[f. TRACK- vb.-stem + BOAT.] A boat that is tracked or towed; a tow-boat. (Originally Sc., rendering Du. trek-schuit.)
1632. Sc. Acts Chas. I. (1870), V. 243/1. Also thair Trakboats, boats, crears, shippes more or lesse … Sall not be arrested.
1795. J. Phillips, Hist. Inland Navig., 320. The public opening of the … navigation from sea to sea was made by the sailing of a track-barge…. In the course of the voyage … the track-boat passed along … the great aqueduct over the river Kelvin.
1808–18. Jamieson, Track-boat, a boat used on a canal.
1824. in Sidney, Life R. Hill (1834), 308. Mr. Hill went to Glasgow by the track boat, embarking at Grangemouth.
1908. Westm. Gaz., 27 Oct., 6/3. The journey was made by P. and O. steamer to Alexandria (sixteen days), thence in a track boat towed by tugs or horses to Atfeh (forty-eight miles along the Mahmoudieh Canal), thence by Nile steamer 120 miles to Boulac.
