Monday 11 October 2010

The Basics of Planning the Layout

It appears there are two strategies when arranging for a boat to be built.

Either you find a builder and pay for a build slot then work with the builder to identify you requirements or you decide on your detailed requirements and find a builder. We’re in the latter group. Unfortunately this brought its own problems as the ‘tyranny of distance’ precluded us from visiting a range of builders where we might obtain information that would enable us to crystallize our requirements. The internet proved to be invaluable.

One of the first decisions was the length of the boat. We wanted to cruise as much of the network as possible but still have sufficient room onboard to be comfortable. After all; we would be living on board. Research indicated that a 57 foot boat could cover most of the network. However some owners also reported they had been able to get their 60 foot boats around the same canals by positioning their boats diagonally in the shorter locks. We decided to compromise and selected a length of 58 foot 6 inches. We allocated the 6 inches for the thickness of the boat’s internal partitions which gave us 58 feet of boat to fit our ideas into.

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