Written in an engaging, conversational style, Rivers Revealed combines the author s lifelong love of America s waterways with practical and historic information gathered from his three decades as a professional riverlorian for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company in New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Jerry Hay spins yarns laced with personal anecdotes on such topics as navigating 500 miles of the Wabash River, the trials and tribulations of building a sternwheeler, "reading" the river, how to plan your own river adventure, a hair-raising but humorous river rescue, an unforgettable goose named Gilligan, the language of the rivers and riverboats, early to present-day river navigation, and much, much more. A book for all who love Mark Twain, these river adventures will entertain the landlubber and engage the boating enthusiast."

The romantic dream of downsizing, giving up the rat race, and living life at 4mph on the inland waterways is proving more and more attractive. But for tens of thousands of people it is not just a romantic dream but an actual lifestyle.

Tony Jones is one of those people. He has lived aboard his 50ft narrowboat for over 14 years and in this very practical book he documents what the liveaboard lifestyle is really like, focusing on the practical issues of day to day living for those who want to know what living on a boat actually entails, to see how to manage it for themselves.

Topics covered include:

· the pros, cons and costs of a residential mooring
· power usage and energy consumption (and how it differs from a house)
· how to stay warm - the choice of coal, electric, gas or wood heating
· boat loos - the pros and cons, and troubleshooting typical problems
· entertainment - TV, radio, internet, DVDs
· logistical problems - no postal address, GP access, vehicle access or use

This second edition has been comprehensively revised to include updated or new information on costs (moorings, license, insurances etc), license fees for different types of craft, composting toilets and ecological living in general, living aboard in London and other cities (suddenly very popular), postal services, boat stretching, butty boats, and so on, as well as more anecdotes and profile stories about liveaboard life.

The aim of this book is to feed people's dreams by showing that every possible problem that could arise when living on a boat has a tried and tested solution. The dream is perfectly possible, and this book is the complete practical guide to achieving it.

Twenty years have passed since the Rochdale Canal reopened following a restoration scheme that faced almost impossible hurdles. One of three commercial waterways across the Pennines, the canal links the industrial North West and North East, flowing through mill towns, beneath dramatic bridges and traverses spectacular hilly scenery. Its ninety-one locks present a strenuous challenge for boaters, while it has become popular with walkers, cyclists, houseboat residents and casual sailors. The revival of the canal has helped to bring new life to the towns and villages along its route. This book tracks its 32-mile length, telling its story in colour through historians, canals users, lock keepers and all those who today utilise the canal in ways its originators never conceived.

L.T.C. Rolt's fame was born from his unique ability to produce works of literature from subject matter seemingly ill suited to such treatment - engineering, canals, railways, steam engines, agricultural machinery, vintage cars - such as in his classic biographies of Brunel, Telford, Trevithick and the Stephensons, and in his superbly written volumes of autobiography. In Landscape with Machines Rolt told the story of his youth and his subsequent training as an engineer. That book ended with the fulfilment of his dream to convert the narrow boat Cressy into a floating home in which he could travel the then neglected waterways of England and, he hoped, earn his living as a writer. Landscape with Canals takes up the story at this point. It tells of voyages through the secret green water-lanes of England and Wales, and of the beginning of his writing career with the publication of his celebrated first book, Narrow Boat. The underlying theme of Landscape with Machines was the conflict between Rolt's love for the English landscape and his life-long fascination with machines. In this sequel the same conflict is apparent yet we see how it was at least partly resolved. This is the testament of a man who has given literary shape to the history of the Industrial Revolution and who had a unique gift for imparting to others his knowledge, his enthusiasm and his love of life.

During a few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s Robert Longden took a remarkable set of photographs of the narrow boat community at Hawkesbury Stop - the main meeting point for those who worked the Midlands canals. The images are of a close community and represent its members in a very intimate way, at work, at play, in their domestic affairs, and as they lived on the paired and single colourful narrow boats. They illustrate the close relationship between all ages and types within the community, and the dramatic boat shapes and infrascape of this rural and industrial area. Sonia Rolt, who herself worked the canals during the period and knew the photographer, provides an introduction, which details how Robert Longden came to this passionate involvement. It also sets the photographs in the context of their time, the last period when the narrow boats could be said to play a serious part in transporting goods in quantity. Informative captions identify the scenes before you. Providing a rare insight into the community who worked the waterways when it was still a way of life for many, this book will appeal not only to canal enthusiasts, but to anyone interesting in Britain's social and industrial heritage.

One clear morning in May, Nick Thorpe left his Edinburgh flat, ducked off the commuter route and hitched a ride aboard a little white canal boat, heading west towards the sea. It was the first mutinous step in a delightful boat-hopping odyssey that would take him 2500 miles through Scotland's canals, lochs and coastal waters, from the industrial Clyde to the scattered islands of Viking Shetland. Writing with characteristic humour and candour, the award-winning author of EIGHT MEN AND A DUCK plots a curiously existential voyage, inspired by those who have left the warm hearth for the promise of a stretched horizon. Whether rowing a coracle with a chapter of monks, scanning for the elusive Nessie, hitting the rocks with Captain Calamity or clinging to the rigging of a tall ship, Thorpe weaves a narrative that is by turns funny and poignant - a nautical pilgrimage for any who have ever been tempted to try a new path just to see where it might take them. Part travelogue, part memoir, ADRIFT IN CALEDONIA is a unique and affectionate portrait of a sea-fringed nation - and of the drifter's quest to belong.

The first edition of British Canals was published in 1950 and was much admired as a pioneering work in transport history. Joseph Boughey, with the advice of Charles Hadfield, has previously revised and updated the perennially popular material to reflect more recent changes. For this ninth edition, Joseph Boughey discusses the many new discoveries and advances in the world of canals around Britain, inevitably focussing on the twentieth century to a far greater extent than in any previous edition of this book, while still within the context of Hadfield's original work.

At seventy-five, Terry and Monica Darlington had done everything they could think of doing, including starting a business and becoming athletes and running a literary society.Lately they had become boating adventurers and Terry a bestselling writer. But in their Midlands canal town in November, life was looking dull and short on surprises. Then their famous canal boat was destroyed by fire. Within a few days they had bought a new one and soon headed north in the Phyllis May 2 - to Liverpool, Lancaster, the Pennines and Wigan Pier. Terry recorded the journey, and alongside it the story of his life and his marriage and his dog Jim, with his broken ear like a flat cap, and Monica's dog Jess, known with heartbreaking reason as the Flying Catastrophe. Funny, affecting and beautifully told, this is a story that brims with incident and excitement, and is full of the famous and fascinating people the Darlingtons have met - a story of an adventurous life well lived.

The "Edmund Fitzgerald," a colossal ore carrier, had been fighting her way through a pounding November storm on Lake Superior. Then the "Fitz"'s radar went out, and she started to take on water. Despite gale-force winds and thirty-foot seas, there was no reason to think the "Fitz" wouldn't find safe harbor at Whitefish Point, Michigan. The last words from the "Fitz"'s captain, Ernest McSorley, was "We are holding our own." By all indications, the crew had no idea they were in mortal danger before they plunged to Lake Superior's bottom with no chance to call for help.

Michael Schumacher relates in vivid detail the story of the "Edmund Fitzgerald," her many years on the waters of the Great Lakes, the fateful final day, the search efforts and investigation, as well as the speculation and controversy that followed in the wake of the disaster. A fitting tribute to one of the largest ships to have sailed the Great Lakes and the men who tragically lost their lives, "Mighty Fitz "provides a comprehensive look at the most legendary shipwreck on America's inland waters.

For centuries, men dreamed of cutting a canal across the Florida peninsula. Intended to reduce shipping times, it was championed in the early twentieth century as a way to make the mostly rural state a center of national commerce and trade. Rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers as ""not worthy,"" the project received continued support from Florida legislators. Federal funding was eventually allocated and work began in the 1930s, but the canal quickly became a lightning rod for controversy. Steven Noll and David Tegeder trace the twists and turns of the project through the years, drawing on a wealth of archival and primary sources. Far from being a simplistic morality tale of good environmentalists versus evil canal developers, the story of the Cross Florida Barge Canal is a complex one of competing interests amid the changing political landscape of modern Florida. Thanks to the unprecedented success of environmental citizen activists, construction was halted in 1971, though it took another twenty years for the project to be canceled. Though the land intended for the canal was deeded to the state and converted into the Cross Florida Greenway, certain aspects of the dispute - including the fate of Rodman Reservoir - have yet to be resolved.

This is a one-volume history of the Ohio and Erie Canal. By linking Ohio's two major bodies of water - the Ohio River and Lake Erie - Ohio's canals, built in the early nineteenth century, caused unprecedented growth and wealth for the fledgling state. The canals opened up Ohio to new markets, new settlers, agriculture, and industry, depositing large sums of money into the region and giving Ohioans a surge of confidence and optimism.Despite these impressive results, the canals struggled when other modes of transportation, such as the National Road and river steamboats, became serious competitors. The rise in popularity of railroads in the 1850s sparked the beginning of the end for the canals. Over the next decades, the canals declined steadily due to neglect, culminating with a statewide flood in 1913, which effectively rendered most of the Ohio and Erie useless.""Ohio's Grand Canal"" concisely details the entire history of the canal system. Author Terry K. Woods chronicles the events leading up to construction, as well as public opinion of the canal system, the modifications made to traditional boat designs, the leasing of the waterways to private companies, and the canals' legal abandonment in 1929. He also includes a personal look at the 1913 flood through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boatman who experienced it firsthand.Well written and thoroughly researched, this single-volume history of the Ohio and Erie Canal will be important to educators and to a general audience interested in Ohio history and canals.

Cruising French Waterways has rapidly become the leading descriptive guide to the astonishingly varied network of rivers and canals that penetrate almost every region of France. Winner of the Thomas Cook Guide Book Award, it is full of fascinating information on the history and commercial activities of each area, as well as the historical sites, chateaux and scenic attractions of the many villages and towns which await discovery by water. Practical details include the maps and guides available for each area, maximum craft dimensions, bankside facilities, moorings, repair yards, shops, restaurants, fuel and water sources, waterways museums and wine regions. Beautifully illustrated, the fourth edition covers all recently restored waterways and explains newly introduced requirements for licenses and personal qualifications. 'So comprehensive, it is now the standard work on the waterways of France' Waterways 'Handsome...beautifully illustrated' Sunday Telegraph

The canals of England and Wales are some two hundred years old. They revolutionised the transport of goods before being largely superseded by the faster railways and have become a monument to a way of life harder and more frugal than those who now use the canals for their leisure pursuits would choose. However, the boaters who lived and worked on the narrowboats of these canals were people who tried to make their homes as comfortable and decorative as they could. This book reflects the author's continuing interests in the life of the boaters on the canals and includes her researches into the handicrafts of the boat-women and their families.

Competition from rail and later road forced many canals into closure, and a large section of the old system seemed doomed to crumble away into terminal decay. Then came a new industry: the canal leisure industry, and with it the birth of the restoration movement. This final volume in the Anatomy of Canals series looks at what has been achieved and how the new compares with the old. Cities such as Brimingham have now been won over and have made the old canals part of a lively rejuvenation programme, while a new generation of engineers has produced such marvels as the Falkirk Wheel.

Barging Round Britain by David Bartley is a beautifully-illustrated guide to a unique and fascinating part of our history: the canal network. Explore the people and places that have forged this national treasure, from the birth of the Industrial Revolution to the leisure explosion on our waterways today. Fully-illustrated with maps and photographs, the book will trace canal routes across the UK, from the Georgian grandeur of Bath to the dramatic splendour of the Scottish Highlands. David Bartley's Barging Round Britain includes a foreword and chapter introductions by the presenter of the TV series, John Sergeant.

'Haywood imprints his inimitable humour on his descriptions of the people and places he meets along the way.' BBC Countryfile magazine 'He conjures up a picture of a different world, filled with interesting and eccentric people. A cross-section of the best of middle England, in fact.' The Oxford Times Steve Haywood has been cruising the inland waterways for fifty years, and has amassed a following of readers keen to hear about his travelling tales on Britain's beautiful canals and rivers. His previously published books - Narrowboat Dreams, One Man and a Narrowboat, Too Narrow to Swing a Cat and Narrowboat Nomads - have all been hugely enjoyed by those with a desire for a narrowboat narrative told in Steve's witty, charming style. Tales from the Tillerman is Steve's tribute to Britain's canals, rivers and countryside and a celebration of Britishness in all its eccentric glory. Unlike Steve's previous titles, which have each focussed on one particular journey that Steve has taken, Tales from the Tillerman is casting the net wider and drawing from his full fifty years of experience, recounting the many hair-raising escapades he's had up and down the country and reflecting on how the country and the cruising landscape has changed in those fifty years. Anecdotes and light-hearted rants aplenty, mixed with some tall tales and a smattering of the nostalgic, in Tales from the Tillerman you'll be thoroughly entertained as a middle-aged man (oh, go on then, an old one) reflects on his long love affair with boats and waterways, contemplating their importance to his life and how they've changed it.

A hilarious, true story of life-change, no going back, 40th birthdays and mid-life crisis. Follow the adventures of a husband and wife (plus two small children) as they take a barge through the French canals towards the Bourgogne and Canal du Midi - with The Mediterranean and Spain beckoning. Damian Horner is scared that fifteen years in advertising have turned him into a bastard. As he approaches his fortieth birthday, he wants to see if he can be a good husband and a good father before it's too late. Siobhan, his wife, would like to find out too but has other worries. Do marriage and kids mean she's now trapped in a world of suburban domesticity? It takes a miserable day and a bottle of wine to change everything. Suddenly Damian and Siobhan decide to throw their lives in the air and escape to the French canals, taking with them their son Noah who is two years old and can barely talk, and their daughter India who is one and cannot walk. Told in two voices, we hear both sides of their story and get the whole truth as Damian and Siobhan describe coming to terms with themselves and their life on board an old fishing boat in France with no space, no fridge, no charts, no deadlines and no flushing toilet.