Canal du Midi - Air Draught

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Quote from ' Through the French Canals' - Philip Bristow-
"Minimum height above water: 3.3m at centre reducing to 2.4 metres at sides across 5.5m beam"

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not sure that is quite correct... a very old book and the latest french Navicarte based on French waterways information give 3 metres.
 
Michael - 10th edition revised in 2003 - but I accept that's no guarantee that they haven't just churned out the original figures from 1970!
I did appreciate the way the measurement was given as it attempts to quantify the impact of an arched bridge on air draft. Particularly useful if one of your future options is a cat.
Have you got a view on why the figure may have decreased ? can't imagine the waters deeper given all warnings re drought in summer. Are there new bridges - or perhaps the older ones reinforced underneath?
 
Not sure - I suspect sometimes the differences happen because of Metric to feet inches.

All I know for sure is that Navicarte et al get their info direct from French Waterways who 'create' the original river - canal charts. The canal du midi particularly has been 'modernised' specifically for the tourist trade - virtually no commercial traffic these days except smallish 'hotel barges'. It only takes repairs/modernisation to one bridge in the entire length to reduce the overall level...
Interestingly many of the Navicarte canal river charts have been revised totally and the new editions will only be available from March - April 2007 - this year. I think I would regard any information not based on these new editions with suspicion if you are working close to any of the limits.. for boats well within the limits the old out of date versions may well be fine.
 
The Navicarte pilot quotes minimum draughts as:
Canal lateral la Garonne - 3.60 metres
Canal du Midi - 3.30 metres
Canal de la Robine - 3.30
Canal du Rhone a Sete - 3.30 metres

We were told countless times in May 2005 that the lowest bridge was at Narbonne on the Canal de la Robine. Although the table in the front of the book is as above, the text and chart on Narbonne says it is 3.0 metres! It looked like that to us but we got through it comfortably with measured height 3.0 metres. Water level may have been a little down at the time, although not as low as it was later in the year.
 
In the Barge Buyers Handbook it states the following ref Canal Du Midi boat dimensions in metres

Max length 30.00, width 5.50, draft 1.60, air draft 3.00
(Because of the shape of a bridge (a C fallen on it's nose) you need to watch the height / width dimension)
If that makes sense.

Jo
 
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