Michel, you've gotten a lot of very good advice here but I'll throw in a few suggestions of my own. I presented a seminar on "Cruising European Waterways" at the Stuart, FL TrawlerFest in January, and one of the things I did was a lot of research for a) getting your own boat over there and b) buying one there. First of all I discovered that getting a boat over there (or back, in your case) is surprisingly inexpensive. (We're talking "relatively" okay?) It's a function of size: beam and length, plus some equation with insured value. I found the Dockwise people very easy to deal with, and they gave me prompt estimates on two boats, one our own 43' Albin (NOT practical for size purposes in the French or British canals, although it would be "okay" elsewhere), and the other a Rosborough which I found on Boats.com or somewhere and fell in love with for the purpose of European Waterways. But I had a ball looking at the endless varieties of boats available over there, and picked at least 10 that I "had to have!" First of all consensus has it that there are far more pre-owned boats available in the Netherlands than anywhere else in Europe. That's because almost everyone in the Netherlands has one! Secondly, there is an Internet community that is tumbling over itself to help you at http://www.ybw.com/forums/postlist.php/Cat/0/Board/mby. There are people on there who can tell you about brokers, what to watch for in pre-owned canal boats, how to find a surveyor, etc. There is also a yahoo community at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eurocanals/ (which you may have to "join" to get there) which while not as active as this one, has people out there hovering, waiting to communicate with anyone about ANY aspect of European Canals including boat buying. Here is a link http://www.eurocanals.com/ that belongs to a man named Tom Sommers, who has collected a ton of information, and if you buy his CD (which I've heard elsewhere referred to as "invaluable" -- I haven't seen it myself) you will find an entire chapter on "Buying a boat in the Netherlands." Also, here is a link http://www.barges.org/html/books.html to a book that is available through the Barge Association "The Barge Buyer's Handbook." In searching through all the info that I felt I needed for that seminar, I found several boats that would have been wonderful for European Canals, but I am trying to imagine any of them (except perhaps for these http://www.aquanaut.nl/ -- and there please check on the British flag for the English version) on the Chesapeake Bay, my "home" waters. We've been through some "interesting stuff" in our own Albin, not all of it predictable. However, a dutch barge certainly gives you a LOT of living space and lacks the height which restricts many a 55 footer from the trip. I am quite willing to send you (or anyone else who is interested) the Word file which contains all of the links (includes a brief description of each) that I put together for that seminar. Much of the info is about cruising over there, but there's a lot of general stuff that could be quite useful for you. Good luck, and I hope you continue to share the experience and knowledge that you collect with this group. Peggy Carr Bjarno 1986 43' Albin "Aqua Vitae" Kent Narrows, Maryland > From: "Michel Dube" <mdube-icm@earthlink.net> > Subject: GL: Dutch Canal Barge > To: <great-loop@lists.samurai.com> > > We are looking at buying a 55ft Dutch Canal Barge , 13 ft wide , 3.5ft > draft > and cruise the great loop from Lake Champlain Vt, up to Montreal, then > Ottawa, > the Great Lakes and the rest.