Dutch Barge long distance cruisers

Replica dutch Barge Design

Hi Pierre, If you want to build a Dutch Barge, sea worthiness would be classified as going outside when it's flat calm. By in large, Dutch style barges are inland boats and would be great on the ICW. You would still have to carefully watch when crossing large inlets with high sea condition. The more prudent skippers would wait for calmer conditions. In most cases, a personally built barge will probably be flat bottom in order to get into the shallows with light draft. With any condition beyond moderate, flopper stoppers might help, but are expensive and put a lot of strain on the vessel's structure. Better give those specs that you're drawing up a lot of consideration if you plan to do much cruising on the outside.

Our company is currently drawing 2 sets of specs and plans. One for a Dutch Style Barge that is 48' x 12' with an 80 Hp engine and the other is 60' x 15'. The first is of strip plank construction and the second is made with sheets of plywood scarfed together. Both are covered with fiberglass and all wood epoxy coated inside and out. The thrust here is to develop economical barges for ICW, canal and river cruising in moderate conditions and to be fitted out with standard house furniture that is well secured.

 

Greenseas2 I am not sure I am leaning that direction entirely. I am thinking more along the lines of modified deep V such as the Hunt/ Hood Whisperjet designs. I could buy one of those off the shelf but the price and engine configurations are not to my liking.

I either want to go with something like that or put all my money into strutural engineering and systems and go with the house type interior as you suggest.

 

Wide beam narrowboat

What may suffice for long term residency on the water is a widebeam narrowboat with dutch barge pilothouse of the type that is gaining popularity in Europe. Big problem with narrowboats with the 6 foot beam is taking wakes from other boaters on the ICW and rivers whereas the widebeam designs are more seaworthy and have better accommodations. They also are economical to operate in this day of high fuel prices. One of the nicer features are large expanses of windows which keeps the "cave effect" away which is found in most boats. A 55' x 10' widebeam narrow boat only requires about a 50 hp to 70hp to achieve good cruising speed. With 300 gallons of diesel onboard, this translates to a range of between Miami and New York. It can be set up with large salon/galley, head with shower and a couple of bedrooms with home sized beds and dressers. There is room in the pilothouse for seating of 4 or 5 people. Not a bad thought for those who want a real live aboard floating home.

 

Listen to Green seas

Pierre,
Pay attention. I think Green seas is right. I own a 73' x 17' Dutch Sailing barge powered by a 125 h.p. Detroit 671 diesel. I can do about 7 mph cruising and consume about 1.75 MPG. Draft is 3'. Now my boat has lee boards that can drop to 12' howwever you could add stabilizers on the sides to counter the roll. The advantage of a barge type hull is blockage. The ability to basically have a rectangular cross section which greatly increases livability. It may roll a bit but my boat can handle 6' seas w/ no problem. Remember these boats were in the north sea as cargo boats. the rounded bow gave added bouyancy to keep the deck from being innundated in heavy seas. A v-hull vs. a barge hull are two very different animals. Have you considerd a cat type hull. I think that suits your need.

 

An excellent idea - I am currently fitting out a EuroShipServices 22m luxemotor in UK - www.luxe-motor-kei.co.uk
UK/European insurance companies have a Force 4 forecast limit on exposed water crossings - crossing the Channel. We crossed in F3/4, rolled a bit but nothing moved and we were not secured for sea.

 

Insurance

Gee I wish I had insurance. No one in the US is familiar with these things so I have had trouble finding insurance. I have been told that the boat should be able to handle 6-7' seas. I have been in 4' seas and it can roll quite a bit especially with a following sea from the aft quarter. It doesn't cleave the waves so much as punch through them.

 

Anti-rolling devices

Other than flopper stoppers, at the next haul out you can have bilge plates welded to each side of your vessel and the should reduce the roll significantly. Bilge plates differ from bilge keels as they don't have heavy weight as do keels. Bilge plates permanently welded on should be a lot less expensive than flopper stoppers and associated gear. Many commercial fishing vessels in the UK are fitted with bilge plates to dampen roll. Long bilge plates on a barge might also benefit tracking under way, but shouldn't affect maneuverability that much.

 

Definitions

Greenseas2: As this thread is switching from seaworthy barges to wide narrowboats could you please post a picture of the type of vessel you have in mind?

Beeing flopper stopped in large waves behind big windows sounds dangerous to me.

 

Original intent

Hi Seaspark
The original intent was for an inland waters Dutch style barge for cruisng the waters of the US Intracoastal Waterway and rivers. Also, the intention was to develop a long range crusing home for full time live aboards that would be both economical to build and operate. As with all other threads, detours are sometimes taken by other writers; however, within these side tracks, we might also find useful information that could apply to the main theme. As we all realize, barges are generally flat bottom, long and narrow vessels and ill suited for anything but moderately calm water such as the ICW and rivers. Large inlets open to the ocean and the Great Lakes can also cause concern and should be addressed with caution. Barges in high seas would be somewhat dicey at best in that they would tend to wring and twist. At the very least, it would turn the furnishing in the cabins to shambles. Too, most economical Dutch Barges lack the power to be going to sea, but are very efficiently and economically operated on protected waters. I've towed several very large barges in open ocean with 8 to10 foot seas and can honestly say that I was happy to be in the towing vessel rather than on the barge. As far as the thread goes, if someone is looking for an answer to a question, it is incumbant on other writers to provide an answer that is meaningful and helpful to the person asking the question. Who knows, we just may get some new designs out of the interchange of ideas.

 

Dutch Barge and widebeam narrow boat

To clarify equating the Dutch style barge with the wide beam narrowboat with pilothouse, it would appear that the wide beam narrowboat is somewhat of a scaled down Dutch style barge. A 45 foot narrowboat with a 10 foot beam would have almost the space and accommodations for long term living and cruising and would be significantly less expensive to build and power. Being flat bottomed, plumb bowed and plumb sided, it would also appear that the widebeam narrowboat would also be very economical to build of plywood and epoxy as well as building with steel. As with all powered barges and narrowboats of the past, they were built to be profitable and alot of the profitability of these vessel came from being economical to build and operate, plus carry a substantial load of various cargos. To get a quick glimpse of a wide beam narrowboat built in the US, look at the web site for for Mid-lakes Navigation who rent widebeams on the Erie Canal System. Of course, their boats don't have the Dutch Style pilothouses that would be necessary for long term crusing in all weather, but they are nicely outfitted.

 

Wide beam barges

What alot of people forget is that the Dutch Barge was originally a sailing vessel. As such they had a heel of maybe 7 degrees. Of course the sail acted as a steadying sail. In the canal they were towed by draft animals or people. With the advent of engines the shape and function modified a bit as engines took over. The narrow boats are primarily of U.K. orgin as their canals are smaller than european canals. Sailing barges are so rare now that most people forget that that was the original purpose. A flat bottom hull does roll more but the boats handled better under sail. The flat bottom is more of a liability under power. The Dutch Barges were frequently beached on mudflats to load cargo then floated off.
Attached are two pictures.

 

Definitions 2

Sorry if my previous question was a bit short but it's main purpose was to get a more clear view of the kind of boat we are talking about here.

From what i understood so far it will have to be an easy to build multi chine steel hull with boxy sections over most of it's length. I'm puzzled with the "Dutch Style pilothouse" you are referring to. I have the same problem here as with the "Dutch Barge".

"Dutch Barge" is a very unclear definition, many steel classic sailing vessels here are round bottomed. The hull shape of the boat RCardozo posted was an exact copy of the traditional wooden sailing vessels build in steel. Many were later motorized but newly build motor vessels from the same time had a more rational hull shape. The type of barge RCardozo is referring to is quite common here, even new ones are build for the charter market but they are most certainly not easy (cheap) to build. Many different types of vessels a bit like RCardozo's have evolved here and they all have their own name. Discussions about their proper name can lead to long nights in the bars the traditional boat sailors frequent.

When you call them all barges including the boats Vripack produces and any other boxy steel boat produced in whatever country you end up with an unworkable definition.

Included a picture of a Lemsteraak (or Lemmeraak discussion still going) it is a boat type that evolved last from traditional boats and was and is used only for pleasure and races The midsections are almost perfectly circular They were called jacht in dutch which means something like "fast boat" in fact they were among the first pleasure boats in the world, the English language later adopted the word "Yacht". New Lemsteraken (plural) are still build and developed using CFD and tow tanks to produce an optimal hull shape within the limitations the classic racing committees set. A luxury racing ready version will set you back over 1.000.000 us$

You could call it a Dutch Barge

(edit, added a picture of Skutsje's racing)

 

Stamboek Ronde en Platbodemjachten

RCardozo,

I could be interesting for you to contact "Stamboek Ronde en Platbodemjachten" (register of round and flat bottomed yachts) They maintain a list of (almost) every traditional sailing vessel still afloat http://www.ssrp.nl/schepenlijst.asp and their goal is to keep them afloat. I am sure they will be pleased to hear about their "lost boat" from the US and will have tons of information about how to preserve her.

Email:

http://www.ssrp.nl/contact.asp?a=&ti=contact met het secretariaat van de SSRP&tc=email

 

The list

I will contact them. The boat is on the list. It is named Morgenster which is morningstar in Dutch. Technically it is a Gronigen Tjalk and may well be a zeet Tjalk. From what I can tell the Dutch have barge names like the Eskimos name snowflakes. Anyway I love the boats. Thanks for the tip. I frequently need advice and any Dutch person who knows anything I would like to keep in contact with.

 

I am having a little bit of difficulty understanding this thread unless aesthetics make up a substantial portion of the so called practical decision.

At least here in the USA, the house boat beats the Erie canal boats in terms of overall cost and liveability. Low powered house boats can deliver the same economy and seaworthness that is in these discussions. What they cannot deliver is something that is very pleasing to the eyes. Let's face it, with house boats they simply forgot to put the wheel on them and tow them to a MH park.

I find a canal boat very pleasing to the eyes in comparison to a low end house boat. I would rather look at a Dutch barge or canal boat any day than a 16' X 60' Somerset house boat. In terms of liveability and useability, the house boat is king over the canal boats.

So, how much of the decisions here is the simple fact that you just cannot bring youselves to living is something as plug ugly as a house boat. Aesthetics for me is certainly a huge driving force and the only reason that I would consider a Dutch barge over a good ol house boat.