Scotland's lowland canals are home to fewer than 400 boats just six years after they reopened following a £85m revamp.
There are just 376 vessels based on either the Union or Forth and Clyde, the two waterways reconnected thanks to the landmark Millennium Link.
However, canal owner British Waterways Scotland believes there is "latent" demand for as many as 2000 boats on the lowland network within just 10 years.
The company, which is largely state-financed, has a waiting list of 150 boats looking for a berth on either the Forth and Clyde or the Union canal and is determined to build up mooring and marina capacity for hundreds of other boaters.
Managing director Steve Dunlop said yesterday: "I am not nearly satisfied with either the level of transit down the network or the level of on-water activity. I would say we are just on the starting blocks."
The two lowland waterways have proved a huge success for "towpath visitors" with 15 million people making their way to the waterside to cycle, walk, fish or enjoy a pint at pubs on their banks.
Mr Dunlop and canal enthusiasts, however, stress that boats play a key role in attracting people to the canals - and more needs to be done to encourage new on-water business.
Mr Dunlop said: "We want the canals to be densely populated. There is real demand out there."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article