Narrowboat.

[Nauti]

Thought some of you might be interested in a couple of images.These are of our narrowboat being built.These boats have a lot of history over here,carrying goods down our extensive canal system, albeit in a slightly different form than this,since the 1700's.
The boat is 60 feet long and 6'10 inches wide.

 

[Elton]

That is magnificent..... wow

 

[Ron J]

Will you live aboard or carry goods as a living.
I have seen shows on the History Channel of European and Britain’s canal system. Amazing.
Here in the U.S, New England states there were canals in the early to mid 1800’s that were used for carrying merchandise, from Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania etc. Thier demise : the Railroad !
What is used to power this vessel? Do you a Prop or jetdrive? What is the depth of your canals?
Rj

 

[Nauti]

Hi Ron,
We will be living aboard....our idea is that we will try to retire as early as possible and go exploring the canal network.
The boat is powered by a diesel engine and traditional prop although some are now starting to have full electric systems fitted which is quite interesting......this is a fairly new development though so time will tell if it catches on or not.This would be a very cheap way to run the boat,especially if you are self sufficient for electricity with a really good solar system.The solar system we will be having will give us most of the electricity we need or about nine months of the year or slightly more depending on the severity of the winter and how much sunshine we get.If we get a lot of days when there is not enough sunlight,we can run the engine to top up our batteries so we are fairly self sufficient for power.
The depth of our canals is a difficult one as they vary,but an average depth would be about four feet.I didn't know the U S had any canals,i will have to look into that as it sounds very interesting.....thanks for the info.
All the best,neil.

 

[Gold Buddy]

n/t

 

[Nauti]

Cheers Gold Buddy......what an amazing canal.It's great to see commercial traffic increasing on it again....hopefully this will increase even more,it's a shame to have such an amazing resource and not get the most out of it.