I, transatlantic narrowboat.

My blog is about English inland waterways. It's rare that something will come along to stretch the subject envelope, but I've just noticed the story of the narrowboat (?) I Frances.

I've been toying for a little while of having Granny Buttons freighted across the Atlantic to cruise the canals and waterways of New England and the Eastern Seaboard of America. Not sure I can afford it, but it would be fun and a good opportunity to write that novel I've not got inside me.

But five years ago, retired naval architect Brian Crutcher had a madcap scheme to do it the other way around - to boat from Canada to Moscow, sailing across the Atlantic and cruising the inland waterways of Europe. The truly madcap part involved designing the boat not only to survive an Atlantic crossing, but also to fit every waterway in every country en route, and the bottleneck was the narrow Midland canals on England.

So I Frances is 57 feet long, narrower than seven feet wide, and drawing just two feet of water. It's also, by and large, a narrowboat in look and feel, albeit with a foot-deep keel. And with a removable mast and sail.

Crutcher and his four crew took five weeks to reach Ireland, where I Frances spent the following three years. The story of the boat from construction to its tour of Ireland is downloadable here as a pdf, courtesy of Brian Goggin.

Now the boat is in Manchester and heading up the Pennine canals. No doubt the excellent Pennine Waterways site (from which I nicked these pictures, thanks) will keep us informed.

I'm not quite sure if it's pronounced 'eye frances' or 'one frances'. But I notice that 'one frances' is an anagram of "ocean serf'n".

Comments

[Bryan Crutcher]

The I is for Isabel, her mothers name, so she was always called by her second name Frances. She was my aunt. She died the year before the launching so it is a bit of a memorial.

Bryan