In the days of commercial carriers Narrowboats were built to carry 20 ton payloads, and the crew, quite often the entire family lived and worked in a boatman's cabin 6 feet long and the width of the boat wide.

One thing that has changed little is the construction of the hull, the bottom is normally 10 mm thick steel plate, the sides 6 mm and the roof 4 mm. This all goes to make for a very forgiving craft and given the slow speed the boats are designed for you are in more danger of knocking crockery on to the cabin floor than you are of actually damaging the boat when you hit something. Having said that there's a certain pride to being able to moor up or get into a lock without touching the sides, and impossible though it seems as you begin it can be done.

Typical layout of a hire narrowboat, diagram courtesy of Viking Afloat

The boat above is one of Viking's 61 feet Severn Class, designed with 6 permanent beds (1 Double and 4 Bunks), with the option to convert the dining table into another double.

The design is such that two families of up to four people effectively have half the boat each at night, using the galley as the centre line (so who ever is first up makes the tea), each 'half' has one double, one set of bunk beds, and all importantly it's own toilet. This boat had very good head room, I'm 6'4" and could stand up in it and the beds were a good length. Be careful if you are over 6' tall, some beds are only 6' long, so you end up sleeping curled up.

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