About Havana
Click here for a plan of Havana
Havana was built by John White boat builders in 1995 and fitted out by Top Lock (who don’t seem to be trading anymore). She is a 47ft ‘semi-trad’ all steel narrowboat. Narrowboats are 6ft 10’ to 7ft wide to allow them to travel through the narrow canals of England. The original working ‘traditional’ narrowboats only had a small back deck, the cabin extending almost to the stern. Mine is built to resemble that style when viewed from the side but has a large deck within this space, hence ‘semi-trad‘. The sides on mine make it harder for drunk people to fall off the boat (although I've managed it when sober).In keeping with most modern steel narrowboats, the bottom plate of the hull is 10mm, the hull sides 6mm and everything else is 4 mm. It’s not strictly necessary to have such a thick hull but it will last longer before it needs replating.
The engine, like most on inland craft, is a converted land-based engine. Mine is a BMC 1.5 diesel that would have been in an old delivery truck or forklift at some stage. Many different types exist but the main requirement is reliability. On a big boat like this, performance is not really an issue, it just needs to start, run efficiently at low revs and NOT conk out in the middle of the river. Having said that, she is quite quick as narrowboats go (which is still not very fast).