Boats
Inland canals have often had boats specifically built for them. An example of this is the British narrowboat, which is up to 72 feet (21.95 m) long and 7 feet (2.13 m) wide and was primarily built for British Midland canals. In this case the limiting factor was the size of the locks. This is also the limiting factor on the Panama canal where Panamax ships are limited to a length of 294.1 m (965 ft) and a width of 32.3 m (106 ft). For the lockless Suez Canal the limiting factor for Suezmax ships is generally draft, which is limited to 16 m (52.5 ft). At the other end of the scale, tub-boat canals such as the Bude Canal were limited to boats of under 10 tons for much of their length due to the capacity of their inclined planes or boat lifts. Most canals have a limit on height imposed either by bridges or by tunnels.
Read more about this topic: Canal
Famous quotes containing the word boats:
“The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)