Narrow Boats SKY TV

I saw this Excellent prog the other night on Sky Discovery hometime/real time no 133, I think ?
It has Alan Herd,the chippy who works with Tommy Walsh ,rebuilding a narrowboat , from the old shell of the boat , a very good prog..
the funny thing was when he started loading bricks in it for the ballast ,which is something I had never thought of with narrow boats ,so it sits right in the canal ,I thought the weight of the hull would do that ,anyway its a cracking show an entertaining

well Narrow boats were originally made to be loaded down to the gunnel's, if they arnt ballasted they are too high out of the water. The deeper they float often the better they handle... the wetted sides steer it straighter.

sidecar_jon

hey
I AM A NOVICE ... but it was fascinating to watch about them ...

you would think the loads would be the ballast ?

Moz said:

sidecar_jon

hey
I AM A NOVICE ... but it was fascinating to watch about them ...

you would think the loads would be the ballast ?

Click to expand...

yes the loads would normaly be the balast, when working a narrow boat would be costing money when not loaded. But a liveing boat isnt half as heavy as say coal or whatever. Also its supriseingly dificult to predict just where the water line will come on a new or changed boat, often balast is added to get it right.

sidecar_jon said:

Also its supriseingly dificult to predict just where the water line will come on a new or changed boat, often balast is added to get it right.

Click to expand...

I bet david(andjulie) could tell us how many bricks they would need.

A modern boat would more often use 2x2 concrete flags rather than bricks.

Using our boat as an example, it is 53ft long with an internal cabin length of 35ft. the flags lie on the steel baseplate, between the steel floor bearers and under the plywood floor.

If we took off say 3ft for the steel bearers that would leave 32ft which is 16 flags. the floorplate is about 6ft (or 3 flags) wide, so it would have 3x16=48 flags. 2" thick flags weigh about a hundredweight(cwt)each, so the ballast on mine is just under 2.5 ton.

You then also have the weight of gas bottles and watertank(150 gall) at the front and engine,batteries and diesel tank(50 gall) at the back.

As sidecar_jon said you sometimes have to add ballast after your build to get the boat to sit level(trimming).

The aim is to get the boat to sit level side to side with a downward slope to the back.

This is usually acheived by having variable weight tanks, such as water/diesel and waste on the centre line so they don't make the boat lean(list) as they fill or empty.

Most boats now fit a wood/coal stove which is quite heavy at the front with the telly cabinet on the opposite side. I am going to leave these till last with the intention of using the stove on whichever side needs the extra weight. It is also quite common to put 56 pound weights,lumps of steel or lead ingots in cupboards etc for trimming too.

I never saw the programme, but the bricks were probably denser and heavier engineering bricks because old boats were deeper draughted and need more weight to make up for the lack of a load. Bricks are also smaller so you can pack them more tightly and get more in.

reading this thread has been an education!

i lived on a boat for five years. Not a narrow boat but a converted lifeboat (a ships lifeboat) then a small sailing boat, a solid fuel stove is essential, tho watch it, i got carbon momoxide poisoning once, not nice at all. I sopose bricks etc are a development since at least in sea baots it was normal to pour concreat in the bilges for balast (with iron scrap in it sometimes)... but that causes suspician that its been poured in to stop leaks... i know of a third size thames sailing barge that despite its bottom being trippled (extra planks nailed on it) when a friend scuba dived under it they could see concreat showing thro from the bilges! It was rotten as a pear too, dry rot and wet rot.