Bernard
tut tut
a butty or butty boat is not a barge but a narrow boat (sans engine as you said)
technically barges are wider than 7 feet. Narrow boats, worked by boaters (not bargees) floated along our narrow canal system. There were a few barges in the Wolverhampton/Dudley area that were confined to the bits of the canal there that didn't have tight corners or locks.
AFAIK barges on bigger canals were called barges unless they were part of a Tom Pudding (10 or more coal tubs pushed legthwise by a tug - on the Aire & Calder)
As they invariably had no cover one could say they were they were "open door"
thread creep? what thread creep?