Skipari

Thank you so much! As a Continental member I had been desperately searching in all online dictionaries... ?

Thank you, Richard, - I hadn't been in Glasgow since ages, but I remember this accent from the Glasgow crew of a gas platform in the Northsea, where we stopped with our seakayaks some years ago. At least they understood my poor English... Nice film, nice engine, nice man. :-)

Thank you. We will have to wait til January for my first welding test. Usually I start cold with nickel and will follow with nickel-iron after the usual preparation of the crack. This procedure needs some time but worked very fine with historic old cast items like bollards and windlass bearings on my boat. In one case there hadn't been enough carbon, and I took the broken original as a pattern for a re-cast. If the exhaust manifold doesn't take the UTP 8, we'll have a new situation, but nothing is lost then, we may switch to hot welding or soldering then. My problem isn't really the welding procedere, - welding experience and procedere advice is available in any language - Kelvin experience is only available in your country. I am living in the former Kingdom of Hannover, thus my photo of the sea flag which waved on the Hannoveran sea ships until the Prussian invasion. In this country there is no Kelvin but my K2, which had already been in Keel MYSTIC long before WW2. So my problem is to find knowledge and advice about spare parts or reproductions in the native country of my barge and her engine. Maybe there is still another lighthouse... ;-)

I expected that, but hope dies last. And I still hope... Since I was convinced that it is no problem for a K2 in a pleasure boat, I fitted a closed cycle cooling system on the bottom plates and we are going to convert from wet to dry exhaust. I personally have never seen a Kelvin with a dry exhaust. I only know my (and others) K2 with a wet exhaust and this Kelvin spare part drawing: Thanks for your photo. Is your dry exhaust manifold a Kelvin original?

Better safe than sorry, thank you. But I guess we have the same terms: "hard-soldering" and "hart-löten" (Ge).

Excuse me please that I didn't hit the Kelvin Sub-forum by mistake, and thank you for your comments. I did weld cast iron on my boat in the past, - sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't work depending on the chemistry. If it doesn't work with the manifold I'll willingly learn stitching and soldering of course. But anyway sooner or later I will need a replacement, why not now. Since I am far away from your market, - is there any chance to find a spare part or a reproduction, or have I to make a welded replica myself?

Good morning. Inspecting my K2 to prepare for refit and conversion to dry exhauster I found a capillary long crack in the manifold yesterday. This crack was hardly to be seen by eye, hadn't it been marked by a line of rusty brown water droplets, maybe indicating a context with salt. I will of course try to weld it carefully if possible, but the manifold is in a badly corroded state already after long decades of work and I guess I'd better look for a replacement anyway. Before starting to weld a replica, any better advice for replacements would be very welcome.

I visited Mr. Whittle in Llanymynech this winter to collect new cylinders for my K2. There is an email adress as well: kwhittle@btconnect.com

Thank you. The correct name of this sloop is KAMA, - but already this well known old photo (glass negative in Gainsborough) is marked as KARMA, and even Fred Shofield, who's father had been her first skipper in 1903, reports her as KARMA. The old photo clearly shows the correct name. There is a comment by Dave Robinson long years ago: "The spelling KARMA seems to have been the Photographers idea of KAMA’s name and he wrote it on his negative. In Barton the older folk who remember KAMA spell the name KAMA because they saw KAMA on the bow of the ship. Fred Shofield and the Photographer probably never saw the name. Fred’s Dad was dead 1953(?) and Fred wrote his book in the 1980s." Maybe you are right with your guess about the Broads, but why should Watsons have speculated on buyers there and produce 4 hulls without order, when his shipyard had enough work at that time? Maybe a contract failed for some reason and Watsons had to decide what to do with his 4 identical hulls. I don't know what happened to the other 3, but KAMA had been rigged for and aft as a normal sloop and worked for Watsons as a general transporter on the Trent for long years. Somewhere in the 30s she had been sold to a company in Owstan Ferry, but I was unable to find any records about. I don't know records about her time during WW2 as well. In 1952 or 1953 she had been converted to a motor barge by Clapson and Sons Barton Ltd. for William Stamps market boat company. She got a secondhand Kelvin K2 from a Humber Keel. The sloops KAMA and ANNE were bought by Stamps to replace EVER READY and ROSALIE STAMPS, both were broken up in the 50s. So the two wooden craft were replaced by older iron vessels. KAMA had been used as a Market Boat until 1962, and was then sold to a Wakefield couple and restyled to be a houseboat. She is now built back to her origin image. Kama's measures 61ft 8", so she is longer than the Sheffield sized PIONEER, which is recorded with 57.60 feet, but KAMA never had been a Humber Sloop in the narrower sense, her hull is really elegant compared with the typical Humber Sloop, and she hadn't been rigged as a Humber Sloop originally.

May I complete the dates for this barge: Kama 1903 Watsons/Gainsborough Germany