Narrowboat Welding, Plating and Stretching

As your narrowboat becomes older, the steel work is subject to corrosion and wear, which leads to thinning of the metal and may, at some stage, require over-plating.

Over-plating is a way of increasing the life span of your narrowboat to get many more years of cruising.

At Swanley Bridge Marina there is a dedicated welding and engineering workshop, which has a unique plating table system and lifting equipment, all designed and built by Danny – D and J Engineering. Danny has over 30 years of welding and engineering experience in both industrial and marine engineering. The plating table gives the correct support when welding and also has tooling for clamping the narrowboat sides to prevent them from spreading, and enable the correct re-alignment when stretching boats.

The welding processes we use are correct ‘V’ joints to gain full penetration and high current fillet joints with top of the range welding equipment.

When plating a narrowboat, whether it’s a new bottom, sides, or both, attention to the extra weight added (which makes it sit lower in the water) has to be paid to the hull opening and outlets, so they maintain the correct height above the water line (free board), therefore, re-ballasting, lifting sink outlets, raising weed hatch trunks etc is all taken into account to keep your boat compliant with boat safety regulations and insurance requirements.

Here at Swanley we pride ourselves on the excellent standard of narrowboat welding offered by D and J Engineering, whether it’s re-plating a narrowboat; general welding repairs, or new fabrication work, the attention to detail is second to none.

If you want to keep your boat, but would like to have a bit more room, he offers a narrowboat stretching service. Either steel work only, or a full fit out, or re-paint, which is all available through the independent team who work out of Swanley Bridge Marina.

So if you have any welding work, whether it be plating work for surveys, alterations, or cosmetics, come and discuss your needs with Danny…his motto is ‘if man made it, man can fix it’.