Absolutely. In Britain the trailblazer was the 2633m Harecastle Tunnel, built by James Brindley in the 1770s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecastle_Tunnel ht

Absolutely. In Britain the trailblazer was the 2633m Harecastle Tunnel, built by James Brindley in the 1770s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecastle_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecastle_Tunnel . TFA describes the Norwegian tunnel as "the world's first ship tunnel of any significant size", but "significant" changes as engineering advances, and Harecastle was certainly significant at the time - contemporaries thought it an unearthly achievement. Scepticism was such that it was nicknamed an "air castle" (after "castles in the air"). It was the absolute limit of what was believed possible with tunnelling technology through such rock: the 7ft width defined the size of locks and bridges for the rest of the Grand Trunk, or Trent & Mersey, Canal. In turn, this defined the size of the English "narrowboat", the dominant inland craft for cargo carrying and, since the 1960s, pleasure boating. (In modern terms this would be called "boat" rather than "ship", but in contemporary documents it was less clear, and it seems likely that the size was chosen as a half-ship - half the width of the Mersey Flat sailing vessels, on the river with which the canal connected.) The original Harecastle Tunnel is now closed due to subsidence, but the 1820s replacement is still operational, and the rest of the Trent & Mersey Canal is fully navigable and very enjoyable: I moored a boat on it for six years. (For anyone interested in finding out about Britain's 2,500-mile network of historic canals, here's the charity that runs them: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/ https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/ )