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Height of a narrowboat


PMcC

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Hi everyone and thanks for great replies on my other two topics.

As soon as I find a suitable boat , a 57' narrowboat cruiser stern (I think I'd fall off a trad :) and while I've read a lot about them and gained a bit of knowledge through this site, one questions seems to be unanswered.

My daughter lives in Hebdon bridge , so Ideally I'd like to cruise that area a lot . Which if I'm correct is the Rochdale canal. I'm told that 57' long 6'10 wide will be able to do it. The big question is height, I realise that water level , slope on sides of cabin,  ballast and general loads , fuel etc makes a difference but can anyone. Give me some advice on the height. I'm 6'2 so I don't want to buy an unessecerily low boat. So what exterior height would I need.

Many thanks 

Phill

Edited by PMcC
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9 minutes ago, PMcC said:

I don't want to buy an unessecerily low boat. 

Assuming you are talking about internal headroom ?

Elderly boats tend to have much lower headroom and is often below 6 feet.

Modern boats tend to have more - Our last NB had a 13mm base plate so had a lot of weight that meant that it needed virtually no concrete ballast, hence the floor was considerably lower (head room higher) than boats with ballast. My 6' 4" Son had no problems.

Remember that the internal roof line is generally curved so you only get full height on the centre line - combine that with narrow corridors and inwardly sloping sides can make transiting difficult for 'the fuller figure'.

As NB building is pretty much a cottage industry and each are built differently the only way to find out if you fit is to try one - the advertised head room is seldom correct.

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The answer, as you might suspect is "it depends" on the boat. Mine is a 57' long narrowboat and is able to fit through Standedge Tunnel, which is a good test if a boat is oversize. The Rochdale canal isn't that limited on height, but the Huddersfield Narrow is close by and if it was me I'd want to be able to cruise that and the Standedge tunnel. Someone 6'5" cleared the ceiling inside fine on my boat. Thickness of the baseplate helps. Steel is denser than concrete, so a thick baseplate means that less space is needed for concrete ballast, leaving more room for ceiling scraping humans. Deeper drafted boats will have more ballast and overall weight and so more internal height for the same air draft. My boat has got to everywhere so far OK with no height problems, except Froghall Tunnel on the Calden Canal.

Boats do vary hugely in available internal height. Some older boats will be too low for you, but most should be fine at 6'2". Easy to check when you go looking!

Jen

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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17 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I'm 6'3". When I encounter a low bridge, I have come up with a method which never fails.................... Duck! 

Great idea but the boat can't duck :))

9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Assuming you are talking about internal headroom ?

Elderly boats tend to have much lower headroom and is often below 6 feet.

Modern boats tend to have more - Our last NB had a 13mm base plate so had a lot of weight that meant that it needed virtually no concrete ballast, hence the floor was considerably lower (head room higher) than boats with ballast. My 6' 4" Son had no problems.

Remember that the internal roof line is generally curved so you only get full height on the centre line - combine that with narrow corridors and inwardly sloping sides can make transiting difficult for 'the fuller figure'.

As NB building is pretty much a cottage industry and each are built differently the only way to find out if you fit is to try one - the advertised head room is seldom correct.

Not so worried about interior height , just I don't want to buy one for a pygmy if I don't need to :)

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10 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The answer, as you might suspect is "it depends" on the boat. Mine is a 57' long narrowboat and is able to fit through Standedge Tunnel, which is a good test if a boat is oversize. The Rochdale canal isn't that limited on height, but the Huddersfield Narrow is close by and if it was me I'd want to be able to cruise that and the Standedge tunnel. Someone 6'5" cleared the ceiling inside fine on my boat. Thickness of the baseplate helps. Steel is denser than concrete, so a thick baseplate means that less space is needed for concrete ballast, leaving more room for ceiling scraping humans. Deeper drafted boats will have more ballast and overall weight and so more internal height for the same air draft. My boat has got to everywhere so far OK with no height problems, except Froghall Tunnel on the Calden Canal.

Boats do vary hugely in available internal height. Some older boats will be too low for you, but most should be fine at 6'2". Easy to check when you go looking!

Jen

Hi Jen that's exactly the question how high is your boat ? There seems to be narrowboats of different exterior heights. Thanks for your reply

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2 minutes ago, PMcC said:

Not so worried about interior height , just I don't want to buy one for a pygmy if I don't need to

The two parts of the sentence seem to conflict.

Unless you 'try before you buy' you could easily buy a boat you cannot stand up in - as a permanent liveaboard I am sure that would soon become a major issue and would just fester away at you.

Externally, NBs will all be pretty much the same height - excluding roof boxes, chimneys, vents, Aerials, and 'tat'.

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Exterior height varies by manufacturer often by several inches. The lowest I have owned was a Steve Hudson with a 15 mill baseplate, the roofline was lower than any other I have owned. Others varied I think this colecraft is sort of middling with very good interior headroom. Best thing to do is go to a basin such as wilton and see how they all sit and take it from there. Obviously other considerations are how much kit is inside the boat.

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I resent the suggestion the forum is a joke everything that is posted is scientific and true.

by the way our boat has nearly 8 foot of headroom in the fore cabin but only 5,6 in the cabin. There is as they say no standard

 

Of course forward of the fire cabin there is limitless headroom but poor rainredistance

Smell hockey and blindness a poor combination

When did smellchecker become smell hockey I hate these people

  • Haha 1
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1 hour ago, PMcC said:

Great idea but the boat can't duck :))

Not quite true, it's common practice to fill up the water tank before going through Standedge which does bring the height down a bit!

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3 minutes ago, NickF said:

Not quite true, it's common practice to fill up the water tank before going through Standedge which does bring the height down a bit!

And was necessary for my boat to fit within the CaRT teams checking gauge. The difference between full and empty water tank was about 2" of air draft. Some boats even have plastic drums filled with water placed on the front deck to get them to fit the tunnel.

Jen

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4 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

I thought he was kept at the front of the boat,near the Eco-fan, not the Transom (does a narrowboat have a transom?)

Yup - its tha  dam s icky le  er between S & U

He gave up on  he eco-fan as i  gave off so much hea that he duck s ar ed  o mel .

(Maybe you would be kind enough o fill in the blanks for me.)

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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25 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Yup - its tha  dam s icky le  er between S & U

He gave up on  he eco-fan as i  gave off so much hea that he duck s ar ed  o mel .

(Maybe you would be kind enough o fill in the blanks for me.)

Yupy - its thadamn sticky letter between S & U

He gave up once  the eco-fan as it  gave off so much heat that the duck s ars ed  on melted .

  • Greenie 1
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3 hours ago, PMcC said:

I'm 6'2 so I don't want to buy an unessecerily low boat. So what exterior height would I need.

Confusion between two different height measurements crept in here. The height of your craft about water is the airdraft, and you can to some effect change this by adding/subtracting ballast - either solid fixed stuff or stuff like water in your tanks. However as you add more ballast to reduce the airdraft then the boat will sit deeper in the water - i.e. it will have greater draft, making it more problematic on shallow canals.

The other measurement is the internal height between the floor and ceiling, and a boat you could not stand up in and walk around in freely would not be a good place to live. Find the height of the lowest bridge(s) where you wish to cruise and the depth of water. Add the depth of water to the bridge height and you have the critical dimensions you need.

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