Minervois Cruisers

[webntweb]

I see Minervois Cruisers at Le Somail on the Canal du Midi have ceased hiring. They hired steel narrow and wide beam boats, the narrowboats, and possibly the wide beams, were built (I think) at Napton Narrowboats on the Oxford Canal. Some of the narrowboats are for sale at Chirk Marina on the Leicester section of the Grand Union.

Don't know where the wide beams are for sale - in France I would presume - but one of these could cause some nervous moments if they got to the Broads. Timothy West was on one in his TV series.

[RS2021]

I believe Napton Narrowboats (Metalacre Ltd) owned Minevois Cruisers. I hope NN arn't affected as they are one of the better hire companies on the canals.

[floydraser]

1 hour ago, webntweb said:

Don't know where the wide beams are for sale - in France I would presume - but one of these could cause some nervous moments if they got to the Broads. Timothy West was on one in his TV series.

So I now have a choice for my next project: a steel narrowboat once helmed by Timothy West, or a GRP cruiser what's hit a bridge on the Lot. Hmmm...heads or tails???  

[BuffaloBill]

44 minutes ago, floydraser said:

So I now have a choice for my next project: a steel narrowboat once helmed by Timothy West, or a GRP cruiser what's hit a bridge on the Lot. Hmmm...heads or tails???  

Tim hit a LOT of everything...........

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, webntweb said:

I see Minervois Cruisers at Le Somail on the Canal du Midi have ceased hiring. They hired steel narrow and wide beam boats, the narrowboats, and possibly the wide beams, were built (I think) at Napton Narrowboats on the Oxford Canal. Some of the narrowboats are for sale at Chirk Marina on the Leicester section of the Grand Union.

Don't know where the wide beams are for sale - in France I would presume - but one of these could cause some nervous moments if they got to the Broads. Timothy West was on one in his TV series.

I rather like the look of that. Wouldn't want to be hit by one though!

[ChrisB]

9 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

I rather like the look of that. Wouldn't want to be hit by one though!

Yes, so do I. You could create quite a unique inland cruiser! Especially with that roof "garden". 

Whilst the heart of canal country i.e. the West Midlands is no-go, there is, still a huge amount of "Broad Beam" [canals] to cruise.

 

[ranworthbreeze]

12 hours ago, BuffaloBill said:

Tim hit a LOT of everything...........

My guess  his director told him to hit everything in sight, he has over 30 to 40 years experience of boating and owned a narrowboat boat for many years when their children were small.

[SANTED]

I met one of those years ago on the Canal Du Midi, a commercial one I think, blasting towards me in the centre of the canal. They don’t take prisoners and the wash put me into the overhanging trees on the other side. No wave, no apology just eyes front and carried on. 

I had to moor up and rest till my heart rate got back to normal

[ZimbiIV]

That looks like it would get through Potter bridge.

I did say through not under!

paul

 

[webntweb]

2 hours ago, SANTED said:

I met one of those years ago on the Canal Du Midi, a commercial one I think, blasting towards me in the centre of the canal. They don’t take prisoners and the wash put me into the overhanging trees on the other side. No wave, no apology just eyes front and carried on. 

I had to moor up and rest till my heart rate got back to normal

We had a similar experience on the Canal du Midi which has it share of very sharp bends. There are two in fairly quick succession (near Ventenac if my memory serves).

We were on a 48 x 13.5 ft Connoisseur Magnifique and had passed the first bend and were warily approaching the second which is a hairpin. We slowed down (from 5 or 6mph) and sounded a long blast on the boat's horn as the canal guide said we must. As we began the turn the bow of a hotel peniche appeared in the middle of the canal. He hadn't blown his horn so we had no warning.

The canal is narrower than normal at this point and the bank to our right was rocky and too high to see over.

All I could see was this high steel bow with a large anchor hanging down and we were headed straight for it. It was going to be a definite collision and it was obvious who was going to come off worse.

I still don't know why, but I did the opposite of what i would have thought was normal in this situation and pushed the morse full ahead, aimed for the right bank and straightened up a couple of yards from the bank. This had the effect of putting us in a straight line past the peniche except it was a hairpin and his stern was little more than our boat's width from the bank. I steered even closer to the bank and at the last second straightened up again and slid past just rubbing our rubber rubbing strake along the last few feet of his stern.

The helm glared at me as if I was in the wrong and all I could think of was to shout "votre klaxon" as I passed him.

All this was in probably little over 30 seconds and I think if I had put the boat in reverse we would have definitely collided.

About 15 minutes later we heard, in the distance, a horn sounding - he had reached the next sharp bend. 

[addicted]

You must have been rightly proud of that manoeuvre once you had got your breath back! We also had  similar experiences on the Canal du Midi, the helms of these certainly didn't take prisoners!  Unless you were very careful to maintain a good speed you could easily get sucked into their wake while overtaking  them. We saw one poor chap come to grief in this way.

Carole

[grendel]

my experience similar was heading into horning just approaching the corner by the swan in a convoy of 30 boats when there was a yacht overtaking a cruiser right on the corner, and round the corner appeared another cruiser intent on overtaking both of them, this left me with about 10 foot width of river, in a 9'6" wide boat at 4mph passing the moored cruisers at the staithe and on the green in front of the swan, I was just 6" from them and the river curved inward from starboard, as i got to a gap, I was tweaking the stern over to miss the next cruiser ahead,the boat behind me actually made fender to fender contact with this errant overtaker, and then slowed down to have a word with broads beat who were just a few hundred yards around the corner, they then shot off to have a word with this skipper. slow down, not a chance I was too busy trying not to hit the moored boats.