Free guides to the Great Loop

The numbers that decide it

How tall can your boat be? 19'6" at the Illinois River is the only clearance you can't get around. Everything else costs you a route, not the Loop. Read it → How much water can it draw? Under 5' is the working answer — but it's a preference, not a wall. Over it means a signed waiver, not a refusal. Read it → How far between fuel stops? One leg sets the number: Alton to Paducah, about 250 miles. And a range figure without a speed attached tells you nothing. Read it → Single or twin engines? We don't answer it — owners are split and anyone who declares a winner is stating a preference. The efficiency argument, though, doesn't hold up. Read it → Can that boat even reach the Loop? A dam without a lock is a wall. Two lakes ninety minutes apart by road can be a few hundred river miles from the Loop — or a truck ride. Read it →

The boat itself

What engine hours tell you Almost nothing on their own. Without the fuel type and the years behind them the number misleads — and low hours is not the good news it reads as. Read it → Does an orphan brand matter? A builder going under changes the paperwork questions, never the hull. Most of the classic Loop fleet is already orphaned; the real teeth are deposits on boats still in build, and every orphan question is askable before you spend a dollar. Read it → Is a bigger boat better for the Loop? Ocean capability doesn't cascade down to the Loop — deep draft, tall air draft and wide beam close doors the route runs through. The Loop selects for fit, not might, and the trade-offs are knowable before you buy. Read it → How do the offer, deposit and survey fit together? You sign the purchase agreement and put the deposit down before the survey happens — the contingency clause is what makes it refundable. Boats don't formally fail a survey; you get a condition list and the decision is yours. Read it → Is an older boat a mistake? Age and use wear different parts of a boat, and the year on the listing tells you which questions to ask, not what to avoid. Care history beats year built, and the calendar items are all askable. Read it → What do high moisture readings mean? A moisture reading in the stringers is a question, not a verdict. The meter can mislead in both directions, so the move is one specific ask to your surveyor and a structural read before any decision. Read it → What's in the engine oil? One lab test reads 24 metals out of a few ounces of used oil — the cheapest look inside a diesel a buyer can get. But the report only means something if you also get the hours on the oil. Read it → Can you take a dog? Yes — but the two things that decide it are how she rolls and how he gets aboard, and neither one is in a listing. Read it →

Before you spend money

Which length is the real one? A listing can give two, several feet apart, and only the larger one decides where she fits. It costs you nothing on the Loop and plenty at the slip. Read it → What a dossier looks like One real listing taken apart: every claim tagged for how well it's verified, and the gaps stated rather than filled in. Read it → Should you buy a project boat? The ones that fail arrive at the salvage yard full of the parts bought to finish them. It isn't the money — it's the hours, against everything else you do. Read it → Should you buy a boat that just finished the Loop? It has already proven it can make the trip — and it's fresh off a year of hard use the listing won't mention. The trip's own log is what tells you: ask for the when-we-get-home list before the deposit. Read it → What a survey costs, and when to book Three surveys rather than one, and the closing date you negotiate decides which surveyor you get. Read it → What decides whether you can insure it Insurers trigger on the manufacturer's stated length, not your measured LOA — and they may want documented training hours before they'll write it. Read it →

On the water

What to feel for on a sea trial Sixteen things worth deliberately noticing. The numbers are the easy part; a spec sheet can't tell you whether you'll still want to be aboard on day forty. Read it → The four kinds of lock you'll meet The longest stretch of locks is the easiest one, and the Erie is the hard one. That's the opposite of what most people expect. Read it → Can one person handle this boat? Almost nobody Loops solo; nearly everybody Loops as a couple. The Coast Guard has a name for the case that actually applies. Read it → What the stop at Pickwick is for It's a fork, not a rest stop — the Tenn-Tom leaves the Tennessee River here. Carry on upriver instead and the side trip costs weeks you may not have. Read it →

What the record actually shows

How long does it actually take? 653 days is the published average — but that's ELAPSED time. The route itself is about 130-170 days of moving. Everything else is stopping. Read it → What boats actually finish the Loop Five years of AGLCA's own data, read together for the first time. Mainship leads every year — and don't read the five totals as a trend. Read it → The model library Hand-researched profiles of the boats Loop buyers actually shop — known issues, published specs, and the questions to ask, every claim tagged for how well it's verified. Read it →

The Teardown — real listings, worked

Teardown №1: a 2004 Swift Trawler 42 Her published air draft is 23'0" mast up and 13'1" down — the whole Loop case rides the folding mast. Plus a range figure that belongs to a different throttle than the listing implies, and five things to ask before a dollar moves. Read it →

Things to take with you

The sea-trial checklist, as a PDF Printable, free, no signup. Take it to the boat. Open → The sample dossier, as a PDF Built fresh from the live renderer every time you ask for it — so it can never drift from what the product actually produces. Open → A sample dossier What we produce for one specific boat, with every claim tagged for how well it's verified. Open →

The tool

Have a boat in mind? Run her numbers. The free gate check: type what you know and it's checked against the same hard limits these guides explain. No account, nothing stored. Run the gate check →

What we didn't do: we haven't run the Loop, and we haven't surveyed anything. What's here is published figures — mostly AGLCA's own, linked so you can check them — read alongside the accounts of people who have done it. Where those people disagreed, we said so instead of picking a winner. And if something here is wrong, tell us — support@caniloop.net. Somebody already has, and that page now says so.

What this is based on

Each guide names its own sources at the foot of the page.

If we've got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — support@caniloop.net. A correction from someone who has actually run it is worth more than anything we can write.