David Schweizer
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Posts posted by David Schweizer
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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:
A further problem has presented itself which we have so far failed to solve. The canal in front of Sickle's mooring has become so silted that we can move forward about 20 feet before we run aground exposing about 5" of hull side that should be under water. I don't suppose anybody just happens to be passing Weedon with a dredger, do they? 😄
Is the silt likely to be dissipated by passing boats if you manage to get Sickle off it's mooring? The canal alongside our mooring at Napton used to get silted up over the winter, making it almost impossible to get away from the bank. Every spring, I had to use the prop to "dredge" the the silt away, perhaps you could utilise Flamingo's huge prop to do the same, of course the "Dredging " boat needs to be securely attatched to the bank with long ropes to facilitate that!
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1 hour ago, Grahamnewman said:
80 boats booked in so far with a few more saying they will attend.
Music wont be amplified, just duos and no bands.
It's not bands as such which people object to Graham, but the type of band and the level of over amplification. In the early days, I seem to remember there being a number of acoustic Folk and Jazz Bands which did not impinge on conversation. However, I am sure that people will be pleased to observe that the oganizers have listened to the concerns about the loud music, which has crept in over the past few years.
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Well this thread went dead, and no list of boats known to be attending, something which Alan Fincher used to organize. Hopefully Alan will post a list, but if not, would someone else care to give it a go?
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9 hours ago, MtB said:
Just bung up a photo of it.
That is the best initial suggestion, advice will then be more readily available, There are many forum menbers who maintain their own boats and have a good knowledge of how to service boilers, particularly some older ones for which spares are not readily available.
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1 hour ago, magnetman said:
Is the first one the Lion that used to be moored near Braunston turn on the Oxford section going towards Hillmorton? This would have been late 90s. I remember it being a bit of an odd looking boat with a josher bow but there was something strange about the stern.
Used to be painted BW blue.
If it is the same boat, Lion was owned by John Saxon when it was moored at Braunston Turn, He told me that it had been shortened at some time in it's life and then extended back to full length, which may explain it's "Odd" look.
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1 hour ago, David Mack said:
Had the same problem with an Alde 29xx. Removing the burner unit wasn't too bad, but removing the bit of the wardrobe that stopped the burner coming out was a right pain!
Gave it a good clean, put it all back and it worked fine afterwards.
Assuming that the boiler under discussion is an Ellis, and was installed according to the instructions, there will be no obstructions to the removal of the burner unit.
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I posted a copy of the Installation and maintenance instructions on the forum in 2018. hopefully this link to the thread will work. Click on the title and scroll down five posts:-
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1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:
Hopefully its an Ellis.
If it is am Ellis, I can send a digital copy of the installation and operation instructions which may help. There are two possible causes known to me. The commonest is a ball of fluff sitting on top of the pilot burnur, preventing ignition. The remedy requires the removal of the burner unit, which is easily undertaken in less than an hour and with the minimum of tools. The less common cause is damage to the boiler capilliary tube, which cannot be replaced and requres a completely new burner unit, if you can find one!
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Some years ago I saw wasps going in, and coming out, of one of the underfloor air bricks in my house. I really did not fancy a wasps nest under the floorboards, but the only thing I had to hand was a pot of Wilko ant and crawling insect powder, so I puffed a generous amount onto the air brick horizontal spacers. It worked, the following day there were no wasps, Several years later I had to go under the floor to access some central hating pipes, and found an almost complete wasps nest, but no wasps!
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4 hours ago, MtB said:
My original point was though, that the boat would look far better without it!
Yes I take the point, but as explained, a deckboard and cratch cover was installed to avoid flooding the boat. There was a sump in the well deck which collected water, but there was always the risk of the bilge pump failing. I have very few photos of Helvetia before the Deckboard was installed, I wouldn't say that it looked better, but he boat was not unattractive without one :-
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2 hours ago, MtB said:
You missed the fact that I have more than one boat!
Frankly, In my personal opinion cratch covers distorted to fit over the cabin corners like in your photo look awful, hence my comment you picked up on. Here is my attempt at a better-looking cratch cover, avoiding that 'corners-stretched' look.
This boat has the same sunken well deck as yours so I could not get rid of the cratch cover.
An interesting alternative, but visually not very different to the type that you consider to look "awful".
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1 hour ago, David Mack said:
Since Reginald is half a BCN day boat that has been converted into a (rather fine looking) BCN-style tug, the question as to whether it would have had a deck board on the tug deck it would never have had is rather irrelevant!
Fair enough, but the point I was making was that in it's present form as a Tug it would not have had (or needed) a deckboard
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1 hour ago, MtB said:
No you don't. Cratch covers are a modern abomination. Get rid!!
Your boat will look SO much smarter...
That is a very easy observation to make when your boat has a Tug deck, which would have never carried a Deck board:-
But when you have a front well which is below the waterline and no scuppers, as was the case with Helvetia, there is little option but to have a deck board and Cratch cover to stop the boat from risking being flooded, and it can look quite attractive if well proportioned.
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4 hours ago, JetBoy said:
I have an old classic canvass cratch cover that is becoming very stiff and difficult to button up.. Could anyone recommend a product that will re-energise and soften it up a bit?
Thanks in advance.
DGC
May I suggest that you contact a BMW car spares garage, they used to (and probably still do) sell a product for cleaning and rejuvinating BMW canvas dropheads.
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I have just found this photo (from C&RT archives) of Progress nearing completion at Bushells Yard. I believe this is how it would have looked in normal operation. I suspect that the canopy top was merely added for the ceremonial opening of the Grand Union. It was apparently fitted with a full cabin in the 1970's, but I am still lookong for a photo.
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1 hour ago, MtB said:
But wide beamed boats are a different thing from what is generally termed "a widebeam" in our world of canal boats. On here the term "widebeam" is a contraction of "widebeamed narrowboat", meaning a boat built in the style of a leisure narrowboat but wider. The result usually being something plug-ugly as per the photo I posted.
There used to be wide boats on the Grand Union, which were built up to 12ft 6ins wide. They were basicly wide "Narrowboats" and were known as Wideboats. Anything wider was usually referred to as a Barge. Progress was an example of a Wiideboat
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13 minutes ago, nicknorman said:
Depends what you mean by “better”. As has been said, there is a huge price range and you tend to pay more for a bespoke boat. Bespoke boats can be good and bad - bad if you are a first timer and have lots of “really good ideas” that don’t work in practice. I’d look at Alexander, Fernwood, Tyler-Wilson, Braidbar, Finesse. And then for the more bespoke top end stuff, Dave Harris, Brinklow etc.
Your question is a bit like “which car should I buy” when the range is from a Bentley, Lamborghini to a Smart, Hyundai i10 etc.
Do Brinklow build widebeams? I thought that they specialised in building and restoring traditional narrowboats.
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10 minutes ago, magnetman said:
I remember Ernie Kendall. Could talk the hind legs off a donkey and was the original magnet man
nice chatting with him at his mooring by the bridge.
I thought he died there before his old man.
Could have got that detail wrong.
I think you are correct, but I could not find any record, so ommited any date (just in case).
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A post script to my earlier post:- Arthur and Rose Bray were working for Harvey Taylor in the 1930's. Rose Bray was the daughter of Charles Ward, a Number One. He bequeatherd a horse drawn boat as a Dowry to Rose and Arthur when they married. When the boat started to disintegrate in the late 1930's, they went to work for Harvey Taylor, who were taken over by Barlows in 1955.
I knew the Brays quite well, as they often moored in front of our boat on a Saturday night on their way to Kearley & Tonge's Jam Factory. Rose died in 1972 with Arthur following her in 1998. Rose's son, Ernie, lived on a boat called Poacher with his wife and son, but they moved away from Braunston and I do not know where they are nowadays.
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The Wards were a large extended family of canal boatmen and women, several of whom continued until the last days of commercial carrying. Both Ted and Ken Ward who worked for Willow Wren were well known, but there were also Rose Bray and Rose Whiltock (both Wards), who worked for Barlows, and later Blue Line when they took over the remnants of the Barlows operation in the early 1960's. Rose Whitlock was very proud of her Ward Heritage and had a number of photographs of her family, I still meet her daughter every year at the Braunston Historic rally, and will ask her whether she has any knowledge of your Wards when I meet her later this year.
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5 hours ago, alan_fincher said:
Yeah but....
There aren't that many places we can turn the 72 footer, so whilst a quick round trip of a few miles can be done with Sickle, with Flamingo we would be forced go a lot further.
An alternative might be for one of you to take Sickle on a cruise and the other person to track the boat in the car, maintaining phone contact for use in an emergency. Of course that still may mean having to go back in the car for Flamingo, in order to tow Sickle back to the mooring, it really depends on how confident you are that the matter has resolved itself.
Either way, I hope it all works out OK. If it does, can we assume that you will be bringing both boats to Braunston in June? At least there will be plenty of people on hand to help if the problem reccurs.
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I started to watch it, but it was so bad that I gave up.
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13 minutes ago, blackrose said:
Personally I've never liked vactan. I think it's a rust treatment designed for amateur painters which is fine, I'm one myself. But I've had poor results with rust coming back so decided it was no longer for me.
The best treatment for rust is to remove it properly. If it's not possible to get rid of all the rust in pits, etc, then in my opinion the next best treatment is Fertan. Others will disagree of course.
There's nothing wrong with using tannic acid to convert rust, but as the OP has discovered to their cost, the vinyl polymer matrix used in vactan is dubious. It's meant to act like a primer yet it doesn't seem to resist moisture very well and it's relatively short shelf life may point to an inmate instability. Again, in my amateur opinion. Fertan has a 10 year shelf life so it's that vactan polymer that's the problem.
That is very similar to my experience of Vactan. In my view it just didn't do what it said on the bottle so, like you, I gave using it.
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3 hours ago, Tonka said:
Perhaps @alan_fincher and @matty40s are the same person. Has anyone ever seen them together.
Good to have you back Alan.
Come back Matty
I know Alan quite well and have met Matty a couple of times, they are not the same person, but then you already knew that 😃
Braunston Historic Boat Rally 2022
in History & Heritage
Posted
That's a shame, We have booked accomodation in Braunston for a few nights, so I am sure we will meet up.