Saint Louis (hotel barge)

	Hotel barge Saint Louis on the Canal de Garonne.
History
France
Name:	Saint Louis
Owner:	SARL Saint Louis Barge
Operator:	Owner operated
Port of registry:	Lyon
Route:	Canal de Garonne and Canal de Montech - Montauban to Agen to Castets-en-Dorthe ; Midi-Pyrénées and Aquitaine ;
Builder:	Gebr. Boot, Alphen a/d Rijn
Launched:	1923
Status:	in active service
General characteristics
Class and type:	Commercial passenger vessel
Tonnage:	127
Length:	29.2 m (96 ft)
Beam:	5 m (16 ft)
Height:	3.2 m (10 ft)
Draught:	1.2 m (3.9 ft)
Decks:	2
Installed power:	2 x generators – Lister Petter Diesel 380Volt 14 KVA and Honda 220Volt 4.5 KVA
Propulsion:	GM 6V72 diesel motor, 180 H.P
Speed:	Canal cruising speed 3 knots, Maximum speed 8 knots
Capacity:	6 passengers
Crew:	4 crew
Notes:	Fuel capacity 3,000 litres, Water capacity 10,000 litres; 6 person Bombard Commando tender with 6HP Mercury outboard;

Last updated February 20, 2019

Saint Louis (named for Louis IX of France, later canonised) is a Luxemotor hotel barge, on the Canal de Garonne in South West France.

Louis IX of France 13th-century King of France

Louis IX, commonly known as Saint Louis, was King of France, the ninth from the House of Capet, and is a canonized Catholic and Anglican saint. Louis was crowned in Reims at the age of 12, following the death of his father Louis VIII the Lion, although his mother, Blanche of Castile, ruled the kingdom until he reached maturity. During Louis' childhood, Blanche dealt with the opposition of rebellious vassals and put an end to the Albigensian Crusade which had started 20 years earlier.

A Luxe motor is a Dutch type barge, built for the first time in the early 1920s. Most vessels had a straight bow ('Steilsteven') with characteristic upsweep of the gunwale and good accommodation for living at the back of the ship, from which the name derives. As constructed, luxe motor lengths range from 18 to 30 metres though many were lengthened in the 1950s to compete with the falling price of road transport. After commercial retirement the luxe hull is a popular choice for liveaboard and recreational use and many have been shortened to aid with handling or attract reduced mooring fees.

The hotel barge came into being following the decline in commercial and freight carrying on the canals of Europe. Many working barges have been converted into floating hotels of varying degrees of luxury. This trend began in the 1960s and has now grown into a network of hotel barges operating on the canals and rivers of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. The majority of hotel barges operate on the French waterways, where the national authority Voies Navigables de France estimates their economic importance at 60 million euros of local income, or roughly 5% of all waterway tourism business in France.

History

Built in 1923 by Gebroeders Boot in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands, Saint Louis was a bulk carrier and served on the Dutch inland seas and waterways carrying cargoes of grain and gravel until around 1985. At that time she was converted for use as a supply vessel in the port of Amsterdam, using the name Supplier 2. In 1994 she was sold and then converted into a hotel barge.

Alphen aan den Rijn is a town and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland, between Leiden and Utrecht. The town is situated on the banks of the river Oude Rijn, where the river Gouwe branches off. The municipality had a population of 109,449 in 2017, and covers an area of 132.49 km² (51.15 sq mi) of which 5.91 km² (2.28 sq mi) is water.

The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Including three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.

Amsterdam is the capital city and most populous municipality of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper, 1,351,587 in the urban area and 2,410,960 in the metropolitan area. The city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country but is not its capital, which is Haarlem. The metropolitan area comprises much of the northern part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe, with a population of approximately 8 million.

External links

Saint Louis hotel barge website

Related Research Articles

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Saint Louis, Saint-Louis or St. Louis may refer to a number of things, the great majority named after Saint Louis IX (1214–1270), a King of France and Catholic saint, and including the American city of St. Louis.

Pézenas is a commune in the Hérault department in the Occitanie region in southern France.

Nymphea was built in 1921 to carry cargo along the canals of Europe and is a classic Dutch design with shallow draught. She presently serves as a hotel barge.

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The L'Impressionniste was built in 1960 in Belgium and is a spits barge with a Dutch luxe motor-style bow. The overall hull shape of the barge is a marriage of the French and Dutch barge building influences. She was converted to a hotel barge in 1996. L'Impressionniste is owned and operated by European Waterways and sails on the Canal de Bourgogne in France.

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A péniche is a steel motorised inland waterway barge of up to 350 tonnes' capacity. Péniche barges were built to fit the post-1880s French waterways and the locks of Freycinet gauge. They are visually similar to a Thames barge, but built to different specifications.

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References

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Saint Louis (hotel barge)

Contents

History

External links

Related Research Articles

References