Cost offsets between wide and narrow

[Steilsteven]

4 hours ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Beware that map. The bits are marked in red if they have wide beam locks, ie 14' or more wide. That doesn't necessarily mean that a 14' boat will get all the way along. The GU has wide locks, but was widened in the '30's to mostly take two narrowboats side by side to speed the movement of motor boats and butties.

No it wasn't, it was rebuilt between Napton and Birmingham with the intention of using 100 ton barges instead of inefficient narrow boats. The Grand Junction between London and Braunston was built as a broad beam canal from the start.

The rest of it isn't designed with broad beams in mind. You can get up there by all accounts, but it is tricky. You'll have to book passage through tunnels for example, so you don't meet a boat coming the other way. Proper wide canals like the Leeds and Liverpool have traffic lights, or timed working in each direction.

They didn't have traffic lights two hundred years ago.

There are more wide beam miles in the south than there are in the north + you aren't restricted to 57' in length.

Keith

Edited December 31, 2017 by Steilsteven

[Steilsteven]

7 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

You might be able to get to the edge of Brum in a fatarse boat, but please don't.

If wide beam licences are increased you can expect to see me doing that on a regular basis.

Keith

[Matt&Jo]

3 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

If wide beam licences are increased you can expect to see me doing that on a regular basis.

Keith

So at the moment wide beams are the same as narrow yes as it works on length but they are planning to increase the fee due to being wider?

[mrsmelly]

5 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

So at the moment wide beams are the same as narrow yes as it works on length but they are planning to increase the fee due to being wider?

No one knows but that's probably what will happen. Might be sold on area like on the Thames etc. There is a pretend consultation going on at the moment the decision of which was made about probably a year ago so we will soon see.

[Steilsteven]

10 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

So at the moment wide beams are the same as narrow yes as it works on length but they are planning to increase the fee due to being wider?

Not exactly but a lot of narrow boat owners wish to make it so.

I'm not sure what they think it will achieve but it certainly won't make wide beams disappear.

Keith

[mrsmelly]

25 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

There are more wide beam miles in the south than there are in the north + you aren't restricted to 57' in length.

Keith

That may be true but much of the north isn't restricted to 57 feet, even the tiny canal the Leeds and Liverpool is 60 feet and that's a puddle similar to the Grand union. The serious working stuff such as the Trent, Aire and Calder new junction etc is deep and wide, For instance I have a friend who lives on a 135 foot by 18 foot beam barge and that's way smaller than the newer stuff. He ccs between goole and Leeds/Wakefield most of the time. Something as small as say a 70 by 14 fat narrowboat would have a hell of a large cruising range with absolutely no draught or air draught problems nor need of winding holes.

[Matt&Jo]

I get their argument but lets hope its not substantialy more..... length has more of an impact than width on suitable canals.....

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Something as small as say a 70 by 14 fat narrowboat would have a hell of a large cruising range with absolutely no draught or air draught problems nor need of winding holes.

We are 14 foot beam and 14 foot air draft (with everything 'up')

Based on the Trent with as much cruising as we could ever need, we can even go to the bottom of the Trent, turn right and the whole world is open to us.

 

The 'other boat' is 23 foot beam and 60 foot air draft - that is a bit restrictive.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Alan de Enfield

[Matt&Jo]

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

We are 14 foot beam and 14 foot air draft (with everything 'up')

Based on the Trent with as much cruising as we could ever need, we can even go to the bottom of the Trent, turn right and the whole world is open to us.

 

The 'other boat' is 23 foot beam and 60 foot air draft - that is a bit restrictive.

Yes 60ft air draft through the tunnel near crick may be an issue..   

[Dr Bob]

4 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

I get their argument but lets hope its not substantialy more..... length has more of an impact than width on suitable canals.....

Oh no it doesnt (Panto season isint it?...) ......well depends what you mean by suitable canals.

Take the bit on the map between Braunston and Warwick. Suitable for wide beams? I wouldnt cruise in one there. Between Napton and Braunston you will be holding everyone up. Maybe you like slowing down for every bridge hole to a crawl. Barely room in places for a wide beam and a narrowboat to pass. Yes, its a bit better now they have cut back the vegetation. It is a busy stretch and a real pain meeting widebeams. Thankgoodness there are not that many of them on the move.

If you really want to cruise on canals then think about a narrowboat.

[Matt&Jo]

1 minute ago, Dr Bob said:

Oh no it doesnt (Panto season isint it?...) ......well depends what you mean by suitable canals.

Take the bit on the map between Braunston and Warwick. Suitable for wide beams? I wouldnt cruise in one there. Between Napton and Braunston you will be holding everyone up. Maybe you like slowing down for every bridge hole to a crawl. Barely room in places for a wide beam and a narrowboat to pass. Yes, its a bit better now they have cut back the vegetation. It is a busy stretch and a real pain meeting widebeams. Thankgoodness there are not that many of them on the move.

If you really want to cruise on canals then think about a narrowboat.

I dont want a constant life of long distance travel no but id like to try cc within a certain radius and if not id like to travel around for a few days atleast once a week

[Steilsteven]

22 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

That may be true but much of the north isn't restricted to 57 feet, even the tiny canal the Leeds and Liverpool is 60 feet and that's a puddle similar to the Grand union. The serious working stuff such as the Trent, Aire and Calder new junction etc is deep and wide, For instance I have a friend who lives on a 135 foot by 18 foot beam barge and that's way smaller than the newer stuff. He ccs between goole and Leeds/Wakefield most of the time. Something as small as say a 70 by 14 fat narrowboat would have a hell of a large cruising range with absolutely no draught or air draught problems nor need of winding holes.

But as is often stated here ''if you want to do it all'' you are restricted to 57' length.

Keith 

[Steilsteven]

9 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

Oh no it doesnt (Panto season isint it?...) ......well depends what you mean by suitable canals.

Take the bit on the map between Braunston and Warwick. Suitable for wide beams? I wouldnt cruise in one there. Between Napton and Braunston you will be holding everyone up. Maybe you like slowing down for every bridge hole to a crawl. Barely room in places for a wide beam and a narrowboat to pass. Yes, its a bit better now they have cut back the vegetation. It is a busy stretch and a real pain meeting widebeams. Thankgoodness there are not that many of them on the move.

If you really want to cruise on canals then think about a narrowboat.

Ah the Braunston Puddle Banks that is so popular for mooring along even with vegetation restricting the width.

Get rid of both and I dare say that there would be plenty of room. Anyway I look forward to that challenge when I have to pay an additional 50% on my licence. 

Keith

Keith

[Dr Bob]

2 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

I dont want a constant life of long distance travel no but id like to try cc within a certain radius and if not id like to travel around for a few days atleast once a week

There's been a lot of support on this thread for widebeams which is surprising given the comments usually made. We see few widebeams 'cruising' - they seem to be mainly on delivery trips - but they cause chaos on the Napton to Braunston bit when out for a 'cruise' at the weekend. They must be great on rivers but not on 'restricted' canals. I remember seeing one of the local widebeams out for the weekend - held us up at a bridge hold for 5 mins as it navigated through it - OK par for the course, no problem to us - but the queue of 10-15 boats behind it were not happy given the comments we heard.

[dccruiser]

8 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

But as is often stated here ''if you want to do it all'' you are restricted to 57' length.

Keith 

To be fair a 60' boat will also do it all if you go through the shorter locks on the calder and hebble for example diagonally with the fenders off

Rick

[Steilsteven]

3 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

To be fair a 60' boat will also do it all if you go through the shorter locks on the calder and hebble for example diagonally with the fenders off

Rick

What?A narrow boat not sharing locks!

Anyway we are talking wide beams here.

Keith

[dccruiser]

Just now, Steilsteven said:

What?A narrow boat not sharing locks!

Anyway we are talking wide beams here.

Keith

With the greatest respect Kieth yes we are , but despite that you added if you want to go anywhere you need a 57 foot boat , which i was just pointing out isnt correct as i have a 60' and there is nowhere i cant go that a 57' can ... the reason i point this out is that the context of the conversation is living space versus cruising areas and the 3' between a 57 and a well designed 60 ' is a lot! 

Rick

[mrsmelly]

12 minutes ago, Dr Bob said:

There's been a lot of support on this thread for widebeams which is surprising given the comments usually made. We see few widebeams 'cruising' - they seem to be mainly on delivery trips - but they cause chaos on the Napton to Braunston bit when out for a 'cruise' at the weekend. They must be great on rivers but not on 'restricted' canals. I remember seeing one of the local widebeams out for the weekend - held us up at a bridge hold for 5 mins as it navigated through it - OK par for the course, no problem to us - but the queue of 10-15 boats behind it were not happy given the comments we heard.

What has happened is n reality is a very recent development. There were very very few widebeam/fat narrowboats anywhere at all when I first moved aboard. Fatties have become far more prevelant in the recent years and only realy started to make a big impact as recently as ten years ago. It is blamed on the housing market but the problem is people buy them to live on who actualy think they are houses!! not everyone but too damned many. They would be fine if they were mainly in areas such as the Trent and the Aire and calder to name but two but they seem to be round London ( small canals ) and up near Braunston ( even smaller canals ) this pees off quite rightly narrow beam boaters. People who want to live on boats should buy one suitable for their cruising range and London and for instance narrow and shallow K and A are too small nowadays for extensive movement of 14 foot beam boats. Widebeams are hugely better for living on but jamming the system up helps no one and will at some time force more rules on us of which at moment we thankfully have very few of.

[Steilsteven]

8 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

With the greatest respect Kieth yes we are , but despite that you added if you want to go anywhere you need a 57 foot boat , which i was just pointing out isnt correct as i have a 60' and there is nowhere i cant go that a 57' can ... the reason i point this out is that the context of the conversation is living space versus cruising areas and the 3' between a 57 and a well designed 60 ' is a lot! 

Rick

If you read back through the thread you will see that I was referring to the north vs south for wide beams. My shorthand obviously was a waste of effort.

Keith

[dccruiser]

39 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

But as is often stated here ''if you want to do it all'' you are restricted to 57' length.

Keith 

Thats what caused the confusion Kieth, because obviously on any size widebeam you cant do it all you can only do the wide bits and you still need road transport and craneage to get from north to south or visa versa and even then you cant do all the northern canals.

You can of course do it all on a 60' narrowbeam.

Rick

Edited December 31, 2017 by dccruiser

[Steilsteven]

6 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

Thats what caused the confusion Kieth, because obviously on any size widebeam you cant do it all you can only do the wide bits and you still need road transport and craneage to get from north to south or visa versa and even then you cant do all the northern canals.

You can of course do it all on a 60' narrowbeam.

Rick

That is what I meant by shorthand, I foolishly thought that anyone reading the thread would be keeping up with what I was saying.

For a wide beam boat in the north ''doing it all'' would mean a restriction to an overall length of 57'. In the south a 70' boat can ''do it all''. Obviously a wide beam can't ''do'' narrow canals.

Happy new year. 

[dccruiser]

1 minute ago, Steilsteven said:

That is what I meant by shorthand, I foolishly thought that anyone reading the thread would be keeping up with what I was saying.

For a wide beam boat in the north ''doing it all'' would mean a restriction to an overall length of 57'. In the south a 70' boat can ''do it all''. Obviously a wide beam can't ''do'' narrow canals.

Happy new year. 

I have enough trouble keeping up with what i am saying after a few libations  happy new year to you too 

[rgreg]

58 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

To be fair a 60' boat will also do it all if you go through the shorter locks on the calder and hebble for example diagonally with the fenders off

Rick

Having descended the Calder and Hebble this year, my 57ft was more than enough for comfort; any more than this would have presented an even bigger risk of swamping from the leaking top gates on some locks.

[Victor Vectis]

2 hours ago, Matt&Jo said:

So at the moment wide beams are the same as narrow yes as it works on length but they are planning to increase the fee due to being wider?

I hope so.

And the sooner the better.

2 hours ago, Steilsteven said:

Not exactly but a lot of narrow boat owners wish to make it so.

I'm not sure what they think it will achieve but it certainly won't make wide beams disappear.

Keith

Perhaps not.

But it might stop new ones being spawned.

[ditchcrawler]

5 hours ago, Matt&Jo said:

I get their argument but lets hope its not substantialy more..... length has more of an impact than width on suitable canals.....

Once it too big to share a lock I don't see it makes much difference whether that is wide or over 37 feet long. Really its just like the old window tax, its basis is pretty meaningless, just a way of collecting money.