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March of the Widebeams


cuthound

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I noticed that Stenson / MCC boats were mentioned

here's mine so people can get an idea of the underwater profile

the rear swims end about 6 feet into the cabin and the front curves end about 3 feet into the cabin.

it's a 45 foot boat but was originally planned as a 30 footer (we have the plans and a note on them saying "extend to 45 feet"

the boat is lovely to handle and totally predictable although I do feel it would benefit from using a slightly larger prop.

 

I will say that the longer swims & curves make a big difference to how much power the boat needs and it's maneuvering capability, we regularly travel with some friends who have their own 40 foot Clubline boat that has the same engine / gearbox / prop as our boat and they have to have their engine revs about 10% higher than ours to match speeds, also in places where our boat will spin round in one turn they will have to do a 3/5 point turn (with theirs being shorter you would assume it would be the opposite way round).

 

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edit : I see I'm being an idiot, this post was meant to be in the "what boat builder" thread, that'll teach me to have so many tabs open.

Edited by Jess--
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6 hours ago, Bee said:

Most 'boatbuilders' are really just happy to weld great slabs of flat steel together and never give any thought to what happens when the ugly lump leaves the yard..., build it like a skip, vertical sides and 12' across the bottom. 

I think this one's rudder was welded onto the shaft before they bent it......

20180906_193921.jpg

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7 hours ago, dmr said:

In general fat narrowboats are built for living on, not for boating, so maximising the internal space is what its all about, in some cases this means a tiny front deck with the cabin turning in at the bow, narrow gunnels and zero tumblehome. Cant blame the builders, they are giving the customers the big square box that they want..

 

...................Dave

Glad you said in general as ours isn't like that at all, a boat of comfort and cruisability as you know ?

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We lived on a 50ft yacht for nine years and although big yachts are great fun in the ocean, there's not a lot of living room because of the hull shape. We've reached a stage in our life where we don't want to do any serious sailing anymore but still wanted to live on or by water. We now have a wide beam and live on a very wide tidal river. We have the space we need, the views we want and because we are very experienced live aboards, there are no shocks or hardships. For us its just about affordable living in a beautiful place where we could ill afford to buy a house. 

One of the things I grew to hate in the yachting world was the snobbery and one-upmanship. After reading a few of these threads, I'm so glad we aren't living on a canal where people would poke fun at us and tell us our home is ugly. 

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6 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

Did someone not measure the skeg correctly?

This is standard build quality for this builder.

I would put money on the fact that there might be another picture tomorrow showing ......1. no blacking in bow thruster tube and 2. similar boatbuilding skills.?

3 minutes ago, Allthatjaz said:

 

One of the things I grew to hate in the yachting world was the snobbery and one-upmanship. After reading a few of these threads, I'm so glad we aren't living on a canal where people would poke fun at us and tell us our home is ugly. 

Your boat is somewhere it should be, room to move and others to move round you. 

The principle argument against wide beams on this forum is that they are not suitable for many of the narrow, shallow canals that they are currently invading.

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4 minutes ago, Allthatjaz said:

We lived on a 50ft yacht for nine years and although big yachts are great fun in the ocean, there's not a lot of living room because of the hull shape. We've reached a stage in our life where we don't want to do any serious sailing anymore but still wanted to live on or by water. We now have a wide beam and live on a very wide tidal river. We have the space we need, the views we want and because we are very experienced live aboards, there are no shocks or hardships. For us its just about affordable living in a beautiful place where we could ill afford to buy a house. 

One of the things I grew to hate in the yachting world was the snobbery and one-upmanship. After reading a few of these threads, I'm so glad we aren't living on a canal where people would poke fun at us and tell us our home is ugly. 

We are on the canals with our widebeam and to be honest very few people are sniffy. We quite happily cruise about talking to all and sundry in all their different boats, steel and plastic, and just get on with boating. It's what it's all about ⛴

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5 minutes ago, matty40s said:

This is standard build quality for this builder.

I would put money on the fact that there might be another picture tomorrow showing ......1. no blacking in bow thruster tube and 2. similar boatbuilding skills.?

Your boat is somewhere it should be, room to move and others to move round you. 

The principle argument against wide beams on this forum is that they are not suitable for many of the narrow, shallow canals that they are currently invading.

Fair enough, though there's a lot of talk about ugliness!

We would never put this boat on a British canal. She's 13ft wide and simply wouldn't be suitable. 

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3 minutes ago, Meanderingviking said:

We are on the canals with our widebeam and to be honest very few people are sniffy. We quite happily cruise about talking to all and sundry in all their different boats, steel and plastic, and just get on with boating. It's what it's all about ⛴

Well that's good. The thing is though, you don't have to travel around on a manmade waterway to enjoy boat living or boat owning. 

The marina we used to live on was full of beautiful yachts but probably 90% of them never sailed. People just came down at the weekend and entertained friends and when friends weren't there, they spent all their time cleaning the outer skin. Whilst that may seem like a waste to us, if that's what makes someone happy, who are we to criticize? Its the same with canal boats. We should buy what we want and do what we want with it and providing we don't cause problems for other boats, its all good. 

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2 hours ago, Meanderingviking said:

Glad you said in general as ours isn't like that at all, a boat of comfort and cruisability as you know ?

I can't remember, how long and wide is your lovely boat? would you get through a 57 foot lock? You really would fit in up in this part of the world.

 

..............Dave

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2 hours ago, Allthatjaz said:

Fair enough, though there's a lot of talk about ugliness!

We would never put this boat on a British canal. She's 13ft wide and simply wouldn't be suitable. 

It depends which canal. A thirteen foot beam is small on the many sections of commercial canal built for such boats. The Trent and Aire and Calder to name but two. 200 foot by twenty foot for instance. Problem is too many wide beam boats are built to live on by non boaters, living on a boat doesn't make you a boater. I love wide beams and fat narrowboats, yes some are pig ugly but so are many narrow boats it's all in the eye of the beholder. Main problem is ya can't get yer wide beam to the mucky or the greyhound 

2 hours ago, Meanderingviking said:

Glad you said in general as ours isn't like that at all, a boat of comfort and cruisability as you know ?

But ya can't get to the mucky can ya ? 

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12 hours ago, Allthatjaz said:

Fair enough, though there's a lot of talk about ugliness!

We would never put this boat on a British canal. She's 13ft wide and simply wouldn't be suitable. 

while you wouldn't put your 13 foot wide boat on a british canal there is a lot that do put them there, sometimes even a little wider, combine this with the fact that they are putting them in places that really weren't built for anything over 7 feet wide.

just because the locks & bridges are 14 feet wide doesn't mean they were built for widebeams, more likely locks were built to allow a motor and butty to breast up and go through a lock together rather than individually and then string out between the locks and the bridges were built with 2 7 foot wide boats passing each other in opposite directions in mind.

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39 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

while you wouldn't put your 13 foot wide boat on a british canal there is a lot that do put them there, sometimes even a little wider, combine this with the fact that they are putting them in places that really weren't built for anything over 7 feet wide.

just because the locks & bridges are 14 feet wide doesn't mean they were built for widebeams, more likely locks were built to allow a motor and butty to breast up and go through a lock together rather than individually and then string out between the locks and the bridges were built with 2 7 foot wide boats passing each other in opposite directions in mind.

You are in Lincolnshire your canals are designed for proper boats like mine up in Yorkshire, the GU was modernised to make it right for wide boats! Just because narrowboaters dont like it doesnt make it wrong, whats needed is sense, dredging and cutting back the vegetation and trees. Also the true monsters wandering about should be on Northern canals where they are tiddlers in comparison to the commercials

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1 minute ago, peterboat said:

You are in Lincolnshire your canals are designed for proper boats like mine up in Yorkshire, the GU was modernised to make it right for wide boats! Just because narrowboaters dont like it doesnt make it wrong, whats needed is sense, dredging and cutting back the vegetation and trees. Also the true monsters wandering about should be on Northern canals where they are tiddlers in comparison to the commercials

I am in Lincolnshire but my boat is in the midlands on the oxford canal which apart from the small section where the GU and the Oxford merge (Braunston - Napton Junction) is certainly not suitable for anything wider than 7 feet, yet as pictures and posts on here show the wider boats are turning up more often.

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4 hours ago, Jess-- said:

I am in Lincolnshire but my boat is in the midlands on the oxford canal which apart from the small section where the GU and the Oxford merge (Braunston - Napton Junction) is certainly not suitable for anything wider than 7 feet, yet as pictures and posts on here show the wider boats are turning up more often.

Ah yes the Oxford canal where unsuitable narrow boats take up the whole width in many places.

 

Keith

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6 hours ago, Jess-- said:

I am in Lincolnshire but my boat is in the midlands on the oxford canal which apart from the small section where the GU and the Oxford merge (Braunston - Napton Junction) is certainly not suitable for anything wider than 7 feet, yet as pictures and posts on here show the wider boats are turning up more often.

......and that small section between Braunston and Napton Junction is also not suitable for fat boats. The bridges slow them down significantly and as a boat a minute goes past on a busy Saturday, they cause huge queues.

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22 hours ago, matty40s said:

I think this one's rudder was welded onto the shaft before they bent it......

20180906_193921.jpg

Having seen a couple of that make launched I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.  They looked flash but poor quality.

Smoke and mirrors came to mind

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