Fly-boat crews

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Winter 2022

I’ve just picked up my first copy of NB and it’s great. Forgive my potential ignorance, but can you tell me how fast a fly-boat crew could work, using either a steam or diesel engine (which I presume to be faster than horse-drawn operation, but I could be wrong)? Did running a boat in this 24-hour fashion offer advantages over other modes of transport in terms of speed and efficiency? When did fly-boating come to an end and why? Malcolm Jones Chris M. Jones replies: As far as narrowboats were concerned, horse-drawn fly-boats worked faster than the slow or horse-drawn bulk-carrying boats as they had a finer shape to the hull and carried less cargo in terms of volume and weight. They also changed horses every so often at specific places, so they had fresh animals to maintain speed. They also had right-of-way at locks and were able to overtake slower craft. Changing over to steam power meant they lost some of the cargo space to a steam engine and boiler but were more powerf…