Minimum water depth

[Birdswood]

What is the minimum water depth for mooring a modern narrow boat in? Ive the possibility of using an end of garden mooring which is long enough but the water is only a little over 2 ft deep in places. Will that be an issue?

Thanks for your advice

[Laurie Booth]

What is the draft of your boat?

[Birdswood]

Not actually bought one yet - working on it. A smaller modern one though say 30 to 40ft

[Laurie Booth]

Not actually bought one yet - working on it. A smaller modern one though say 30 to 40ft

I would guess you would have a problem. If buying a steel narrowboat?

[Birdswood]

Ye a steel narrowboat. Actually I think I asked the question wrongly. How much deeper than the draft does the water need to be for mooring in? Sorry boating newbie asking silly questions

[Laurie Booth]

I would suggest a foot deeper than your boat, but others on this site will be in a better position to advise you.

[nicknorman]

Well in theory it doesn't need to be any deeper than the boat, especially bearing in mind the bottom is usually not solid. But of course you need to allow for fluctuations in the level of the canal. The other thing to bear in mind is if there is no spare depth, what tends to happen is that over time, passing boats throw up silt which settles just offside of your boat, so whilst you are still just floating, when you try to push the boat out it goes aground.

 

Depth can of course be increased by removing silt!

[MoominPapa]

Ye a steel narrowboat. Actually I think I asked the question wrongly. How much deeper than the draft does the water need to be for mooring in? Sorry boating newbie asking silly questions

Surprisingly, the water can normally be a bit shallower than the draft. The bottom will normally be soft mud, and you can pull the boat in over a day or two and it will dig its own hole.

 

MP.

[Chalky]

The wharf where we're moored (on a bottom of the garden mooring) regularly silts up and when the pound is low we're often sitting on the bottom. Never been much of a problem. What I tend to do is either:-

• Move the boat early in the morning whilst the levels are high due to back pumping.
• Leave the water tank low and put the family on the boat after we've left the mooring.
• Run the engine in reverse gear to wash some of the silt from under the boat so I can move it. (I've checked this with the local CaRT lengthsman and he's ok with it).

I live with it since its more convenient than mooring on line or in a marina.

 

BW dredged it about 7 years ago and I couldn't feel the bottom with the boat pole. It's now about 26" deep.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Chalky

[ditchcrawler]

Well in theory it doesn't need to be any deeper than the boat, especially bearing in mind the bottom is usually not solid. But of course you need to allow for fluctuations in the level of the canal. The other thing to bear in mind is if there is no spare depth, what tends to happen is that over time, passing boats throw up silt which settles just offside of your boat, so whilst you are still just floating, when you try to push the boat out it goes aground.

 

Just like us at Napton but the speeding boaters don't bump you about as much. Unlike the one that's just gone past.

[Tonka]

All the canals are of the same depth. Half way up a duck

[Keeping Up]

Well in theory it doesn't need to be any deeper than the boat, especially bearing in mind the bottom is usually not solid. But of course you need to allow for fluctuations in the level of the canal. The other thing to bear in mind is if there is no spare depth, what tends to happen is that over time, passing boats throw up silt which settles just offside of your boat, so whilst you are still just floating, when you try to push the boat out it goes aground.Depth can of course be increased by removing silt!

Our mooring is below a lock which also throws a bar of silt outside the boat, except when we're not there and it gets shallower everywhere.

 

Most modern narrowboats draw no more than 2ft so you (the OP) would probably be OK.

[nebulae]

We draw 20",which is shallow draft for a steel boat.We drag the bottom sometimes.

[David Mack]

Where the water is shallow a Springer with a V-hull can generally get in closer to the bank than a flat bottomed boat.

 

Having a boat which draws 3 feet at the stern, we regularly moor up where the back end is several feet out from the bank.