I’ve lived in fairport for more than 30 years and have seen your boat on the canal. Funny thing is I’m from England and watched boats on the English canals too. Seems like a great way of life, what do you do in the winter?
I see 4 adults cruising in the rentals all the time. The boats are all 40 to 42 feet long. You should try renting one from the marina in Macedon and see how it works for you.
There are only about 20 or so in the US that I have located. It took me forever to find them. They were almost all built by some brothers whose family vacationed on the canals of England when they were kids. They were almost all built in the late 80s and are in Upstate NY. I bought mine from the original builder/owner. There are three that are privately owned, and the rest are rentals. Most are in Macedon, NY, at the marina. Two of the privately owned boats are functional. One just changed owners about 6 months ago. I plan to sell mine after this season. If you are interested, let me know.
Absolutely awesome. Reminds me so much of living in the UK in the early years of my marriage. Who in the US sales/builds such narrow boats? Is this your personal boat?
With everything going on today in this insane world this video is a blessing. It's been a minute since I was on the water early in the morning with that fog and the birds singing. Thank you for this wonderful video.
Its NOT the Erie canal you sailed on. The Erie Canal was abandoned in 1918. The canal you were on is the Barge Canal. NY likes to call it the Erie Canal so unsuspecting uninformed dumbasses spend money in NYS because they think they are traveling on some real historic body of water when in reality it is just a ditch for oil barges that use to use it. thus the "Barge Canal"...sounds real romantic doesn't it....
Your videos are refreshingly different from the usual Erie Canal fare. This one in particular sealed the deal with my fiancé for a week long canal boat honeymoon cruise next year.
Small correction from your intro, In Britains there's 2 type of boats for canal. The Narrow boat not more than 7 feet wide, for this one your right, But the Widebeam boats goes from 10' to 12' wide and up to 65' long .
They (Widebeams) can be 70 feet long, as can Narrowboats, however, just like with Narrowboats, that's the maximum that any locks will handle, and even that will make it difficult or impossible to use all canal locks in the UK canal system - with Narrowboats it is recommended to have a boat no longer than 57 feet so that it can traverse the entire system. There are also some Dutch Barges on some canals (and many rivers) in the UK, but again, these are too wide for many of the tunnels and some of the bridges of the full canal system. The narrow width of narrowboats is their defining feature, and what sets them apart from other barges, riverboats, and canal boats, and simply dates back to the fact that canals sprang up rather early on in the Industrial Revolution, when all canals were dug and built by manual labour - men with picks and shovels. The flat, narrow bottoms meant the canals didn't need to be as deep, and the narrow width meant that neither the canals, nor the even more laborious tunnels, were more expensive than they needed to be. The origins of the canal system is that all narrowboats were also horse-drawn from the towpath(the path for towing), and all those towpaths remain to this day. However, there are still several tunnels today where they didn't invest in a towpath as well, and the canal boats were propelled by 'legging', where the bargemen literally laid on the roof of the barge and used their legs against the tunnel ceiling to propel the barge through - truly hard work.
Very nice , my partner and I have a 57ft x 10ft 6” wide beam canal boat that we are currently refitting out. Seven months of great fun and awesome memories.
@@owasco7898 I live at the far west end of the canals near Grand Rapids, Ohio. They have several miles of the canals fixed and maintained and use the mule drawn canal boats for school fieldtrips, sell tickets in the summer...Looks like back then it was a very easy, but very slow way to travel...Even the mules don't look like they're working very hard...lol
There are plenty of other things to do near the canal if you decide to vacation in the area. Niagara Falls isn't far. Watkins Glen is nearby. There are also lots of winery's in the area if you are so inclined. Hope you get the chance. Enjoy.
hi n luv ur boat. Where did u get it from? How do I find one? Do u have to pay parking r mooring fees on canals? is it stored during winter at a boat yard? thk u. Roxanne
As far as i know, there are very few (less than 30) in NY. It took me years to find this one. They stopped making them in the early 90s. I would guess ours is worth about $60k. But, I haven't tried selling it, so that is just a guess.
@@owasco7898 There are many ways to sail - from short-time, crew, good weather coastal or internal water on smaller sailboats to single-handed ocean crossings. While the latter require very serious training, experience and preparation, the former are well within the skills of an average adult’s capability. Of course one should start with a good, friendly like-minded crew or club members. Try it, you will thank me later :)
AWESOME!! MY DREAM IS TO LIVE ON A CANAL BOAT. A LOT OF PEOPLE THINK SUCCESS AND MONEY BRINGS YOU HAPPINESS ,NOT TRUE! HAVING A WARM DRY PLACE TO SLEEP AND FOOD IN YOUR STOMACH AND LOVED ONES WITH U IS ALL YOU NEED, O AND A CANAL BOAT TOO!!! WHAT ROMANCE.