Thank you for the reports. May I ask when reporting in future please post reports of pakset issues in the pakset forum rather than the general development forum. Doing this makes it much easier for me to keep track of (and thus fix) the problems. Thank you.
Turning to the actual issues, as to no. 1, this is correct: the practice of hauling boats at high speeds on canals was not invented until the 1830s: see purl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyboat]here. In at least some cases, the technique could be retrospectively applied to existing boats.
As to no. 2, the only barges that can be hauled by this tug are barges specifically designed to work with the tug (the tug barges). There were no passenger tug barges so far as I am aware.