D
Deleted member 36384
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Thanks for posting fisherman, a very interesting watch.
Would you?
- Thread starter fisherman
- Start date
Bru
Well-Known Member
It sounds simple dunnit but it isn't actually quite that easy!
Unless you make significant modifications to both boats to create a rigid structure, not really an option for a one off passage involving two boats of differing hull design, simply lashing or bolting them together will cause more problems than it solves
The two hulls will work independently of each other putting enormous strain on the attachments. Unless a significant gap is created between the hulls, there's a huge increase in resistance drag and so on
I've spent a lot of time boating matched pastures pairs of narrowboats and the only time we breasted up (lashed the boats side by side) was to pass through flights of wide locks (we did once do so on the Thames from Brentford to Reading using car tyres between the hulls to create a bit of a gap but it wasn't all that satisfactory. We only did it because we were desperately short of crew)
Caraway
Well-Known Member
Got to be better than, possibly, sinking. I don't know the Wash but surely it can blow up too quickly for a slow narrowboat to gain shelter?
Bru
Well-Known Member
No more or less so than for most smaller sailing yachts
In open water, a narrowboat will usually manage 6 plus knots if not more and the Wash passage is only attempted with a settled weather forecast (and often involves a wait of weeks until conditions are right and guaranteed to stay that way)
Caraway
Well-Known Member
Small yachts tend to have keels and ballast and a hull form suitable for the weather.
I don't think I would be risking a narrow boat in open water. But then I don't have one, so don't know what they are capable of.
I don't think I would be risking a narrow boat in open water. But then I don't have one, so don't know what they are capable of.
fisherman
Well-Known Member
Flat bottom and beam/length = x 8 or more. It's a canoe.
Bru
Well-Known Member
They're not capable of surviving significant weather in open water - the biggest potential problem is actually downflooding rather than stability (they're not usually designed to cope with shipping water over the bows or the aft deck)
The comparison with small yachts was with regard to speed and the suggestion that a narrowboat would be too slow to make a Wash passage within a guaranteed weather window
Bru
Well-Known Member
And usually an overpowered canoe at that!
Our narrowboat was quite short at 37' and not particularly powerful with a 13hp engine but in deep flat water (eg a river) she'd crack on at well over 7 knots
Habebty
Well-Known Member
See also this view from the other boat posted on the ECF a couple of weeks ago ?
And Now for Something Completely Different | YBW Forum
prv
Well-Known Member
But we don’t have any large inland waters in the UK. The reason we don’t have canals like continental Europe is that we’re an island, not a land-mass. Instead of the large cargo vessels of the Rhine and Danube, we had a substantial coasting fleet. Don’t build a canal through the middle, just go round the outside.
Pete
Bru
Well-Known Member
Jungle Jim
Well-Known Member
Check out "narrow dog to carcassonne", a couple (plus dog) took a narrow boat over the channel, its an entertaining read. Subsequently they did the u.s. Intracoastal as well
C08
Well-Known Member
I have a friend whose father used to build narrowboats from Wigan and who regularly took his narrowboat across to the Isle of Man. Rudimentary navigation going and using the Blackpoot Tower as a landmark for the return trip.
Fanny Haddock
N/A
Clearly a case of "great minds".
I certainly wasn't thinking of the size of merchant ships, just something on the scale of some of the rivers that used to sustain small boat building & other industries, like the River Lee/Lea, and an expansion of inland marinas.
Can you do Glasson/Liverpool to the Humber in a typical sailing boat? Sorry if it's an idiot question that's been answered many times. It would certainly save time sailing round.
How to make it economically feasible? I have no idea, but the government is clearly pushing us all to get out of cars, & it sounds like really pleasant holiday.
Fanny Haddock
N/A
How did it heave to? Well enough to allow you to go inside to make a cup of tea?
I have to admit, the idea of the typical sort of "domestic bliss" complete with a woodburner & sofas in the middle of the Irish Sea amuses me. No, I wouldn't either.
Looks like A, B, & C, & the River Arun are the only missing connections. Although, obviously a Chester to Worcester/Birmingham run would have been useful.
fisherman
Well-Known Member
There was a plan for a canal from Mounts bay to Hayle, to avoid Lands End, didn't get far.
Hayle was an important industrial port
Hayle Estuary - Wikipedia
Hayle was an important industrial port
Hayle Estuary - Wikipedia
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
There have been a couple of plans for canals from the Solway to the Tyne (barge and ship) but neither got far, in large part because the Solways is so shallow for so far that monumental amounts of dredging would be required. There was a canal to Carlisle, but it didn't last long.
Bru
Well-Known Member
A word of caution to new canal enthusiasts ... beware of placing to much reliance and / or credence on the numerous proposals for canals large and small from the days of canal mania
Much like the railways a few decades later, everybody who was anybody wanted a canal. Many of the abortive proposals were impractical, some indeed were totally impractical. And many more were never going to be financially viable
The fact that Joe Bloggs, egged on by the Earl of Somewhere and backed, initially at least, by the local industrial bigwigs, proposed a canal from A to B in 18 something or other doesn't mean it was a practical or sensible suggestion then nor would it be so today
The simple fact is that, given the topography and demography of the UK, railways are a far more practical and feasible means of transporting bulk cargo.
That canal carrying persisted as long as it did, well into the twentieth century, was largely a consequence of lifestyle and inertia rather than pure economics.
The canals remained marginally competitive for certain trades largely because of a boating population who were committed to their fairly isolated lifestyle coupled with long standing cargoes which remained on the canals through inertia
Ie. there was no pressing imperative to change as long as the coal kept arriving at the factory at a reasonable price. And it kept arriving at the factory at a reasonable price as long as the canal side colliery was producing it and the boatmen remained willing to transport it for peanuts
The wages earnt by a working boatman were ridiculously low even by the standards of the day. And made worse in the twentieth century by the almost universal, in the Midlands long distance trade, total reliance on the unpaid wife and often children working equally hard. The carrying company paid the man, who steered the motor and got the wife, who steered the butty, for nothing. And what they paid the man was a pittance
The harsh reality is that, with the exception of some localised trades on the larger river navigations, commercial carrying by canal in England should, in pure economic terms, have died out during the 19th century. I've rather simplified the complex reasons that it didn't above but neither the economics nor the practicalities come anywhere near to stacking up today
The bulk of the English canals are now a quaint anachronism happily well suited to their reinvention as a means of leisure.
And as a means of leisure, and an incredibly popular one at that, where is the financial imperative to undertake costly upgrades to create wide beam routes between the North and the South?
Indeed, where is the justification for the disruption and destruction of historical structures that would inevitably result?
And furthermore how does one reconcile the significant inconvenience that existing and future narrow beam craft users would have to contend with in order to accommodate any significant increase in wide beam craft?
Much like the railways a few decades later, everybody who was anybody wanted a canal. Many of the abortive proposals were impractical, some indeed were totally impractical. And many more were never going to be financially viable
The fact that Joe Bloggs, egged on by the Earl of Somewhere and backed, initially at least, by the local industrial bigwigs, proposed a canal from A to B in 18 something or other doesn't mean it was a practical or sensible suggestion then nor would it be so today
The simple fact is that, given the topography and demography of the UK, railways are a far more practical and feasible means of transporting bulk cargo.
That canal carrying persisted as long as it did, well into the twentieth century, was largely a consequence of lifestyle and inertia rather than pure economics.
The canals remained marginally competitive for certain trades largely because of a boating population who were committed to their fairly isolated lifestyle coupled with long standing cargoes which remained on the canals through inertia
Ie. there was no pressing imperative to change as long as the coal kept arriving at the factory at a reasonable price. And it kept arriving at the factory at a reasonable price as long as the canal side colliery was producing it and the boatmen remained willing to transport it for peanuts
The wages earnt by a working boatman were ridiculously low even by the standards of the day. And made worse in the twentieth century by the almost universal, in the Midlands long distance trade, total reliance on the unpaid wife and often children working equally hard. The carrying company paid the man, who steered the motor and got the wife, who steered the butty, for nothing. And what they paid the man was a pittance
The harsh reality is that, with the exception of some localised trades on the larger river navigations, commercial carrying by canal in England should, in pure economic terms, have died out during the 19th century. I've rather simplified the complex reasons that it didn't above but neither the economics nor the practicalities come anywhere near to stacking up today
The bulk of the English canals are now a quaint anachronism happily well suited to their reinvention as a means of leisure.
And as a means of leisure, and an incredibly popular one at that, where is the financial imperative to undertake costly upgrades to create wide beam routes between the North and the South?
Indeed, where is the justification for the disruption and destruction of historical structures that would inevitably result?
And furthermore how does one reconcile the significant inconvenience that existing and future narrow beam craft users would have to contend with in order to accommodate any significant increase in wide beam craft?
ProDave
Well-Known Member
I would do the passage but preferably not in my own boat.
The worrying thing in their passage planning was fuel. One of the boats ran out of fuel on the run into Kings Lyn. When parked up on the sandbank waiting for the tide would have been a great chance to check the engines, coolant, oil and re fill the "day tank"
The worrying thing in their passage planning was fuel. One of the boats ran out of fuel on the run into Kings Lyn. When parked up on the sandbank waiting for the tide would have been a great chance to check the engines, coolant, oil and re fill the "day tank"
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
True, but Carlisle - Newcastle got as far as a survey by Telford, who recommended something along the lines of the Crinan canal, so it was slightly more than a pipedream.
I'm equally intrigued by the proposal for a whole new port, a bit like Holyhead, at Auchencairn Bay on the Solway. That got as far as parliamentary approval for the railway to it, which is (probably) why the Dumfries - Portpatrick line took an unnecessary swoop south via Dalbeattie.
