American canal boats were built to standards shaped by their canals. Here, the preferred boat followed Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company specifications of 87 1/2 feet long, 10.5 feet wide, and 7 1/2 feet tall. These wooden hinge boats carried up to 100 tons of cargo. Private boatyards built and repaired boats along the Delaware Canal at Uhlerstown, Erwinna, Upper Black Eddy, Point Pleasant, New Hope, and Bristol, while major company-owned boatyards operated in Weissport and Laury’s Station on the Lehigh Navigation. Captains valued the hinge boat’s flexibility because its two sections could be separated by removing center connecting pins, allowing it to turn in the narrow Delaware Canal and haul two types of freight. The two sections also traveled on the inclined planes of New Jersey’s Morris Canal, avoiding load transfers. In 1833, Canal Commissioners established passing rules that gave an unloaded boat the right of way when two boats met: the loaded boat moved to the side opposite the towpath and stopped its mules, the tow line sank to the canal bottom, and the lighter boat, riding higher in the water, passed over the line before both continued. Difficulties sometimes arose when boats approached each other, and fights often began when a faster boat could not pass a slower one because money was made by the load and time was money.