, but depends entirely on the two price points.

 

Don't forget Springers built flat bottomed boats too, and in fact some with semi-flat bottoms and well defined chines.

 

 

What the hell is a  " Price point " ? sounds like nonsense to me 

[Balliol]

10 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Extra strength for very thin metal ?

 

10 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Veering off at a tangent, does anyone know why Sam built them this way?

 

Given that every expense was spared in their design and construction, a v-bottom seems to introduce a lot of unnecessary complication to construction and fit-out, and handling during construction.

 

 

I am a great fan of Springers for their no nonsense sheer value for money and proven longevity. My first narrowboat was a Springer. However, as with many other “narrowboat” builders in the sixties/seventies you got the distinct impression that the builder had never really sat down and looked at a narrow boat. Nor had they actually used one and appreciated why the design features were what they were. You see the same today with some so-called “Dutch barge” designs, which bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the real thing. It is quite possible that Sam looked at a Dawncraft or any other typical canal cruiser of the time and simply assumed that a v bottom was the norm.
 

Folding the plates was no problem to an established fabrication shop and saved a certain amount of welding.

[MtB]

10 minutes ago, Balliol said:

I am a great fan of Springers for their no nonsense sheer value for money and proven longevity.

 

Same here, I didn't mean to be derogatory about them. I very nearly built one myself back in the day but lost my nerve at the last minute. Few seem to remember that Springers were sold in flat-pack kit form back in the late 70s for DIY welding up into a finished shell. I couldn't believe those newly available 13A stick welders would actually weld properly, and bottled it. One of the few regrets in my life. 

 

One of my minor hobby horses is Springers are iconic historic craft too now, and I think Posh Tim ought to include them in the Braunston Rally. 

 

 

[Balliol]

On 04/04/2020 at 09:58, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Same here, I didn't mean to be derogatory about them. I very nearly built one myself back in the day but lost my nerve at the last minute. Few seem to remember that Springers were sold in flat-pack kit form back in the late 70s for DIY welding up into a finished shell. I couldn't believe those newly available 13A stick welders would actually weld properly, and bottled it. One of the few regrets in my life. 

 

One of my minor hobby horses is Springers are iconic historic craft too now, and I think Posh Tim ought to include them in the Braunston Rally. 

 

 

I don’t remember Sam Springer selling kits, but will stand corrected. Are you sure you are not thinking of Hancock & Lane?