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First ever steel narrow boat hulls manufactured for leisue boat use?


alan_fincher

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First SUC steel hull wood top boat was built around May 1964 it was a sort of prototype built for a friend of John Stotherts Dad Max It moored quite often outside the pub at Norbury the interest shown was the reason for the start of the build program

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10 hours ago, David Schweizer said:

The drawings of the Anglo Welsh and Harborough boats are identical, and the text does not actually state that they are of steel construction. However the Whitberry Company advert clearly stes that the hull is constructed of 1/4" welded steel plate with a superstructure to the customer's requirements. The advert includes a photo, which I will attempt to copy and post tomorrow.

The programme also contains an advertisement from M (Malcolm?) Braine at Norton Canes which states that they "shipwright" both wooden and steel canal boats and that both new and used caal boats are always available (no Photos)

I was actually at the 1967 Leicester Rally, but cannot remember any new Narrowboats being displayed.

Their was a Harborough With the window smasher bow on the river in abbey park can't remember if it was was wood or metal hull Remember Ike Argent not being overly impressed by the fore end

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21 minutes ago, Ogwr said:

Mot to forget Dennis Cooper pf CTS also at Norton Canes also late 60/s with his Tug Style.

That's how I know the answer can't be later than 1968. Written in weld metal on the top of the swim on Vulpes it says T Wakeley (CTS) 1968. I have never seen anything to suggest it was the first steel boat built by CTS but I believe it was the first tug style they built. First ownership was taken in February 1969.

There is an older boat that moors at Lyon's boatyard on the North Stratford which if memory serves me correctly is a Harris Brothers welded steel boat that looks like it was built for leisure use. It has the builder and date signwritten on the cabin side. Can anyone confirm?

JP

 

Edited by Captain Pegg
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37 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

There is an older boat that moors at Lyon's boatyard on the North Stratford which if memory serves me correctly is a Harris Brothers welded steel boat that looks like it was built for leisure use. It has the builder and date signwritten on the cabin side. Can anyone confirm?

I thought one thing Harris Brothers were famous for was that they never welded anything at all, and only ever worked with rivets.

That's always been my understanding - there was never any welding done at their yard.

 

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The boat at Lyons is one of the Harris boats but is riveted not welded.  It does have the build date and Bumble Hole on the cabin side.

Over the last few years, of the  Harris boats from the batch of six built in 1961-62  I have seen :

Victoria (at Lyons)

Kalamaki (Circus Field)

Secundus ( Ashby IIRC)

Tertius  (T&M near Burton).

The give away is the stern  shape and if original, the rudder arrangement.  Their swim is something to behold.

 

N

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6 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

I thought one thing Harris Brothers were famous for was that they never welded anything at all, and only ever worked with rivets.

That's always been my understanding - there was never any welding done at their yard.

 

 

3 minutes ago, BEngo said:

The boat at Lyons is one of the Harris boats but is riveted not welded.  It does have the build date and Bumble Hole on the cabin side.

Over the last few years, of the  Harris boats from the batch of six built in 1961-62  I have seen :

Victoria (at Lyons)

Kalamaki (Circus Field)

Secundus ( Ashby IIRC)

Tertius  (T&M near Burton).

The give away is the stern  shape and if original, the rudder arrangement.  Their swim is something to behold.

 

N

So the boat I am thinking of is Victoria and it's riveted (and iron rather than steel?).

Now I am interested to know if there is a welded steel boat built for leisure use that is still extant and that is older than Vulpes. I had previously assumed there must be.

JP

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I have managed to scan some pages from the 1967 IWA rally programme. The third picture begs the question "If they did not become Anglo Welsh until 1969, why were they advertising under that name in 1967 ?" Interestingly, the address and phone number is the same as that given for Harborough Marine

IWA 1967.jpg

advert.jpg

anglo welsh.jpg

Edited by David Schweizer
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My boat is an ex-hire sporting a plaque for Stone Boat Builders 1969.

I took it back there a few years ago to enquire.

I was told the details were right, and the back story was that during 60s the steel hulls were built for them at Penkridge and then towed to Stone where a wooden top was plonked on and the craft fitted out.

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1 hour ago, BEngo said:

The boat at Lyons is one of the Harris boats but is riveted not welded.  It does have the build date and Bumble Hole on the cabin side.

Over the last few years, of the  Harris boats from the batch of six built in 1961-62  I have seen :

Victoria (at Lyons)

Kalamaki (Circus Field)

Secundus ( Ashby IIRC)

Tertius  (T&M near Burton).

The give away is the stern  shape and if original, the rudder arrangement.  Their swim is something to behold.

 

N

The stern shape on these boats is from memory not very different from the Harris Brothers conversions of shortened BCN dayboats.

Published on here several times before, but here is our old Harris Brothers conversion.

Kerbau_Lift.jpg.836b1ca1999359838effc6b7b2760cc3.jpg

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I've just looked at the original paperwork in which "Worcester" was registered at Hull as a 13 ton ship in order to qualify for a marine mortgage.

The boatbuilder is listed as "Harborough Marine Ltd, Market Harborough, Leics". The Owner is listed as "Mid-England Narrow Boats Ltd having its principal place of business as 80/81 Wood-Gate, Loughborough in the county of Leicester". The date of construction is shown as 1970 although I am fairly sure that the build started in late 1969.

I do know that the boat went directly to Trevor to be one of the boats in the hire fleet there. When Anglo-Welsh sold Worcester out of Trevor in 1975, the bill of sale is on Harborough Marine headed paper, and is signed by (illegible) as "Director, Mid England Narrow Boats Limited, Harborough Marine Limited"

I have a 1973 brochure from Anglo-Welsh which says "Our hire fleet began in 1965 with two converted narrow boats based at Market Harborough. Each succeeding year has seen an increase in the number of boats, and new bases have been opened at Wootton Wawen and Great Haywood. As new boats of improved design are introduced, so the elder ones are phased out. For the 1973 season we have a fleet of 48 modern narrow boats at our four bases"

All of which gives no real information about the relationship between the company names - but is interesting.

 

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Rose of Sharon was built by Shropshire Union Cruises for David Owen in 1966 and is described in his book Water Rallies.  It was I believe one of the first if not the first of their production craft.  The very first boat, apart from perhaps the one built for a friend as described by Alan W, was Castle Rose, a diminutive trip boat built for operation at Stoke Bruerne replacing the tug Redcap.

I wonder if the first steel narrow boats may have been built for Constellation Cruisers of Higher Poynton in the early to mid 60s but they were barely more than pointed steel tanks with no top bends or even rubbing strokes so perhaps would better be described as steel cruisers.  I remember Aquila being moored below Crowley Lock in the early 70s - very basic uninsulated cabin with petrol engine driving prop shaft via belts under the stern deck.

Can I recommend www.canalscape.net and particular the section Don’t Call it a Barge for details of earlier canal pleasure boats? It incidentally mentions an early steel boat operated by Ladyline called Lady Barbara which I’m not familiar with.

Paul

Edited by Paul H
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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:

The stern shape on these boats is from memory not very different from the Harris Brothers conversions of shortened BCN dayboats.

Published on here several times before, but here is our old Harris Brothers conversion.

Kerbau_Lift.jpg.836b1ca1999359838effc6b7b2760cc3.jpg

Alan,

They were indeed very similar.  I suspect the plan was build a  fore end chunk of dayboat and then finish it off much like the conversions but without having to cut anything off.   The new build boats have a horizontal rectangular section guard iron across the stern about where the exhaust? bilge pump? hole is in your piccy and the rudder stem was originally mounted in  top and bottom 'bearings' attached to the stern rather than in a conventional rudder tube as pictured.  Additionally there are no angles on the stern corners. 

Richard,

 

I do not know if the first of the series was called Primus.  There are other paraffin cookers!

 

N

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Hi All,

My first narrow boat - Su Sian was built by Shropshire Union Boat builders in 1967. It  had a steel hull and wooden top built by David Piper when he was apprentice. I bought it in 1996, renovated it and sold it in 2004. It is still going strong on the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union.

 

AA_0_018.jpg

AA_0_022.jpg

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Bob Hakewill's book 'Boatbuilders Of Market Harborough' yields a few clues.

Harborough Marine was established by Giles Baker, soon joined by his brother Frank, in 1964. At first they converted ex-working boats and built new wooden ones.

Sam Springer moved his company, whose principal business was building storage tanks, from London to Market Harborough in 1954. By about 1967 he was supplying steel counters to Harborough Marine who fitted them to their otherwise wooden boats.

In 1967 the Bakers, delivering a new boat to the Llangollen, noticed that a builder in Shropshire was making steel shells*. This inspired them to produce the first steel Harborough Marine boat in 1968.

Springer's built their first (steel) boat in 1969.

 

* edit: this ties in neatly with Alvic's post no. 26.

Edited by Athy
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31 minutes ago, Athy said:

 

Springer's built their first (steel) boat in 1969.

 

No 8 is still afloat.

"Badger was launched in June 1969. She's certainly one of the first 8
built (I know that 'cause I met the person who had Number 9 built
recently - that wad the first steel-top one and was built in about
October 1969)."

 

This is Badger in July last year on the GU

DSCF5066small.jpg

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We seem to be moving towards saying that if we ignore riveted boats, the first production all welded ones may then have been Shropshire Union ones, from around the mid-1960s.
 

That feels about right to me, from what I can remember of what was around by the early 1970s.

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Both Yarwoods and Pimblotts of Northwich built "pleasure boats" prior to and just after the "Admiral class" was constructed. Some Pimblott hulls went into the BW hire fleet. The Yarwoods hulls are still to be found I understand. The Harris built pleasure craft of riveted construction used a smaller diameter rivet than they normally used on the Joey boat hulls and are easily recognised.

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1 hour ago, Laurence Hogg said:

"Stentor" as originally owned by the Chaplain family was an ex BCN tug built for Chance & Hunt.

Ah, that  Stentor. Two of Chance & Hunt's tugs had names drawn from Greek mythology: Stentor and Hector. That's part of the reason that our boat, which carries a boat painter's interpretation of the Chance & Hunt livery, is named Trojan.

Edited by Athy
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