efficient electric river cat made of 2 eight rowing hulls

I'm still leaning towards the aluminum triple pontoon boat. The main shipping canals are well maintained, but the smaller ones are not always so. Shallow depth is a problem and I think you could build a very nice boat on three pontoons which could take you anywhere you wanted to go.

One thing I would wonder about, though, is accommodations. The living spaces in a converted barge are partly below the waterline. If the deck of your pontoon is, say two foot off the water (uh, 0.6 meters) and you need to be able to clear low bridges which are frequently less than 3 meters that doesn't leave much standing room inside. Especially if you put the wheel house in the rear as is the convention on barges. If you keep the wheelhouse low, say 0.6m above the rest of the cabin, that leaves only 1.8 meters cabin height and probably 1.7 inside height. I suppose it is doable, but it seems pretty low to me. Unless you are short you will be ducking or banging your head all the time.

 

Hey, is arn0 still here?