Types of Canal Boat
Cruiser, trad, semi trad, narrow beam Dutch Barge style , wide beam, Dutch Barge style – like some other aspects of boating it’s a Marmite thing. You love a certain style or you hate it. And then you change your mind but pretend you didn’t really. However, below I have listed some pro and cons of all of them. I’m sure there are plenty of other points to be made, and I will be adding any as they come to mind or are suggested to me.
Trad: Trads broadly divide into two categories – those that have an engine set beneath the floor of the aft cabin, which I will call the modern trad, and those that have a back cabin with the engine set in its own room in a similar style to the old working boats, which is the classic trad.
There is the semi trad, and and now a new style which we call a semi cruiser, the cruiser, the tug style and the narrow beam Dutch barge.
Classic Trad

Modern Trad

Semi trad

Cruiser style

Tug

Narrow beam Replica Dutch barges
You either like ’em or you hate ’em. Some love the fact that they are different, some think they simply don’t look right on our waterways. For the latter view I have to wonder what the working boatmen would have made of today’s narrowboats anyway – any of them.”It’s a lot of fun and it’s different,” says one owner.
Commonly (but not always) with a folding wooden wheelhouse which provides a pleasant seating area protected from the elements and with a good view.
You will need to become well acquainted with a pot of varnish to keep the wheelhouse woodwork looking bright where a wooden one is fitted.The wheelhouse will have to be dismantled if you are cruising in an area with low headroom at certain bridges. Check a navigation guide carefully. On boats like the one pictured, the wheelhouse is fixed – it may well limit your cruising possibilities.

Widebeam

Other Boats


