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David B

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  1. Glad to have found you, John. Give all my best to Sabina, and maybe one day I'll be able to pay her a visit. Meanwhile, I'm still rooting around for photos of her of you. If you want to get in touch with me person-to-person, my address is my name all in lowercase, without any spaces or dots, at blueyonder.co.uk ..hoping you keep well, Yours, David.
  2. That sounds right: Bill Blaik (or Blake) ..yes! I saw Sabina moored at Barking Creek, and meant to go and see Bill to explain to him how to start the engine: the bronze air-motor cog - which engaged with the Glennifer flywheel - was rather worn and stripped, so I always engaged it manually before opening the air bottle(s) and the air valve to spin the flywheel and start the engine. If one just opened the air valve the bronze cog would flirt along its shaft - like a car starter-motor's shaft - but then usually just grind against the flywheel instead of engaging with the flywheel's own teeth ..wearing away the soft bronze cog even more! ..A trick shown to me by Peter Horlock, I think. It was a lovely engine: I anchored once (..can't remember why..) on the south (Rotherhithe) bank (of the Thames) near the Prospect of Whitby, and someone rowed - or motored - out from Woodward Fisher's wharf and repair shop by the Prospect (at Wapping) and asked me if I had engine trouble. I can't remember if I did or not, but when they asked what engine it was, and I said a Glennifer, they said "come and have a look at these; we've got loads of Glennifer spares: come and help yourself!" ..and they took me ashore (on the other bank) and gave me the run of their engineering workshop. The only trouble was, mine (Sabina's) was a Glennifer DB4, and all their (tug) spares were for the DB6 ..all a bit too large to fit Sabina's engine! And writing of tugs, I went down to Sittingbourne Creek once, for a pair of ..we-ell, not "rogues", but, term, chaps who earned their livings buying and selling boats.. as they wanted me to tow back a small tug they'd bought down there. When I moored up there was a much larger tug nearby, and whoever was on it asked if I'd like to come on board. It had a Widdup engine (6 cyl, I think) which was the same make as the 3 cyl Widdup (around 30hp I think) which was originally fitted to Sabina, before it was taken out and the Glennifer fitted in - I can't remember which year, but the Glennifer was a better 56hp, so that it could make headway - or be safer - in tidal water. This tug's air-start Widdup was, however, HUGE ..and didn't have a gearbox, but had to be stopped and restarted backwards in order to go astern. Anyway, I towed back the smaller tug which Marine & General had asked me to retrieve ..I don't remember its name, but Andymaz (above) had a tug originally named "Pullit" (..one of a set of Pullit, Draggit, Heaveit, etc..) which my friend Ken Gladstone had renamed "Mercedes", and which Andy had bought from him. I can go on for hours like this in similar vein, but I've gotta stop now, as we're due to go out to a birthday party. I haven't managed to contact John V, apart from "befriending" him on this bulletin board or forum, and I've no other idea about how to draw his attention to these posts or to announce myself to him. Now the cat's arrived for lunch, so I'd better go and feed him..
  3. Hi John V, I'm David Babsky, whom you mentioned in your search for info about my long lost love "Sabina H"! (..And how nice to read a message from Andymaz, whom I remember well, as I took several photos of him and his boat - and mine - along with a bottle of Badedas ..for some long-forgotten and surreal purpose! A boater called Brian Banks bought me - probably around 1974 - that book "Tankers Knottingley" (mentioned by "FadeToScarlet" which does have details of Sabina's builder, I think. It's sad to see that photo - immediately above that post - of Sabina's engine room ..you say "..The Glennifer had been under water so many times.." but I know of only one time, after I'd gone up to Manchester around 1990 to see my parents, and some children on the Isle of Dogs had chucked off the deck some loose bollards, which she then sat down on at next low water, and which punched a hole in her (rather fragile) bottom. After she'd filled with water a friend called Tim Ryan - who had the use of Cubitt's slipway at Woolwich, which I think may be in that upper photo above the picture of her engine room - bought her from me, and he and his pals pumped her, refloated her, took her down to Cubitt's and tidied her up, and sold her to a chap called Bill Someone-or-other, who then moored her in Barking Creek. And that's the last I saw of her. I had bought her from Peter Horlock - I remember his saying that I should sleep aboard her for a night before taking full possession of her - and I then motored her round, in two stages, from Mistley ..first to Brightlingsea and then to Kingston upon Thames.. where I certainly lived aboard her, but I also took her out for cruises up and down the Thames (she had a hook on the back, so I could take her through the locks at "commercial" rate!) and several times used her to rescue other vessels who'd had misfortunes (engine problems or sinking problems) until I took her downstream to moor first at Ham (below Kingston) and then at Poplar Dock, just before the London Docklands Development Corporation took over the docks. When they did, I took her outside the dock, into the river, and moored at New Concordia Wharf, just downstream of the Gun pub. I could write reams (remember those?) about Sabina, and I'll look for some photos of her ..ah; here's one, which my friends took at our "Three Boat Surprise Party" at Kingston - around 1975 - but having only just arrived at this Canalworld site a few minutes ago this afternoon (..I was looking for something completely different..) it'll take me a day or so to find the other and to work out how to post it, or them, here. Or perhaps I could send copies of them directly to you, John. I'm so glad to have discovered that Sabina's alive and well! I can tell you that she really was a very manoeuvrable vessel, and so easy to get alongside, to spin around on a sixpence - doing a "three-point-turn" - and so simple to move single-handedly that she was a real pleasure and a joy to navigate. Please give her my love, and a kiss from me, as I had some really wonderful times on board Sabina, and I was so sorry that vandals sent her down to the (not very deep) river bed. But times move on, and I had to then look after my folks, and so wouldn't have been able to maintain her any longer. I hope you get great pleasure from belonging to her! ..Yours, David.
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