Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Mystery boat



How about ths boat that has recently appeared at our boatyard. Not your run of the mill vessel is it?

I don't know anything about is except it has a steel hull and inside it seems to be open plan. It looks well built and is obviously pretty new. I wouldn't want one but I quite like it.

With those big windows it looks like it would make a good day boat for short trips, but on the canals it has a big problem. I'm told it is seven feet six inches wide. That means it is too wide to pass through locks on the midlands canals and too wide to share wide locks on the others. the hull lines look a bit low for a river boat. I wonder who designed it and for what purpose. Does anyone out there recognise it?

3 comments:

Adam said...

Here are its details on Apollo Duck: http://barges.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=83302

Dates from around 1935, apparently.

Simon said...

yes, I was looking at that - kind of a cross between a steel canal boat & a river cruiser, and the width is just daft - I was assuming it was 6'10 just looked wider, but I didn't quite believe myself. It's not on Jon Currer's site (yet), but since he's off getting hitched that may not mean much...

Anonymous said...

Hello my name is Eddy, Barka dio was our previous 2th boat in Holland, boat 1 is named Misty too, this is the one we live on in the Med. We kept it as a pied a terre. when we sold it, it is transported to the UK and it looks like they renovated the interior totaly. The boat is a "Westlander" build in 1935 as a sailing farmer Barge. in about 1970 it was turned in to a "cruiser" on our site you wil find pictures from a trip we made tru the dutch canals, including pictures from a trip to Turkey with Misty Too, look at www.spaces.msn.com/sy-misty-too/ under foto's you will find "Barka Dio" wich is greek for "Boat 2"