DHutch

Its still there. Yes, appears so. Now restored and blue. Youtube video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4wuWeu1tsc Online there are suggestions there is at least one, maybe two in private ownership, including the extract below. There is also a well circulated image of one at Gloucestershire Steam Festival in 2011, which looks fairly original (ie, as per the two museum examples) other than the front wheels and the steering box arm being the other way up. https://canalmuseum.tumblr.com/post/617539407921233920/a-word-from-our-chair-martin-sachs-about-an For some time now I have been taking a lot of interest in canal towpath tractors for obvious reasons. There were two types that were most prevalent on the London canals in the post-war period. The Garner tractor, introduce 1952, had a petrol engine. The Wickham tractor, the type we have in the museum, was diesel-powered and was introduced in 1960. There are four Wickham tractors believed to have survived. Ours is probably the best example. One has been restored but modified by a private owner, the other is in the National Waterways Museum and is not in working order, and a fourth is believed to be out of use in poor condition. No Garner tractors were thought to have survived at all … until now. Somehow a man in an English cathedral city got my contact details and emailed me to say he had bought a Garner tractor. He sent me a poor photo of his acquisition. It is probably the only survivor. After the travel restrictions of Covid-19 are over I will hopefully be able to go and see this tractor and take photographs. Little is so far known about it, but it is a huge find! I have no idea if he will ever want to part with it and no idea where we might put it if we had it, but it certainly deserves a place in a museum one day! Would be quite fun to have a go driving one and or towing a boat with it.

Looks like its been taking down, but such is life. I am over four years late to the party!

Nice. We have a EX1000, original to the boat in 1991, and its a peach of a thing. (stock image, but looks identical to ours)

Very common fault across the board, even if well designed and torqued correctly, they can relax or vibrate loose with time. One of the reasons you cant hide screw terminals in wall and floor voids anyway, and while 'wago' type connections are becoming ever more common. Yes, it would be very interesting to see a full MAIB type investigation carried out on the topic, potently a lot of learn for boat owners and system designers alike. While sadly it doesn't rule out issues, its relevant that this was a professionally built boat, one of several in a small fleet of higher boats, owed by probably the largest boat hire operator in the UK let along on the canals, rather than a one off self designed DIY or 'backyard/backstreet' installation. I wonder if following this issue ABC have made and changes to the design or specification of the electrical installation on its other electric day boats? As I understand they are not all completely identical, there are some subtle variations in spec, and I have not looked into great detail as to the full spec, but I understand they have six of these boats now. The first was announced in Mar 2023, the Fifth in Sept 2024. This press release details the battery as being an inverter charger, which is disappointing, I cant find much more than they have a "48 volt Beta Marine 10Kw motor" and Lithium batteries. Shame Beta marine haven't done a full 'case study' on the build spec. https://www.abcboathire.com/blog/abc-boat-hire-proudly-launches-first-electric-hire-boat As a mild aside, Ortomarine have much more technical information on these specs of their past builds if tno the full system design, including a live table of total solar yield over the 'fleet' which is a nice touch and currently totals over 100 MWh and counting. https://www.ortomarine.co.uk/boat-data/ A friend of mine and formally fellow steam boat owner commissioned Eau De Folles which has been used regularly since launch three years ago, some teething issues with the generator Sole genset (Ortomarine now use Fisher Pander exclusively) but he is very happy with it and it does appear to perform very well.

Fair enough. Just seems odd compared to arranging it so you can one-hand both throttles. I am sure you are right. And while I would be well up for having a go driving it as it is, from both helms, I expect I would also remove the forward helm. https://www.steamboat.org.uk/user.php?id=61458 Steam launch Ictus is steered from just fwd of the cabin front, 2/5 back from the front of the boat, and by all accounts that takes more than enough getting used to when boating on the canals. They also have a small rear view mirror on the drivers side.

Oh amazing. No reply to my email as yet.

As you say, obviously pure speculation, based on an short and unverified account of the incident. However is does also feel surprisingly plausible!

I guess if making your own boat, you can do what you like. Probably still more practical than a steam powered or horse drawn boat. The aft throttle arrangement does however appear a very odd way of doing it, practical to package, but as said not at all handy to control.

Unless you put a sheet of plastic down the outside and or where fairly quick! But yeah, we typically drydock every 4 year so would do it then, as we did when cutting out the old pipe and welding in the boss. Truflow do some very nice glass filled nylon fittings, but for a steal hulled narrowboat I would use brass, if not welded steel. Very hard indeed to see what's going on in the OPs latest image. As said early on, as long as the bottom of the hole through the skin fitting is below the plug height of the sink, plus an amount for a expected heel of the boat etc, it will drain either eith a shallow waste connection like that, or with a conventional u-bend where the pipe then runs uphill a bit afterwards. If not, personally, I would re-drill the hole a touch lower and have the old hole welded up. Not a big job and could be made all but invisible. We have a mix of shallow connectors with a mild U in the pipe and a full conventional U-bend. As said, not needed for smells but maybe stops wind noise and the like.

Reported: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/contact-us/form

Made a moderate bang, enough to cause you to wonder what it was, but didnt noticeably slow the boat at all, left a 1" hole! All our though hull fittings are at around the 10" 250mm mark, bar the kitchen sink which is more like 8" 200mm for packaging reasons. Basically inevitable on a shower/bath but you really don't want a pump on the kitchen sink if you can help it! We then have one below water level hull fitting, which was till a few years ago, a length of 1/2" bsp steel pipe welded to the hull with a sea cock screwed to it, for our boiler blowdown. Our marine surveyor picked up that as this will have started life at only 3mm thick it might well be getting thin 30 years on and that we should replace it especially as it will see a souring effect when used. I am glad we did, because on removal, you could see daylight through the threads where the seacock screwed on up to about the end of the valve body. Thickness of steel between inside and out was down toa fraction of a mm, 0.2 perhaps. This was replaced with a stout welded in boss with internal thread, which gives much greater wall thickness and allows the use of an 'extended nipple' between the boss and valve, which can be routinely changed say ever 4-8 years. Drawing of the boss used, for reference and interest. I can supply in a range of sizes to anyone interested.

Yes, which can include posting straight away afterwards and having them merge into one I believe ! Odd. One for Rich to look into perhaps. @rmo Maybe. The currenly limits for 'Member' and 'New members' is as follows: I have had a bit of look around the forum settings, checking the settings of some of the other user groups, and Alan isnt in any of them, and cannot see anything obvious. However I then looked at his attachment quota, and yes, you are at 99% with only 1024MB left! So that is the root of the issue, full marks to NB Saturn!

Yeah I mean to do it, but have not done so yet. I was using it to look for a stoppage I knew existed, and finally worked it out after tracking down the stoppage using the map view and seeing what it was categorised as, but it could easily spoil someone's week and boat movement plans.