Choosing your boat
BRITAIN’S WATERWAYS
ere are now some 3,000 miles of connected waterway available to the cruising owner. e waterway system is made up from a mix of broad canals, narrow canals and navigable rivers extending from Guildford deep in the south east to Skipton on the Yorkshire moors, and westward to Bath and Bristol. Our map clearly shows the extent of the system and also includes the Scottish canals for good measure. Locks are, of course, used to raise or lower boats between levels – in effect to take boats ‘up and down the hills’. Since water is drained from a higher pound (the section between locks) and has to be replaced every time a lock is used, early canal engineers tried to remain on the same level for as long as possible. In many places they were able to work around the contours of the land, not only building fewer locks (and saving money)
3
but also minimising the problems of water supply to the highest levels. For us the result is a delightful legacy of ‘contour’ canals, which connect major industrial centres, but wind through the rural countryside between.
As engineers became more skilled, the canals got straighter and faster. Locks were grouped into ‘fl ights’, and tunnels driven through hills.
NARROW CANALS
Early canal engineers mostly chose to build locks which were 7ft (2.13m) wide and would accept the typical 72ft (21.9m) working boat of the day. e boats fi tted snugly into the locks as
you can see and soon became known as narrowboats, which is still the term we use today – even though the boats are now a couple of inches narrower. Mostly they were worked horse-drawn in the early days, and decorated in ways we now fi nd traditional.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68