Would a Prout 37 Elite fit the French canals ?

pragmatist

pragmatist

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Currently a purely theoretical question but I have tried researching it and found excellent sites such as that belonging to the well-known Grehan of this parish http://www.tagweb.co.uk but not found a definitive answer to this one.

Grehan says the maximum width is 16ft 4ins and Prout 37 Elite has, guess what, a beam of 16ft 4ins. Now I seem to remember a YM article about a Prout Event 34 traversing the canals but would a 37 fit ? or would the poor thing be stuck and bring down cries of Merde Alors or similar ?!

TIA
P
 
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I think 16' 4" = 4977mm (sorry, don't do Imperial - except for 2.5m of 4" x 2" . .).
This is very much at the extreme so far as comfortably fitting into locks and passing boats coming the other way is concerned. My page about Depths, Heights and Widths on the French Canals shows that, generally, on the 'normal' smaller canals the safe minimum width to expect is 5.0m. Freycinet barges (that many locks were designed to accommodate) are a standard 38m x 5.05m but they are big and heavy and don't much mind banging lock entrances as they come in. A Prout cat is a different cup of tea.
Personally, I'd be wary of having a boat that wide unless you were thinking just about one or two traverses and could put up with the occasional little bit of trouble. For longer term enjoyment, no.
 
Prout 37

Back in 2003 when I was working in Sete, I saw exactly this boat emerge from the Etang de Thau having come all the way down from the Seine with little more than a few gelcoat scratches down each hull. I remember speaking with the delivery team which was a bunch of OAP´s who topped up their pensions with civilised deliveries like this one. They said it was occasionally tight but no real dramas.

However from personal experience of doing the canals I wouldn´t worry too much about the locks but more about on-coming peniches in tight sections, simply because these guys can´t stop and won´t stop ! And when it comes to steel against fibreglass there´s only one winner !http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif
 
dont forget to factor in all the old tyres and planks you will need to protect the hulls. michael bryant took a prout 33 through(14'4").google him for his website as informative as grehan's.
 
As I hope my reply indicated, there is a difference between bringing a cat through, successfully, pleasurably, and a longer term experience, when a narrower craft would be slightly more 'comfortable'.
Tyres and fenders will, of course, increase width ;)
 
pragmatist said:
Currently a purely theoretical question but I have tried researching it and found excellent sites such as that belonging to the well-known Grehan of this parish http://www.tagweb.co.uk but not found a definitive answer to this one.

Grehan says the maximum width is 16ft 4ins and Prout 37 Elite has, guess what, a beam of 16ft 4ins. Now I seem to remember a YM article about a Prout Event 34 traversing the canals but would a 37 fit ? or would the poor thing be stuck and bring down cries of Merde Alors or similar ?!

TIA
P
Click to expand...

One of the original main design parameters of Prout catamarans was that they should fit in the standard French Freycinet System lock of 5.20 m wide - French standard barge width is 5.05 m (16 ft 6 3/4 in).
 
pragmatist said:
Currently a purely theoretical question but I have tried researching it and found excellent sites such as that belonging to the well-known Grehan of this parish http://www.tagweb.co.uk but not found a definitive answer to this one.

Grehan says the maximum width is 16ft 4ins and Prout 37 Elite has, guess what, a beam of 16ft 4ins. Now I seem to remember a YM article about a Prout Event 34 traversing the canals but would a 37 fit ? or would the poor thing be stuck and bring down cries of Merde Alors or similar ?!

TIA
P
Click to expand...

Not without getting a LOT of damage/scratches and shouted at by the french bargees

Peter
 
pmyatt said:
One of the original main design parameters of Prout catamarans was that they should fit in the standard French Freycinet System lock of 5.20 m wide - French standard barge width is 5.05 m (16 ft 6 3/4 in).
Click to expand...
That may be so (as I noted myself in my first answer). But coming into a lock in a glassfibre boat (as opposed to a steel or iron barge) with 75mm clearance each side (excluding fenders), whilst it can be done (obviously, no debate), is hardly 'ideal' or - IMHO - conducive to calm enjoyment. Having done thousands of locks I know only too well how much they all vary and how easy it is to louse up or get caught out by a leet side-swipe or sideways gust of wind on the 'final approach'.
 
hi

Hi. I would not do it with such a wide craft. Taking my classic 30ft, 8t sloop from Dunkirk to Paris then down the Seine to Le Havre put me in very tricky situations quite a few times, mainly due to bargies not really caring who they are dealing with. Things are fine when on your own but you have no ideas what's in the water on the sides when squeezing between the verge and a barge. Oh and by the way, tyres as fenders are not allowed anymore on the french canals (too many found on the bottom and a guy died a while ago in a lock because of them...) Fair winds. Al
 
cat in the canal??

I am planning to traverse the French canals on the way to the Med..I have a 36 ' cat with a 15' beam. She draws 3 'with twin volvo saildrives aft of stub keels. (Endeavour Cat) I was thinking that the dimensions would not be a problem. Granted, I'm not planning to stay in the canals, but rather sample the delights of the countryside prior to sailing East in the Med. Should I be concerned about oncoming or passing traffic? I was under the impression that most folks went through at about 5 knots.....

Half Moon E36 ~~_/l) ~~
 
Half Moon said:
I am planning to traverse the French canals on the way to the Med..I have a 36 ' cat with a 15' beam. She draws 3 'with twin volvo saildrives aft of stub keels. (Endeavour Cat) I was thinking that the dimensions would not be a problem. Granted, I'm not planning to stay in the canals, but rather sample the delights of the countryside prior to sailing East in the Med. Should I be concerned about oncoming or passing traffic? I was under the impression that most folks went through at about 5 knots.....

Half Moon E36 ~~_/l) ~~
Click to expand...

Yes you should be very concerned. Also with saildrives when you have to pull over close to the bank it will take in all the mud and detrious that is there. Not advisable unless you are good with impellars?

Peter
 
Half Moon (Endeavour)

In summary
  • You'll get through - we've seen numbers of decent sized cats travelling the canals (including the Midi and Garonne).
  • You'll experience some problems - quite how serious they might prove is difficult to foresee.
  • Coming into some locks may be tricky in some situations - side winds and side currents.
  • Encountering other 'wide' vessels (i.e barges) in 'normal' width canals might prove tricky - associated with (a) being 'sucked into' the side of the oncoming passing barges because of proximity (b) having to 'push over' to the (shallow, weedy) canal-side, which your saildrives might not like. I don't think you'll have the same problem with overtaking traffic, because this won't happen except on wide rivers . . but it might affect you when you're moored up alongside.
  • You need to be very careful of saildrives in locks - do not get too close to the back lock gates. In St Jean we met a couple in a new motor boat who had been advised that outdrives were 'ideal' (sic) for the canals and who had found themselves suspended by their drives, lodged on the lock-gate cross beams, when a lock emptied.
  • You will not proceed at 5 knots. The general maximum speed is 6 kph, 3kph when passing moored craft, more on the Seine or Rhone. Average figures for speed and distance can be found here.
 
This is a bit of a chestnut and has been repeated a number of times, without supporting references. I refrained from commenting on the original post. My own take is this . .
  • Tyres that are badly (see below) tied and which do not float can thereby fall into locks, lock mechanisms, gates, etc. are are indisputably bad and are probably, rightly, banned or otherwise derogated by the VNF or individual eclusiers.
  • 'Badly tied' means that the ropes will abrade against rough lock walls (most of them are), and fail.
  • Many commercial barges use tyres
  • I can't see the problem with a tyre that is sensibly tied - two lines for each tyre, one being a fail-safe - through the tread, not the wall - and which floats (our own method uses empty plastic coke bottles stuffed into the tyre) . . and we have never been pulled up or commented on using this, in effect a very tough floatable fender.

PS - apologies - I'm having problems with images not appearing on my website pages at the mo' - will resolve soonish (hopefully :o ) - there are pics that accompany the fenders information.
 
cat on the canal?

Some what off the point of the Prout 37, our cat ( new to us)is 36' by 15' (10.97 by 4.57)(Endeavourcat 36).. I hope to dawdle through the canals on the way to the Eastern Med. Should I be concerned about the locks? I like the idea of the carpet covered planks to protect the grp hull. I draw slightly less than 3 feet. The cat has twin volvo saildrives aft of stub keels. So far, Half Moon has proven to be quite maneurverable in tight situations. Grehan seems to say that our size should be fine for a pleasant transit with sufficient time to sample the countryside. (just too wide for a canal cruiser)

Two years to cast off..........

Fair winds, Bill ~~_/l) ~~
 
hi

if I may... carpet to protect the hull... not a good idea. Grit, sand, stones are likely to drop from locks walls and get in between your hull and carpet with the effect on gelcoat you can imagine... as for tyres as fenders, last time (five years ago) I went through, they would not let me carry on if I had not taken them off. They had two ropes in the tread... but then again, there was less than a millimetre of it left... this might explain that.
 
8top-fenders-940150.jpg

This set up worked almost perfectly for us and was never questioned.
[past tense because Grehan #2 is a different kind of boat, with much straighter sides that just need conventional fenders] [apols for the elongated pic]
 
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