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George - a short boat


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The english language is a wonderful thing when it comes to names and descriptions. Nomenclature for craft on the Leeds & Liverpool, for example, the short boat is anything but short, yet relative to others on that waterway it is an appropriate term. Yet when looking at individuals amongst the former short boat community there is variety even there. The George, which was preserved at Ellesmere Port had a transom stern, whilst later craft, like Pluto, had rounded sterns. It is said the development aided transit through locks. Sadly Pluto, the more modern example of a wooden short boat, was set on fire by the troglodytes that crawl out of the dark places and has been lost, but is George still in preservation?  

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The George remains in what is described as the "care" of the Ellesmere Port museum.

It had a fantastically expensive restoration somewhere in the south of England, and returned last year.

There has been much sniffing and snorting about the restoration, and whilst it has to be said that the boat doesn't look quite as it did before, it is still a lovely-looking thing.

It was due to be towed through Lancashire so school kids could see it (to fulfil the conditions of its restoration grant), but the plan was changed; it was taken to Liverpool on a lorry, and craned into Salthouse Dock, with kids being bussed in to see it.

Isn't technology wonderful? 

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15 hours ago, DRP said:

The George remains in what is described as the "care" of the Ellesmere Port museum.

It had a fantastically expensive restoration somewhere in the south of England, and returned last year.

There has been much sniffing and snorting about the restoration, and whilst it has to be said that the boat doesn't look quite as it did before, it is still a lovely-looking thing.

It was due to be towed through Lancashire so school kids could see it (to fulfil the conditions of its restoration grant), but the plan was changed; it was taken to Liverpool on a lorry, and craned into Salthouse Dock, with kids being bussed in to see it.

Isn't technology wonderful? 

Absolutely, technology is wonderful, but .........I don't think that it does a lot of good to an old wooden boat (not even to a recently restored one either) to be dangeling from a crane, only supported by a couple of fairly narrow slings.

 

The best transport is by water (where boats belong) on it's own keel, where the whole boat is supported evenly by the water it floats in.

 

Peter.

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Couldn't agree more.

The whole story may help explain a heavy dose of irony in my post:

The George was originally going to be towed across the Mersey to Liverpool by a commercial boat operator, then along the Leeds & Liverpool canal by a well-known boat preservation society.

Owing to illness, the boatman of the preservation society found he was no longer able to do it, so asked us if we would take over with our Yarwoods short boat.

We were keen to help, so a meeting was organised with the "Project Manager", who, only months before the journey was due to begin, seemed not to have considered basic issues such as was the boat to be ballasted at all, was it to be equipped with a pump as it would almost certainly ship water on its passage across the river and what sort of security arrangements had been made.

We left it that we would still be willing devote the Summer to it for no payment other than the diesel used, once it had arrived in Liverpool.

Some weeks later, we received an e-mail from some other woman at the Boat Museum, telling us our services would not be required, but that we could feel free to join in any of the George's activities. Not an offer we felt inclined to take up.

We have it on good authority that it is now going to be towed around by a Bantam tug.

We shall not be bothering to get involved with that organisation again.

  • Greenie 1
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