Too much water!
Take me back to the Valley Rambler web site

Links to Our Boats:

Links to our boat picture gallery:

Our old boat pages are no longer accessible, so we've found them a new home here...

Our primary waste of time is our boat.  We have a narrowboat that we keep on the canal system of England.  Narrowboats are based on the traditional cargo carrying boats originally built during the second half of the 18th century and only going out of use in the period after the last War.  Significant changes were made to the motive power over the years - originally horses and mules were the primary source, giving way to steam and ultimately diesel engines.  Now, almost all the traffic is leisure with a small amount of commercial carrying remaining - much of which is focused on providing fuel to the leisure boater.

Today, most narrowboats are made from steel; older wooden boats are still in existence and highly treasured if maintained in good condition.  Dimensions of boats were dictated by the size of the locks that were built to allow for changes of height.  Clearly, boats needed to fit the locks or not much progress would be made.  In the Midlands of England, most locks are 7 feet wide and 72 feet long.  Some canals have wider locks (typically 14 feet wide) and in the north of England, wider by shorter locks are the norm.

All of the "thumb-nail" pictures (shown by having bevelled edges and a coloured surround) can be "clicked" to obtain a larger image.

There's also navigation links to the various parts of the web at the top of each page, except for this one where the links are all at the side