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Post by JoeP on May 11, 2019 22:44:02 GMT
Well then. Most important job.
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Post by ceptimus on May 12, 2019 2:48:27 GMT
I think you have the wrong name for the boat. A long boat was a rowing boat seating about ten people - but almost everyone was expected to row - not my idea of a holiday: it was used in the days of sailing ships to get from the ship to the shore. A long ship was a sailing ship but it was the warship of its day used by the Vikings.
What you're probably thinking of is a narrow boat.
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Post by whollygoats on May 12, 2019 4:27:42 GMT
Hmmmm....One of the boats I went on was called a 'barge'. It was long and low and accommodated about 40 passengers and six to seven crew members.
Then there were the 'river boats' of the Rhine, Main, and Danube rivers. They, too, were long and relatively low, but held about 250 passengers.
In my experience, both of these modes had superlative offerings in the way of meals and snacks.
Nobody rowed anywhere.
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Post by ceptimus on May 12, 2019 5:12:53 GMT
The boats on the canals here are generally so-called 'narrow boats.' They have to be just under seven feet wide to fit through the narrow locks and tunnels, and many of them are just less than seventy feet long. On a few canals, the 70-foot-long ones can't get around the tightest bends, or into the shortest locks - so if you want to navigate the entire canal network you're limited to 57 feet long (still seven feet wide). There are some wider canals and there are some barges designed for those, but of course you then can't access the majority of our (narrow) canals. They're also limited by law to a maximum speed of four miles per hour. Nowhere near as big or luxurious as the continental barges, but still a fun holiday for parties of up to about eight people.
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Post by Moose on May 12, 2019 6:26:13 GMT
I would not mind being in a long boat as long as I could sit a the back under an umbrella and chunter. Other than that though I'd prefer a barge.
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Post by raspberrybullets on May 12, 2019 6:44:15 GMT
I want a comfy boat - and someone else to do the cooking!
In fact, why don't we just get off the boat and go solid land that doesn't move about all the time in a way that can be felt?
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Post by JoeP on May 12, 2019 10:40:51 GMT
I thought Moose was proposing a Viking raiding holiday.
With snacks.
Sounds great!
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Post by whollygoats on May 12, 2019 21:21:33 GMT
Mutters to self, softly, and under his breath: "Pillage, then burn."
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Post by whollygoats on May 12, 2019 21:27:56 GMT
I want a comfy boat - and someone else to do the cooking! In fact, why don't we just get off the boat and go solid land that doesn't move about all the time in a way that can be felt? Um...In my view, the point of using a barge, narrow boat, river boat, or 'small ship' is that you have a cabin that you come back to each evening for the greater duration of your excursion, which is usually to several sites along a watercourse. This averts the necessity for packing and unpacking each and every night at you arrive at a new destination. Traveling by land is a PITA under many circumstances which the 'traveling hotel' of a water vessel obviates. I stumbled in to the 'barging the Canal du Midi" tour through Gascony with 22 couples on a boat with a masterful chef who fed us exquisite foods made from local purveyors. It was wondrous. From then on, I was sold on it as a way to travel.
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Post by whollygoats on May 12, 2019 21:32:38 GMT
The boats on the canals here are generally so-called 'narrow boats.' They have to be just under seven feet wide to fit through the narrow locks and tunnels, and many of them are just less than seventy feet long. On a few canals, the 70-foot-long ones can't get around the tightest bends, or into the shortest locks - so if you want to navigate the entire canal network you're limited to 57 feet long (still seven feet wide). There are some wider canals and there are some barges designed for those, but of course you then can't access the majority of our (narrow) canals. They're also limited by law to a maximum speed of four miles per hour. Nowhere near as big or luxurious as the continental barges, but still a fun holiday for parties of up to about eight people. Yep. Triple the width and double the length and it would be what we traveled on during our Canal du Midi excursion. We scraped bottom a couple of times and were informed that following that season, nobody would any longer be offering barge trips on the Canal du Midi, as it was silting up and the government was not interested in maintenance and upkeep of the canal itself. *deep sigh*
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Post by raspberrybullets on May 13, 2019 9:37:11 GMT
I want a comfy boat - and someone else to do the cooking! In fact, why don't we just get off the boat and go solid land that doesn't move about all the time in a way that can be felt? Um...In my view, the point of using a barge, narrow boat, river boat, or 'small ship' is that you have a cabin that you come back to each evening for the greater duration of your excursion, which is usually to several sites along a watercourse. This averts the necessity for packing and unpacking each and every night at you arrive at a new destination. Traveling by land is a PITA under many circumstances which the 'traveling hotel' of a water vessel obviates. I stumbled in to the 'barging the Canal du Midi" tour through Gascony with 22 couples on a boat with a masterful chef who fed us exquisite foods made from local purveyors. It was wondrous. From then on, I was sold on it as a way to travel. Yes, but sleeping on land means your bed is not moving under you. And anyway, why move every night and/or day? Better stay in one spot for a week and get to know it a bit proper.
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Post by Moose on May 23, 2019 23:45:00 GMT
I'd love to be able to move around really - perhaps because i so rarely do. I love the idea of being able to go anywhere whenever I wanted.
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Post by whollygoats on May 24, 2019 0:02:14 GMT
Um...In my view, the point of using a barge, narrow boat, river boat, or 'small ship' is that you have a cabin that you come back to each evening for the greater duration of your excursion, which is usually to several sites along a watercourse. This averts the necessity for packing and unpacking each and every night at you arrive at a new destination. Traveling by land is a PITA under many circumstances which the 'traveling hotel' of a water vessel obviates. I stumbled in to the 'barging the Canal du Midi" tour through Gascony with 22 couples on a boat with a masterful chef who fed us exquisite foods made from local purveyors. It was wondrous. From then on, I was sold on it as a way to travel. Yes, but sleeping on land means your bed is not moving under you. And anyway, why move every night and/or day? Better stay in one spot for a week and get to know it a bit proper. Because staying in one place that long is tedious. Two...three...maybe four days in one place. Our last voyage was ten days on the Danube from the Black Sea to Budapest. Then, we spent an additional twelve days in Budapest. Of the two aspects, I much preferred moving with the barge on the river and seeing new territory each day. After a while, you're just retracing your steps in the place where you stay. I had to book myself in to a multi-day trip northwards through Slovakia to Krakow, to meet up with Genie and see a bit of Poland, just to keep from getting bored with Budapest. I mean, really....Using another day to visit yet another spa is just fine, but I was bored out of my skull. Staring in the shop windows in Budapest can get to be a drag. For decades, I have asserted that there are two basic travel styles; the kind where the traveler goes someplace and malingers there for their entire holiday, or most of it. The other is the kind who wants to cover as much ground and see as much territory as possible. That's me. I scale it back when I travel with others so that I use the 'base camp' approach; I go to a place and spend four to five days exploring the immediate region before moving on to establish the next 'base camp'. My two months in the UK was exemplary travel as far as I was concerned. I stayed only three days in my ultimate destination, Skara Brae, but I saw everything I sought, and much more, and left very happy. I can't imagine spending two weeks in and around Lerwick, unless I were given access to a dig. Sitting around a pool at some destination resort is the biggest waste of time and money I can imagine. That is not 'travel', but sitting on your fat ass sucking on intoxicant beverages. That can be done at home. If you insist on tanning, buy a frikken sun lamp. And...I tend to like the gentle rocking of sleeping on a river barge. I mean, it's not like one is on the open seas. The 'moving' of the vessel was unnoticed by me. To be frank, I could rarely even tell that we were under way, much less on water. Usually, I had to move the curtains from the cabin windows to see the shoreline moving to know that we were actually afloat and under way.
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Post by JoeP on May 24, 2019 9:47:38 GMT
I'd love to be able to move around really - perhaps because i so rarely do. I love the idea of being able to go anywhere whenever I wanted. If you lived on a narrow boat you could move around without leaving home!
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Post by tangent on May 24, 2019 13:44:23 GMT
A friend of mine (who lives on a narrow boat) is canoeing along the Caledonian Canal next week from Fort William to Inverness. The route includes Loch Lochy and Loch Ness. Apparently, if it's a little windy on one of the longer lochs, there is a real danger of waves lapping over the canoe and causing it to sink. Death by hypothermia is quite common in such circumstances. He's calling it a holiday.
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Post by JoeP on May 24, 2019 18:25:08 GMT
Surely canoes have those plastic or canvas things around the waist to stop water getting in?
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Post by tangent on May 24, 2019 19:11:38 GMT
I don't know about his canoe. Apparently, two people were recently rescued by helicopter from a canoe on Loch Ness a few weeks ago in such conditions and, in his opinion, were lucky to have survived.
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Post by raspberrybullets on May 25, 2019 4:06:41 GMT
Yes, but sleeping on land means your bed is not moving under you. And anyway, why move every night and/or day? Better stay in one spot for a week and get to know it a bit proper. Because staying in one place that long is tedious. Two...three...maybe four days in one place. Our last voyage was ten days on the Danube from the Black Sea to Budapest. Then, we spent an additional twelve days in Budapest. Of the two aspects, I much preferred moving with the barge on the river and seeing new territory each day. After a while, you're just retracing your steps in the place where you stay. I had to book myself in to a multi-day trip northwards through Slovakia to Krakow, to meet up with Genie and see a bit of Poland, just to keep from getting bored with Budapest. I mean, really....Using another day to visit yet another spa is just fine, but I was bored out of my skull. Staring in the shop windows in Budapest can get to be a drag. For decades, I have asserted that there are two basic travel styles; the kind where the traveler goes someplace and malingers there for their entire holiday, or most of it. The other is the kind who wants to cover as much ground and see as much territory as possible. That's me. I scale it back when I travel with others so that I use the 'base camp' approach; I go to a place and spend four to five days exploring the immediate region before moving on to establish the next 'base camp'. My two months in the UK was exemplary travel as far as I was concerned. I stayed only three days in my ultimate destination, Skara Brae, but I saw everything I sought, and much more, and left very happy. I can't imagine spending two weeks in and around Lerwick, unless I were given access to a dig. Sitting around a pool at some destination resort is the biggest waste of time and money I can imagine. That is not 'travel', but sitting on your fat ass sucking on intoxicant beverages. That can be done at home. If you insist on tanning, buy a frikken sun lamp. And...I tend to like the gentle rocking of sleeping on a river barge. I mean, it's not like one is on the open seas. The 'moving' of the vessel was unnoticed by me. To be frank, I could rarely even tell that we were under way, much less on water. Usually, I had to move the curtains from the cabin windows to see the shoreline moving to know that we were actually afloat and under way. I'm quite sensitive to the swaying motion. Even in a taller building, on a windy day I can feel it slightly swaying and it's not something I enjoy. 12 days in Budapest is a lot, I would be bored too. I was thinking more regionally, I suppose. For example 12 days in Tuscany (we spent more actually, and didn't get to see everything I wanted). But I'm also not a city/town only traveler. I like to go for day hikes in the countryside and that means spending a couple of days not seeing anything touristy, but seeing what the country is like. We spent 16 days in Provence one holiday and again, only saw about half of the place but we did a number of day hikes and off the beaten track sort of stuff. We spent it in 4 locations across Provence over that period, though I would have preferred to stay in 3 places over that sort of time frame rather than 4.
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Post by whollygoats on Jun 19, 2019 0:00:36 GMT
RB....Just curious here. Have you tried Dramamine (Dimenhydrinate)? It is an antihistamine, but it is fairly (but not completely) effective at preventing adverse effects from 'swaying motion'. It worked for me, so when I did the ferries to and from Shetland, the Orkneys, and Aberdeen, I went prepared. I never used them.
Put me on a salmon charter off the Columbia River bar, bobbing like a cork on the swells, and I'll spend some (and way too much) of that time heaving my breakfast, and then lunch, over the side. But I found the barges and small ship ventures I've been on to be entirely innocuous in this regard.
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Post by ceptimus on Jun 19, 2019 16:14:06 GMT
Surely canoes have those plastic or canvas things around the waist to stop water getting in? I know it's been a few weeks since this post but it's kayaks that (can) have the cover, not canoes. A kayak A canoe
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