Tiny boat on the GU?

[tehmarks]

Hi all,

 

On my travels southwards I've seen an interesting pair of boats a few times now on the southern GU - although unfortunately never at sociable ties of the day! One's a bog standard narrowboat, dark blue, possibly a cruiser stern but I can't remember for sure. Didn't catch the name of it, didn't think to look! I've always seen this towing another boat, also dark blue, that must be about 15' or less. I'm fairly certain it's shorter than a Springer Waterbug.

 

Does anyone happen to know anything about this boat? It seems like a genius idea, but I've never came across such a short boat before, and I'm interested to know the history of it. It's currently somewhere between Stoke Bruerne and Yardley Gobion, and has been heading southbounds from Gayton for the past few weeks.

[matty40s]

Could be the waterways joiner, his workshop is very short and I now he has stripped down and repainted the pair this summer

[cuthound]

The narrowboat "Nancy Bell" used to tow a short butty called "Towed Hall", back in the 80's.

[Dave Payne]

Is one better looking than the other, as in one is really old and battered, the other in decent nick?

 

I spotted two very short boats on the Coventry between harsthill and atherstone a couple of times late last year, they appeared to be together and one was towing the other buy the looks of it, maybe they have headed south.

[tehmarks]

Thank you all for the replies. Will hopefully catch a name when (if) they next pass. They're both in pretty good condition, and I'd hazard a guess that the butty has been made up into a bedroom or similar; that's how it looks from the outside at least.

 

I'm just curious to know how such a boat came about - it looks exactly like someone's taken a trad stern narrowboat and shrunk it comically. Looks like it'd make a great 'garden shed'.

[Delta9]

A bit like this one on apollo duck?

 

 

 

http://narrowboats.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=455781

[tehmarks]

Off the top of my head I'd say it was even shorter than that, with a rounded stern and a more 'proper' bow. I'll have to grab a photo the next time I see it.