Handling a widebeam

[DeanS]

Hello In a few months, I'll be driving a shell of a widebeam back to our marina. I was wondering how different the handling of a 10ft widebeam is to a 6ft narrowboat. When I first stood at the tiller of a narrowboat, it really seemed soooooo long...but I got the hang of it. Standing at the back of a widebeam seems REALLY daunting....its long and fat....and wont have a bow thruster. Any peculiarities I havent considered yet? New learning curve.

[GSer]

It will be a breeze, the only real difference, I suspect, is that you will have to walk a step or two to peek down the sides

 

Good luck

[DeanS]

It will be a breeze, the only real difference, I suspect, is that you will have to walk a step or two to peek down the sides

 

Good luck

 

 

Couple of things I've realised.

 

Have to open BOTH lock gates instead of only 1.

Holding the boat in a wind against the towpath could be impossible.

Getting out the way of the big red boat that moors in Sprotbrough will be difficult. (Mad driver)

Cant share locks with narrowboats

[Daftmare]

An empty shell of a wide beam is tricky to manoeuvre because it can be very top heavy.

 

We came across a new widebeam on the K&A last year, on its maiden trip. The steerer was in all sorts of trouble, because the boat lacked ballast.

 

Probably talking rubbish here, but that is how it looked to me.

 

 

Is it your boat?

Jo.

[DeanS]

An empty shell of a wide beam is tricky to manoeuvre because it can be very top heavy.

 

We came across a new widebeam on the K&A last year, on its maiden trip. The steerer was in all sorts of trouble, because the boat lacked ballast.

 

Probably talking rubbish here, but that is how it looked to me.

 

 

Is it your boat?

Jo.

 

Yep...a shell, with cement ballast, but nothing else.

[Guest]

 

Holding the boat in a wind against the towpath could be impossible.

 

 

Will it?

 

I can't speak from experience but the amount of area presented to the wind will increase with length not width, won't make a lot of difference surely...

[grahame r]

Will it?

 

I can't speak from experience but the amount of area presented to the wind will increase with length not width, won't make a lot of difference surely...

 

Our 57x10ft fully fitted out widebeam weighs 25 tons and it takes a very strong wind to have any affect on it. Once it does start moving though......

[mickspangle]

Our 57x10ft fully fitted out widebeam weighs 25 tons and it takes a very strong wind to have any affect on it. Once it does start moving though......

 

Yes - handling narrowboats and widebeams on ropes are good examples of how speed and momentum can be very different beasts

[mrsmelly]

Hello In a few months, I'll be driving a shell of a widebeam back to our marina. I was wondering how different the handling of a 10ft widebeam is to a 6ft narrowboat. When I first stood at the tiller of a narrowboat, it really seemed soooooo long...but I got the hang of it. Standing at the back of a widebeam seems REALLY daunting....its long and fat....and wont have a bow thruster. Any peculiarities I havent considered yet? New learning curve.

 

Hi Dean

 

Not much difference. They do handle better than a n/b and are more stable on fast flowing rivers, the only down side is ya cant see the sides from the tiller or wheel but you dont need to after a couple of days............

 

Tim

[Guest]

Yes - handling narrowboats and widebeams on ropes are good examples of how speed and momentum can be very different beasts

 

I'm intrigued by this.

 

I can understand how a heavier boat under way by the power of the engine would have a greater momentum and therefore would be harder to stop using ropes (Often deemed bad boating practice anyway) but what I can't understand is how the wind blowing off the tow-path can propel a heavier boat with the same 'sail' size as a lighter one and make it harder to resist it being blown away from somebody trying to pull it back...

 

what am I missing?

[mickspangle]

I wasn't really trying to differentiate between NB and WB, it was more a reflection on the fact that it surprises people when they find it difficult to stop a boat on ropes when it's moving slowly. Hence my comment about speed and momentum being different.

[Guest]

I wasn't really trying to differentiate between NB and WB, it was more a reflection on the fact that it surprises people when they find it difficult to stop a boat on ropes when it's moving slowly. Hence my comment about speed and momentum being different.

 

Fairy nuff - I just couldn't square your post with Dean's original question...

[Martin Megson]

I'm intrigued by this.

 

I can understand how a heavier boat under way by the power of the engine would have a greater momentum and therefore would be harder to stop using ropes (Often deemed bad boating practice anyway) but what I can't understand is how the wind blowing off the tow-path can propel a heavier boat with the same 'sail' size as a lighter one and make it harder to resist it being blown away from somebody trying to pull it back...

 

what am I missing?

 

I think your argument is sound. Following the same logic, the wind strength required to move a heavier boat would need to be higher and this may be why a wide beam is more difficult to hold in wind. If the wind is strong enough to move the boat then one person is not strong enough to hold it. A lighter boat will be moved by a lighter wind which may me countered by one person.

[mrsmelly]

I wasn't really trying to differentiate between NB and WB, it was more a reflection on the fact that it surprises people when they find it difficult to stop a boat on ropes when it's moving slowly. Hence my comment about speed and momentum being different.

 

Ive always found the engine stops the boat better than ropes I generaly use ropes for mooring and suchlike.

 

Tim

[Tam & Di]

Ive always found the engine stops the boat better than ropes I generaly use ropes for mooring and suchlike.

 

Tim

 

When we worked freight narrow boats we strapped the butty to a halt in locks using lines. With our 80 DWT motor barge in (mostly) France we do the same. It is a perfectly valid and generally the most efficient way of working.

 

As far as the difference between a narrow boat and a wide one goes, probably a much more significant difference is between a heavy boat and a light one. Some people always have to "steer by numbers", but those with a feel for steering very soon have no need to look along the side all the time - you just steer by looking at the totality of the boat and the waterway, and positioning the boat with use of your peripheral vision. Staring rigidly forward at some fixed point inevitably gets you into trouble (easier to do than to put into words) .

Edited May 14, 2012 by Tam & Di

[mrsmelly]

When we worked freight narrow boats we strapped the butty to a halt in locks using lines. With our 80 DWT motor barge in (mostly) France we do the same. It is a perfectly valid and generally the most efficient way of working.

 

Yes Im not saying it cant be done but I still prefer stopping using the engines, especialy with 150 passengers onboard, little old ladies fall over quite easily if the stop is not very slow and smooth. I also stop my little widebeam boat on the engine so as its not too much hard work for the old girl.

 

Tim

[Grace and Favour]

As Squire Smelly says --- let the engine do the work.

 

Remember, Dean - - if you've been used to the momentum of 19 tonnes slipping through the water, you've now got to learn how to handle the momentum of 25 tonnes

 

Don't try to stop it by using ropes - steer it even further 'ahead' than you did your narrowboat - - - just as you do with a vehicle travelling at 70mph compared to one travelling at 30mph

[DeanS]

I sometimes used to wind the narrowboat (in tight spaces), by having the teenager hang on to the bow rope, and then swing the back of the boat around (with the nose being pulled around along the towpath.....if I did that with a widebeam, will I hear a splosh as the teen ends up in the drink?

[Grace and Favour]

I sometimes used to wind the narrowboat (in tight spaces), by having the teenager hang on to the bow rope, and then swing the back of the boat around (with the nose being pulled around along the towpath.....if I did that with a widebeam, will I hear a splosh as the teen ends up in the drink?

 

That'll be OK - - - (just take it nice n gently)

[bargemast]

Yes Im not saying it cant be done but I still prefer stopping using the engines, especialy with 150 passengers onboard, little old ladies fall over quite easily if the stop is not very slow and smooth. I also stop my little widebeam boat on the engine so as its not too much hard work for the old girl.

 

Tim

 

 

There is no problem whatsoever to make a barge (or boat) stop slowly and very smooth with the ropes, as long as you have decent bollards to work with your ropes, and it would be perfectly safe for little old ladies.

 

If you have a look at the Freycinet locks and a laden barge entering, you'll see that they will come to a gentle stop just before they could hit the doors, by using the ropes.

 

If you have next to no water left under the bottom of the barge, trying to stop with the use of the engine, will damage the masonry of the lockcill, and damage to your prop is quite likely going to happen.

 

On this purposely built passengerboat, you'll probably have plenty of water under her keel, there where you are cruising, and surely also more power in relation to the weight of the boat compared with a laden freight barge, so for you stopping by using the engines is possible without causing damage.

 

Peter.

[mickspangle]

Ive always found the engine stops the boat better than ropes I generaly use ropes for mooring and suchlike.

 

Tim

 

When I wrote about stopping boats on ropes, i was actually thinking about pulling them about with ropes eg when trying to moor or bow haul rather than strapping to a halt in locks or anything serious

 

I'm not making myself understood very well tonight it seems....

[David Mack]

It will be a breeze, the only real difference, I suspect, is that you will have to walk a step or two to peek down the sides

 

Good luck

 

We came upon a wide beam some years ago where the woman steering was too short to see over the cabin top, so she spent the whole time leaping to the left and right to look down each side of the boat in turn, not realising that as she did so she was pulling the tiller left and right, and so steering a zigzag path down the canal, which in turn necessitated her looking down both sides of the boat to see where it was going......

 

Do any wideboaters use an extension tiller like the dinghy sailers use, so that they can steer from a position to one side of the boat where there is a better view forward?

[Barry]

Do any wideboaters use an extension tiller like the dinghy sailers use, so that they can steer from a position to one side of the boat where there is a better view forward?

 

Cracking idea - I like that

[DeanS]

Cracking idea - I like that

 

me too. Going to definately make one. My lil arms are sooo short. Standing at the back of a widebeam, it's hard to see those little rowing people on the Bridgewater sometimes.....

[carlt]

Standing at the back of a widebeam, it's hard to see those little rowing people on the Bridgewater sometimes.....

You get extra points if you hit them blind, don't you?