Helva in early morning mist The family narrowboat, Helva, named for Anne McCaffrey's "ship who sang". Because of her long, thin dimensions --57 feet long by just under 7 feet wide-- she has been likened to a "steel sausage". The width is constrained by the size of locks on the narrow-beam canals of the British waterways. (The Kennet and Avon, pictured here, is a broad beam canal capable of carrying boats up to nearly 14 feet wide, or two narrowboats side-by-side, through its locks. 2002-03-29T08:05 image image/jpeg 020329-0805-011 Kennet and Avon canal Nikon CoolPix 995 Zoom Nikkor 8-32mm 1:2.6-5.1 daylight Another for the series of pictures of places we have moored.