Your Armstrong Siddeley 3 cylinder engine (recently removed from Tug Sultan) was rescued from a sunken ‘barge’ called Spyder in Yorkshire, in around 1978. Not sure exactly what kind of boat she was - absolutely cavernous compared to a narrowboat. Nor can I remember exactly where. What I do remember, location wise, was a huge pump out barge that came up daily to collect sewage waste from a few hundred yards away, just up the river. So probably one of the members of this forum will be able to place that?
I bought the barge from BWB for £10 on the understanding that we would remove her from where she was and scrap the hull. Mark, a friend and I were trying to pump her out for a couple of days to refloat her and get access to the engine, which was totally under water. We couldn’t even see what type of engine it was. Luckily it was completely submerged and under an oil slick, so it wasn’t corroded. All we had was a little ex-GPO petrol pump. The guys on the waste barge, seeing our continuing efforts, very kindly came alongside and connected their pumps and she popped up like a cork. Two days later, to their great surprise, we had dried out the engine, oiled it, connected a battery and we motored past them going upstream, towards the scrap yard which was beside the river, a little further up. They don’t make ‘em like they used to!
The scrap yard lifted the engine out for us and we took it back to Birmingham, where Mark rebuilt it. Not very well, I’m afraid. Because the subsequent owner had to have it sorted shortly afterwards. She was always a bit smoky.
