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alan_fincher

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2 hours ago, magnetman said:

But the Bantock isn't a butty. It predates butties because the term butty describes a boat paired with a motor. It was a horse boat. Its advertised as a butty and was probably used as a butty at some stage but as far as I know it  was built before the "iron horse" existed. This makes it quite a lot more interesting to history enthusiasts than a 1930s built butty IMO :)

 

But yes I agree it probably needs a huge amount of work. I'm once bitten twice shy but very tempted to get on a train to have a look at it because these really are wonderful boats.

I've been on a GUCCCo butty and I've been in a "mk1" Bantock. I know which one I prefer and by a long way. No comparison for me.

 

 

I recall a very credible argument in response to a similar claim a while back that the term butty pre-dated motor boats. The argument being that it was used in relation to horse boats which were worked in pairs by a single horse, which was a common occurence.

JP

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1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Wood floats on water. steel and iron sink.

A narrow boat with less draught is going to be less trouble and go along better on narrow canals.

Except a boat with 3" elm bottoms draws almost 3" more than the same boat with a steel bottom loaded to the same dryside inches. And if you work it out 3" of timber weighs about the same as 10mm of steel.

 

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1 hour ago, magnetman said:

Wood floats on water. steel and iron sink.

A narrow boat with less draught is going to be less trouble and go along better on narrow canals.

Not an argument I subscribe to.  Wooden and steel NBs of comparable carrying capacity have comparable draughts.

The wood bottom is saturated and barely floats, and as stated above is 3" thick compared to the half inch of a working boat bottom.

George

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15 hours ago, magnetman said:

Wood floats on water. steel and iron sink.

A narrow boat with less draught is going to be less trouble and go along better on narrow canals.

But you generally have to put loads of ballast in them to make them go along at all.
What's the difference in handling whether it is the baseplate that's giving the required draught, or a load of ballast?
In general ballast, (particularly those nasty 40 gallon drums filled with water) raises the centre of gravity, and makes handling less impressive that in the weight was all in the bottoms.

 

13 hours ago, David Mack said:

Except a boat with 3" elm bottoms draws almost 3" more than the same boat with a steel bottom loaded to the same dryside inches. And if you work it out 3" of timber weighs about the same as 10mm of steel.

 

But playing devils advocate, those who have had wooden bottoms replaced in steel and continued to carry reckon it significantly reduces the cargo you can carry on the same draught.

IIRC Trevor Maggs says Corona now carries 2 tons less for the same draught as it did when it had wood bottoms.

Actually, I'm wondering if he was talking about freeboard, rather than draught?  That would make more sense to me.

I't also depends what you mean by "draught" - as BWM points out if tou re-bottom (say) a GUCCCo composite boat in steel, for most of the boat the depth of hull is reduced by nearly 3", because you have (maybe) 10mm plate replacing the boards.  However the extreme "pointy bits" (including the skeg and rudder) will still be where they were.  So is "draught" to the lowest point of the rep[lacement baseplate, or to the lowest point of the skeg?

Either way for a motor, it will ultimately be about ballasting.  An empty unconverted boat with a typical engine will simply be too high out of the water unless you add some ballast to the back end at least.  At that point, I'd say what the bottom is made of doesn't make much difference.

Edited by alan_fincher
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Fair enough but my theory is that a boat with wood bottom will draw slightly less than a metal one -with the same weight of cargo on board -

Maybe and its just a thought, if you were steering loaded narrow boats all day and all night as a job you would notice the difference in draught even if it was a tiny difference. like "the princess and the pea"


I assumed the reference to wooden bottom boats handling was when loaded and used for commercial carrying.

 

 

15 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

I recall a very credible argument in response to a similar claim a while back that the term butty pre-dated motor boats. The argument being that it was used in relation to horse boats which were worked in pairs by a single horse, which was a common occurence.

JP

Thanks for that .

Edited by magnetman
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Latest HNBC magazine lists 3 new interesting boats I have not previously seen advertised..............

Antony / Water Lilac (45 foot front of H&W "Star" - Converted Lister HA2) - Offer around £16K

Pelican (43 foot 1911 built ice breaker, 11HP Bolinder) - £26K

(and perhaps the biggest surprise)

Elizabeth (62-ish foot, where even the conversion dates from 1936 - Gardner 2LW) - Suggested £60K

I doubt we will see a more eclectic set of boats come up in a single issue in many a year, and not one is a full 70 footer, and two of them over 100 years old.

Also still advertised are Tay and Aston

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2 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:


Elizabeth (62-ish foot, where even the conversion dates from 1936 - Gardner 2LW) - Suggested £60K

 

I'm sure it must be a great wrench for Jim Madonald to give up Elizabeth.

The notice in the HNBC magazine wisely states, "The new owner will need to be practical and have the time and resources to dedicate to the to the maintenance of this remarkable boat; she is not the sort of craft that can just be left in a marina."  How sensible.

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Elizabeth is a most distinctive boat, and one which fully merits the overworked adjective "unique".

I have seen her around the system from time to time - at Langley Mill and Alvecote inter alia - and, though I have never been inside, I should think that with that clerestory superstructure she'd suit an owner with a small head and wide shoulders.

Edited by Athy
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1 hour ago, Athy said:

Elizabeth is a most distinctive boat, and one which fully merits the overworked adjective "unique".

I have seen her around the system from time to time - at Langley Mill and Alvecote inter alia - and, though I have never been inside, I should think that with that clerestory superstructure she'd suit an owner with a small head and wide shoulders.

Jim must have done some soul searching, and it's totally to his credit that Elizabeth is still the boat I first saw in 1974.

Edited by Athy
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27 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

Jim must have done some soul searching, and it's totally to his credit that Elizabeth is still the boat I first saw in 1974.

Likewise Martin parting with Pelican having seen the huge amount of work and dedication he has put into it.

Does anyone know if he is still working on his ice breaker project at Tess Wharf?

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39 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

Jim must have done some soul searching, and it's totally to his credit that Elizabeth is still the boat I first saw in 1974.

Yes, apparently it has been in the family for 50 years.

My edit to your post was simply to remedy a spelling mistake in my previous post, which you had quoted.

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Elizabeth is an interesting boat which has had a lot of adventures. I seem to remember that the boat hit a bridge on the Trent side-on very hard in fog which resulted in considerable damage. Not sure when it was but I was told this by the owner.


Not my cup of tea at all but its nice.

 

Antony sounds interesting. there was another Antony with a GU motor stern and an unusual steel double curved bow (wfbco possibly?) moored at Springwell near Rickmansworth about 10/12 years ago when I lived at Batchworth but it seems to have gone. It had a wooden cabin. I always thought it'd make a nice tug conversion. Not sure what the situation with the bows was was - I suppose it could have been a BW workboat.

 

 

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On 05/12/2017 at 19:15, alan_fincher said:

Has he said why?

I have heard it before, but I can see very little logical reason why it should.

Easy answer steel sinks wood floats.

Ive always found wooden bottomed boats sit higher out the water on a direct comparison with same boat with steel bottom. I also tend to find the roll less.

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2 minutes ago, billybobbooth said:

Easy answer steel sinks wood floats.

Ive always found wooden bottomed boats sit higher out the water on a direct comparison with same boat with steel bottom. I also tend to find the roll less.

I don't get it.

As I have already said, it would be highly unusual in an unconverted motor not to have to add ballast to get the back end down enough - otherwise you would typically have part of the blade thrashing around out of water.

I really can't see it matters how much of the total weight is the bottom of the boat, and how much is the necessary ballast to pile on top of it.

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1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:

I don't get it.

As I have already said, it would be highly unusual in an unconverted motor not to have to add ballast to get the back end down enough - otherwise you would typically have part of the blade thrashing around out of water.

I really can't see it matters how much of the total weight is the bottom of the boat, and how much is the necessary ballast to pile on top of it.

Take a bit of steel dosnt matter on size, put it in water 5 foot deep and push it to the bottom the steel tries to go to the bottom

Do the same with wood it will go to the bottom but it wont be trying to pull down as hard.

Even on an old boat the wood will have a level of boyancy its this that in my op makes a wooden bottom boat handle better,

On a side note ive tended to find the deep engine bed thud less on wooden bottomed boats.

Anyways thats my op. Others are welcome to theres. I would always want a wooden bottom. Although i always want wooden sides too!

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