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Dutch barges and overplating


wolvesy

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Hi there, 

For dutch barges that are over 40+ years old, am I right to think you'd expect them to have needed overplating? And should I be careful about anything if buying one like this?

I know a lot more about NBs than dutch barges :S 

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2 hours ago, wolvesy said:

Hi there, 

For dutch barges that are over 40+ years old, am I right to think you'd expect them to have needed overplating? And should I be careful about anything if buying one like this?

I know a lot more about NBs than dutch barges :S 

My Dutch Sailing Boat is nearly 60 years old, around 5mm under water when new, around 4.4mm now.  So no your not right to expect them to need overplating.   You need to be careful buying any boat, as even a 10 year old boat may have be worse than a 40+ year old boat.   If it was a working boat it probably also an issue of what it carried for the hull condition as well.

 

Take note of the draft on Dutch Barges, they usually tend to be deeper if it’s a decent size.

Edited by Robbo
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I would be surprised if any steel boat of that age had no overplating unless it had been maintained to a very high standard indeed. Is this boat ex commercial? I looked at a large Dutch cruiser that was hauled out and it was immaculate, I thought it was less than 10 years old but I think the owner said it was late 1960's, hauled out and inspected every year, money no object. The Dutch can be the most fastidious of boat owners and boats are often stored ashore, sometimes in heated halls. If the boat you are looking at is one of these then it could be very good indeed. And then there is the rest......... ex commercial, knocked about, owned by someone of limited means or knowledge, slowly rusting away and still afloat despite the neglect. Most are somewhere in between. A hull survey by someone who is familiar with the type of vessel is a must, I was looking at a Tjalk a few weeks ago after its survey and the surveyor had carefully traced quite a few flat rivets that were well covered with old paint / tar and marked them for welding round, I would not have found them but he did. Lift floorboards, sheets of rust? riveted plates? Then be careful of the seams. As a rule of thumb Dutch built boats are often more lightly built and better looked after, 4 or 5 mm plate instead of the hefty plates we are used to. I would buy a narrowboat without a survey but a Dutch barge? Almost certainly not. 

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If you only intend to insure 3rd party and don't mind sleeping with one hand dangling then don't worry about surveying.

If you intend to insure fully comp. and prefer to know about the bits you can't see, then listen to your surveyor.

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Depending on age you would have to determine if the metal was iron or steel iron boats seem to fare better than steel It's the how long is a piece of string syndrome choose your boat & go from there

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Our ex-oil tanker is about 90 years old and still floating. She usually has a bit of welding when dry docked. It's routine when they get to a certain age. Of more interest should be whether she has been maintained regularly below the water line.

 

Martin/

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Our Dutch barge was built in 1917 and over the years has had a fair bit of overplating done over time and any needed since we have owned it have been done  in a Belgium shipyard since I brought it in  2000. When I brought it the surveyor found some thin places on the starboard bilge which had had some doubling in places before. He expected this as this is the side that gets rubbed when passing on the narrower canals. When built the steel was 5.5mm and the insurers look for around 4mm as satisfactory. Coming from narrowboats I was surprised to see such light steel used on a commercial barge especially as ours had been built for a brickworks but the ribs are around 400mm apart so the strength is there. 

The main thing is how well the doubling has been done and by whom.

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A good many quite large and awfully expensive Dutch cruisers are 4 or 5mm plating, us Brits favour great thick slabs of steel and never bother to paint it. The Dutch like lots of curves and tricky plating and having sweated blood to get all the shapes so pretty and flowing they look after it better. (Just a little generalisation there)

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