Derek R.
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Posts posted by Derek R.
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Well, I did say some of my comments would be contested! There certainly were two legged critters around and about before the last Ice age, but the thought that the local waters sustained them for "a hundred thousand years" is a bit misleading.
Bowler hats for showing off or maybe a 'lark', but not for boatmen. Gangers maybe, and Foremen as badge of rank - and upon which the Beadle on our housing estate in my youth wore just such a brass badge - three piece dark brown suit, watch and chain, and matching brown Bowler C1951.
I have had a very nice reply from Rickmansworth, and will post it, but am having serious 'fun' changing computers just now - Windows XP to Windows 7 - it will absolutely NOT transfer wab files, so my address book and all in Outlook express has got to be picked apart thread by thread and transferred by steam - out of my ears! See you later if I survive.
Derek
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Thanks Mark, yes - it was Twelve Trees Crescent in Bromley not Beckton. I just dug the Geographers out and it slotted in straight away.
I too remember the instantaneous need for stomach pumping in the event of river/canal immersion! And they whinge about 'emissions' today!!
Alan, thanks for the detail on the narrow gauge - that explains perfectly why there seems to be a break in the 'connection' at the backside of the embankment. Had I such at the bottom (oops) of my garden it would have become a disused railway feature with a sidings signal and platelayers hut! Fifty years is certainly more than a temporary arrangement.
Berkhamsted was a favourite town of mine from '68 - '78 (lived Chesham Rd, Wiggo.), and we hung around there a lot in the late eighties with Yarmouth. They've wrecked it since in many ways, but still have good memories when I visit. The idea mooted that there was a siding from the main line across to the 'Old' works is I think a confusion with the siding that fed the narrow gauge. I cannot possibly see how such would have bridged the canal and part of the Moor without it being referenced somewhere. I'm picturing some Lowry scene with trucks on a wooden viaduct!
St Albans Gas Works - If you can suffer the Old Maps site (it is fiddley), you will see there were around eight tracks in and around the Abbey Station, most serving the Gas Works. There are plans to provide passing loops and Trams to replace the 'BR' stock. Seems they have been in the pipeline for a long time, but recently had the go-ahead. Seeing is believing.
The branch line that veered off to Hatfield is 95% walkable, and a public path. Very attractive surroundings past Sopwell, the London Road Station buildings is now office - but clearly recognisable for what it once was, and the slightly skew bridge taking the main line over the top is very impressive.
Derek
Link to some descriptive arty stuff about the dirthttp://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server...th-century.html
Thanks Mark - I'll set some time aside for a feast in there!
Derek
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Almost certainly, as would many of the streets nearby. But as in London, when municipals begin to introduce a newfangled lighting to streets, it will be in the most fashionable areas that they are introduced first. In the case of London this was Pall Mall. The Works would have been elsewhere in Westminster.
Derek
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I have not found an exact connection to that, as Boulton & Watt's Manufactory was a little further away in Soho. Gas Street as such has more likely got its name from the Gas Works that once stood there. One of the modern buildings that now stand in Gas Street is called the Gas Retort House, as some kind of link with the past.
The Soho Manufactory was demolished in the mid 1800's and replaced with housing.
Various snippets of information regarding Birmingham's Soho, and the links with Boulton and Watt can be found through searching Googlemaps, though some of their links to Wikipedia are iffy.
Derek.
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Excellent link to Beckton history Mark.
Frederick Winsor was indeed of German origin, and an entrepreneur/businessman with apparently little engineering background that gave rise to some lamentable claims. But he did have the connections.
I think it may have been Beckton Gas Works that housed a museum of Gas. I recall delivering there one time and discovering this 'other world' - that was in the eighties.
A quick look at Aylesbury again;
After the lifting of track and considerable neglect, yet still visible in the background is the L.N.W.R. style goods shed in wooden weatherboard. A single line went into the Gas yard where Engines were not allowed to tread.
Plan of Aylesbury High Street Station. The Goods yard and shed were adjacent to the original Station placed as part of a future plan to extend to Buckingham. As this did not see fruition, and space was short, a new Station was built at the foot of the High Street in 1889. The Gas Works was thereafter wedged between the goods yard and 'new' Station and had a single siding, which in some diagrams shows a small turntable and track into the Retort House. The canal basin lay several hundred yards South by South West from the Gas Works.
Going back to Berkhamsted, the original Gas Works there seem to have been built away from both the canal and the railway and in the heart of the town. In the early part of the 1900's, it was moved to a strip of land between the canal above Gas Two and the railway. As Alan says, there was no sidings from the railway which runs on an embankment at that point. But the little narrow gauge track ran from the Works, down by the locks, then under the railway embankment. Where then?
In Old Maps website, there is shown (if you get the right level of zoom on the 1926 map) a continuation of this narrow gauge right up to the back of Berkhamsted Station. There seems to be some vagueness as seen on the map of the connection from lower level at the North side of the subway, to higher level, but I would guess that due to the embanking of the standard gauge trackwork of the main line, space prevented that gauge from reaching the Gas Works, and so the more flexible and cheaper narrow gauge adopted. This in itself leads me to wonder if the moving of the Works from its original site in town, was but a temporary fix to move the 'stink' until the gas supply became online from Boxmoor, so little effort and minimal expense would have been spent on kitting up the Works above Gas Two for long term production or storage. The probabilities of a canal feed are therefore slim.
Derek.
PS I should add that both pictures are copyright from 'The Aylesbury Railway' by Bill Simpson, Oxford publishing Co. ISBN 0-86093-438-1
PPS Those cylindrical storage tanks alongside the canal in Alan's shot would lend thought to a connection from T.C.(O) and their tank boats?
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I've dug out a little booklet on coal gas and its history, though more specifically about gas lighting. It seems while there were several experimenting with it in the 1700's, it was in the Birmingham factory of Boulton and Watt that William Murdoch from Redruth in Cornwall, used it to illuminate the factory at the Soho Works in 1803. It was Frederick Albert Winsor, a businessman, who brought together the political and financial organisations to create manufactured gas from coal and apply it to lighting in London by forming in 1807 the National Light and Heating Company, later in 1812 given its charter, renamed the Gas Light and Coke Company under which it became the largest gas company in the world.
As the canal to Aylesbury opened in 1815, it is unlikely that the site which later occupied the Electricity depot by the basin, would have previously been a gas works. Though there still is the possibility that coal was transhipped to the Gas Works in Railway Street had there been a gas Works there prior to 1839 when the railway opened. With the time spend planning the railway, it would seem most likely that the new form of lighting and heating would have been placed nearer to a railhead and the faster form of transportation, rather than the canal head. The irony is - that now there is no railway, but there is still a canal!
Exactly when the Gas Works were built in Aylesbury I have not sought to find out. But London had just 26 miles of gas main installed in 1815, and not introduced to light the House of Commons until 1852. In fact, in 1809, a parliamentary committee told Murdoch that obtaining light without use of a wick was inconceivable.
Derek
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Repeating the same inaccurate statement ad in finitum, does not make it any less incorrect than it was the first time. - Photographic or contemporary documentary evidence please.
'Tis the way of politics - keep telling the same lie, and it will eventually become the truth. Hitler stated: - 'The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are unconsciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them more easily victims of a big lie than a small one'
Photographic evidence!!
Ernest Carter before becoming a Number One, and wearing "The typical attire of a steamer crew member" when working one of FMC's Steam flyboats.
From Robert J. Wilson's booklet 'The Number Ones'. Price 35p.
Of thirty books in my collection, I have scoured every one for a picture of boatmen wearing Bowler hats. None, save this single example. Not in any of the books, nor any specific to FMC and steamers, is any crew member wearing a Bowler hat. In almost every case the flat cap is de rigeur, even many of the women wore them. The exceptions are Trilby's, and one or two other soft felt hats. Ernest above may have had something special on, and donned a Bowler for the picture. Note the breeches are exceptionally white, and something in the top pocket. This lends some credence to this shot being posed for in special circumstances, and he is 'dressed' for the occasion. The more typical attire is as seen in many photographs of crew on steamers under way.
Derek
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I used to fish when in my early teens. Bought a nice three piece split cane rod, and my Brother-in-law (15yrs my senior) handed me a canvas roll on my birthday filled with quills and other floats along with a tin of weights and a second hand reel. We fished the Lea Navigation once, and I remember moving back out of the way of the horse towing lighters several times during the day. On one occasion we took a pre-dawn train and headed for some gravel pits along the Thames Valley - real excitement - and amidst almost perfect silence rain began falling, and made a gentle hiss across the water. Caught mostly Perch that day. Fabulous day.
But then motorbikes and girls took hold. Much much later, and boating, our experiences of anglers (I reserve fishermen for those who catch food commercially) has been mixed. A few will give a nod, some will chat briefly. The majority will sit and stare at anything rather than make any acknowledgement. I do understand the need for concentration on the all important float, and the passing of a boat may entice some fish to bite before the hull gets too close, but in the main - and this is born out by hire boaters from all round the world - the reports and comments when getting back to base are: "What is it with these guys sitting fishing? They're all so miserable if not downright grumpy?" What can you say.
I've dragged line - and a rod on one occasion, because some bloke had not been watching. Ten tons, makes a noise, and perfectly visible.
The kids that 'fish' right by the heads and tails of locks - and even in them when working through - can only be doing so in complete ignorance. But the worst experiences of all we have had was one occasion on the L & L at the foot of a short flight of locks (can't remember where), there was a wide pool at the bottom that reached out to the off-side a long way, and way over on the far bank a young chap sat with his rod. As we were a boats length away from the tail of the lock, there came a metallic clang on the back deck. I looked around and found a big lump of terminal tackle on the deck, and matey trying to reel it in across the tiller. I grabbed the line and broke it, chucking his tackle on the deck, giving him plenty of verbal and a few volleys from my catapult - pity I missed!
Another incident was in Aylesbury. We were at our mooring at right angles to the line of the cut in the basin, with the back cabin doors open. Directly behind us and across the water was the little weir, and at its edge sat a lone angler, complete with a range of bait tins, rod rests, and sat on his Shakespear box - pukka kit. All of a sudden as we sat in the back cabin, we were inundated with a hail of soft bait that hit and stuck to; us, the curtains, the plates. I'm usually a quiet sort of bloke but I exploded at that. So mad was I, I started up, loosed off and went flat out astern directly to where he had pitched. Five feet away I put her ahead and gave full throttle. The wall of water from the 24" x 27" blade went up over the coping and flooded matey out. Bait tins were floating around his feet while I made him perfectly aware of what he had just done to our living space less than six inches from his face. He said nothing, but packed up and left.
A few years later, we were tied up in Berko opposite the boat yard and our friends on Comet (the new one). Early one morning there's a troop of carts being hauled along the towpath with banter about who's setting up where. Not only did we get the smell of Marlborough wafting in the cabin, our back deck had become a rod rest. He took the rod away when I pointed out a little respect might be in order, but during the day things got to a crescendo with our friends across the way. The match participants were from Debtford, and they were up for larging it with our friends, after the lady of the boat had objected to maggots being catapulted across and in through the open 1/4 hopper windows and onto her galley work surface. The gentleman of the boat cast off his fore end, and with two most vexatious German Shepherd dogs giving it quality, set about the anglers making most of the trouble verbally - no blows were struck that I know of. They too cleared off, but with threats to return.
That evening after dark, their boat was bombed with polystyrene cups filled with a mixture of white enamel paint and maggots. The Police were called, and details were taken including a report of a white Escort van making a rapid departure. No action was taken against the club. We found out later the Policeman who took the report was a member of the local Angling society. Coincidence?
These may be isolated incidents, and we've had others. But as with all unpleasant experiences, they are the ones most clearly remembered - mainly because they are few and far between. Not all anglers have a mind to cause upset and inconvenience to other waterways users, but I fail to find any other single group of people who deliberately obstruct the towpath with their kit when folk with wheeled conveyances are trying to get past - without being asked to move their rods. Match fishing draws substantial prize money, and sadly an attitude that the contestant has right over all.
Let this not be another 'Them and Us' battle on a forum, but unless some of those who are party to such behaviour grasp the personal intrusion into other peoples lifestyles and property, then there will never be any understanding, nor any quarter given in seeing what the fascination is in sitting drowning worms to catch inedible fish, which are traumatised into an early death by hooks, hands and nets for money, or pleasure. Let alone that, there are the small birds that take a tasty worm hanging abandoned from bush and tree, only to be stopped dead in flight as the hook takes hold in its throat and is left flapping in panic until death. It does make me wonder if there are any responsible anglers - or do they not give a damn, save for their 'sport'?
Your ride through life may be exciting, but don't let it wreck someone, or something else's please?
Derek
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Is not too late to offer that service..... Anyone?
I did write this-morning, I wouldn't say I covered everything though:
To: enquiries @ rwt.org.uk (leave out the spaces)
"Dear Sir/Madam,
I have just today come across a ten page information sheet as attached, courtesy of an online boating forum.
The ten page information sheet from the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust has some good informative facts and statements. I have been involved in canal life since 1980, living afloat for twelve years, still retaining an interest and still currently own a historic boat, and a member of the Historic Narrow Boat Owners Club.
If I may be so bold, I would like to point out a few errors that might be worth correcting with regard to some details - the Devil is always in them! Some you may contest, such as the name for the bowl which is used to wash up in. However;
1 Many have called this a 'Dipper' simply because it was dipped into the canal to scoop up water. The correct name is Handbowl. A Mrs. June Peters, who spent some time as a Wartime 'trainee' working boats up and down, insists that the boat people called it an 'arnbowl, though personally I think that might be down to a colloquialism rather than any different name. Having a wash "on deck" - would you? No, it was done in the cabin. Though 'wash-day' for laundry, was almost totally a towpath exercise with drum and 'dolly' on a stand with fire beneath - latterly a big paraffin Primus, or liquid petroleum gas.
2 The number of ex-working wooden narrow boats that are currently afloat and in use one way or another I think you will find is well in excess of forty, and if their expectation of life is 20yrs, then ROGER is due for a complete re-build in ten years time. With ongoing maintenance, which is always more intensive and necessary than with a comparable steel, iron or composite boat, they will last much longer (though I for one would not want the cost!). My own Middle Northwich built in 1936 was estimated to have a life expectancy of a further 25yrs in 1942, but with just some replating around the counter, is on most of its original plating 73yrs later. The 25yrs was more a book keeping exercise for accountancy.
3 It is stated that a pair of boats working from Brentford to Tring would use 3 million gallons of water. Technically this is misleading, as it suggests boats travelling from Brentford to Tring would draw 3 million gallons from the summit pound. The passage of a pair of boats would use say 56,000 gallons per lock, but that water would be replaced with the 56,000 from the next lock worked and so on until reaching Tring, where just 56,000 gallons would be drawn from the summit pound for the passage of that one pair of boats from Brentford to Tring, so one is simply moving a single amount of 56,000gallons all the way down the hill to Brentford. Likewise travelling form Tring to Brentford, a pair would technically, be travelling down through all the locks with the one lot of 56,000 gallons they take from the summit. This of course is reliant upon no water being sent over side weirs and overflows, nor having to set a lock that was against them, and when boats meet and pass savings can be made against such losses.
4 'Fly' boats were indeed usually run by all male crews, but the word signified continuous running through the night to get deliveries made faster, than any reference to pure speed. These trips were made at first by FMC's steamers, as the reduced cargo space on the steamer made them uneconomical in use unless running 'Fly'. There were at times female crew on the steamers as is recorded elsewhere, but less so on motors. Running 'fly' in the fifties was often done by young men wishing to earn more money.
5 'Josher' may well be a friendly terminology for a mate, but on the boats it refers not to a 'Pair' of boats, but to those boats as were built for, and some will argue specifically BY, Fellows Morton and Clayton at their Toll End or Saltley docks, but that is splitting hairs. The term 'Josher' when applied to boats refers generally to the fine shapes of the fore and aft ends which made them 'swim' so well - a prerequisite laid down by Joshua Fellows of his boat builders that they should have 'fine' underwater lines. There was no "Joshua, Morton & Clayton Co" as stated - Fellows Morton and Clayton Limited.
6 Boatmen wearing Bowler Hats - where did you get this from? Only once have I seen a picture of a boatman in a Bowler posing for the camera when tied up. Might this have been a special occasion? One other time is of a boat at Walkers of Ricky alongside the shed after receiving some repairs. The yard Foreman in his Bowler is seen standing at the tiller with another workman in the usual flat cap. The Bowler hat is too awkward a piece of headgear for working a boat, and a probable liability when manoeuvring in and out of a back cabin. Moreover, Bowler Hats were a symbol of status amongst working people, and were usually worn only by foremen of gangs, or inspectors. Caps were worn mainly, sometimes Trilby's - their brims kept rain from down the neck, and after WWII, some adopted the Service Beret - Bill Whitlock and Joe Safe amongst them. Neckerchiefs is another puzzle that seems to have come from the modern day 'traditionalist' in dressing up to play a part. Scarves were certainly used as was the custom of the day amongst working folk in general - around the back of the neck, with each end tucked inside the waistcoat.
7 In the opening sentence it states: - "The waters around Batchworth have been sustaining mankind for a hundred thousand years." This might have been difficult, as Britain was covered in sheets of thick ice 10,000yrs ago. Water in a form, but I doubt anyone thereabouts was sustained by it.
"Monkey boats" There are various stories about this alleged term. There was indeed a boat builder by the name of Monk, but it has been said he originated from the Midlands, yet the term is used around London by some to describe narrow boats. Another story is that in London, the presence of a lot of children running around the moored boats made the lightermen and barge men nickname them 'Monkey boats' due to the antics of the children who poured forth from them! As an early builder of canal boats, I fancy 'Monk' may not have been building cabins in his early boat building days, yet it is alluded that the cabins were designed by him, it's quite possible. If you have any further information or references to the boat builder Monk, I would be intrigued and willing to learn more. There has also been said there was a connection with the Gypsy Vardo, in as much as the layout of the living van was almost identical to that of the narrow boat back cabin. Yet the Gypsy Vardo layout came after the narrow boat cabin, prior to living vans, most Gypsies were tent dwellers. Though living vans were used on the continent, the atrocious state of Englands roads prevented their adoption here until after 1820.
As I stated at the outset, some of my comments may be contested. But in general I think you will find they are correct. Research into the subject will provide all the accuracies as are required to educate correctly. If we do not, we create myths, and history becomes fudged.
The greatest loss of all is perhaps, that so many of the boat people and their families have now gone for ever, in many instances without any record of their working and living practices owing to the non-existent to minimal standards of academic education, but more so because as a community, they were often despised by being mis-understood by 'ordinary' folk. Water Gypsies they were never."
Kind regards - Derek Reynolds
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Hearing an Ice breaker coming along the cut is quite something. The noises are incredible long before the boat appears.
Snowdrop
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hi Derek, spotted snowdrop moored opposite you the other day, but what is the statue on the butty behind????????
Looks like it's freezing over again tonight.....
Ah! If you mean in the picture of Snowdrop, that would be a BW employee at work! He's standing on the mud hopper ready to chuck a line to Sickle which is lurking behind Snowdrop.
I heard that Snowdrop had been completely re-bottomed a while back. Waterways had some anodes on her, but Salt water ones. Bottom got eaten away very quickly.
I think that's Mr. Sibley in charge:
Alsford's timber yard still standing. Flats there now. Taken late 'eighties.
Before Snowdrop messed up the pretty picture:
Sickle on the right along with the work flats.
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Industrial Railways are indeed an interesting subject. Burton's brewery had a huge complex, but also consider London Transport, whose steam engines bore a unique livery, and I can easily understand an enthusiast for steam using a livery and adapting it for a narrow boat, and very fetching they would look too.
Particularly interesting might be that of adopting London Transport's service vehicle fleet livery of a pale olive green with light grey lettering in Johnson typeface. That would raise some eyebrows. The temptation of painting comparatively modern boats on an historic (or is that a historic Athy?) transport medium - water - with a favoured 'other' interest of historic value can only bring a greater interest and diversity to our former transport system.
That has triggered the thought about British Waterways colour schemes again, and specifically about the shade of blue that is alleged to have been used that was said to be darker than the one most seen. Pickford's were of course early carriers on the canal, and their livery was plain dark blue with white lettering. Could this have been a precursor of the British Waterways tugs seen in and around the London area?
Derek.
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Bad or bade, either is correct.
Perhaps I should have interjected 'narrow' between light and gauge, as light gauge does not fulfil precisely.
Shakespeare - poetic licence surely.
Now, Aylesbury Gas Works was not directly connected to the canal. The site that had the Electricity depot built on was adjacent to the canal basin, but did not prior to, be a Gas Works, though it is recorded somewhere that one of their generating sets was powered by a 'Gas Engine' for a while. That generating station almost certainly would have been supplied with coal by canal, but was also supplied with coal via the railway, where it was transhipped by horse and cart from the High Street goods yard.
The Gas Works was located North Nor East from the canal basin on land that was adjacent to the railway from Cheddington. Originally, the line was planned to be South of the Gas Works, but moved to the Northern side with a view to continuing the line to connect with that which went to Buckingham. This did not transpire, and so the railway that came to Aylesbury in 1839 ended with its Station just North of the works, and situated at the end of Station Street.
The canal was opened to Aylesbury in 1815, and doubtless supplied both the electricity and the gas works with coal, and coal prices halved from 2s 6d a cwt, to 1s 3d. With the competition of the railway which opened in 1839 with a line directly beside the gas works, trade must have affected the canal as a supply route dramatically. With the railway becoming more popular, it was decided to move the station South of the gas works to a site fronting the High Street as space was becoming limited - in 1889. The old station and cattle stands were continued to be in use for goods, and the gas works had rails right into their premises - which thereafter had rails either side of it, so must clearly have capitalised on rail for its first choice of supply, though the canal would have supplied Nestles which was canalside, as was the Brewery behind Harvey Taylors, though I don't know how, when, or to what extent the brewery presence remained, or whether they took coal. The brewery yard went in the late nineties I think, and all is now housing.
Details gleaned from 'The Aylesbury railway' by Bill Simpson, and 'The Aylesbury and Wendover Canals' by Bob & Elizabeth Bush, published by the Aylesbury Canal Society.
Derek
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...is the basin in the pics the bit under 'dead dogs?' I've always wondered what it was like behind that bridge.
I suspect it was. That being the under warehouse basin above the top lock. Doubtless Hay and maybe straw was shipped in, and manure out. Though I may be mistaken as it would be at a different level to that of the Horse tunnel and catacombs. Like disused tube tunnels, a fascinating subject.
Derek
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Yes of course!
My bad.
Rgds
Mark
Please Mark, I beg you not to use that bastardisation of the English language that is American in origin. The word you need is 'mistake'.
'Bad' is not good, or you bad him goodbye, in which case you may have made a bad mistake. Generally the word is used as an adjective, and therefore needs to be followed by a noun, though it has been used as a noun as in 'go to the bad' - seldom heard today. Leave the Americans to distort for brevity - and correct them when they do!
Berkhamsted gas works still has the remains of a light gauge railway in the form of some trackwork (if not now completely overgrown) alongside Gas Two. There are no remnants of the site now left as far as I know, but some of Mike Finchers pictures (post No.12) show the buildings and Gasometers as they were in the seventies.
Derek
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It's quite a wheeze. Get the general public - in this case fellow boat owners - to snitch on one another and save the authority a mess of cost and time. Recognition for bosses as job efficiency and bonus awarded. Individual boat owner made to feel his fellow is 'watching'. Result distrust of all. Divide and conquer. Scoop a reward. A similar scam has been enacted with local pensioners wielding speed cameras against traffic. Sounds like a bit of fun, but could lead to irresponsible behaviour, and is fraught with other problems.
If we all saw BW spending their income wisely to the improvement and continued maintenance, I doubt anyone would grudge a license fee. But we don't, and so we do, and now have our fellow boaters to consider as unpaid grassers.
There is much to be said for self policing, but the end result should be in a better, more efficient waterway system. What chance?
Self policing works when neighbours look out for one another for their betterment, not out of spite.
As long as money is at the root of it - no good will come of it.
Derek
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And me!
1. Was she moaning about the camera being in her cabin as she was trying to go to bed?
2. Would a tiller extension have helped at one point?
3. We didn't see him kick the engine into life - unless I missed something.
Beautiful film though
Tony.
Yes, nice set of films. Particularly like the first.
As Springy says, probably air start. Once past 25hp they get a bit hard. Air start is very popular with a lot of big marine engines, and semi-diesels are no exception. You watched the engine man light the pre heating lamp, then take a short bar to turn the engine over using the bar in radial holes in the flywheel to get the piston just past top dead centre. Once hot enough, and primed, a short injection of compressed air from a reservoir via a control valve allows high pressure air into the combustion chamber pushing the piston down sharply. Timing the amount of air is important, just enough is right. The flywheel momentum is sufficient to send the piston back up on compression and she should fire - that's the bit you didn't see, perhaps things did not go to plan!
Here's a slightly larger
in a Norwegian ex-fishing boat. Skipper goes through the procedures. You can watch him manoeuvre using a reverse pitch prop, and there's a lovely 50hp single ticking over very slowly. Eat your heart out Bolinder lovers!The guy down at Cassio with Transporteur let his engine run-away to self destruct mode some time back I've been told. Something else in there now.
Derek
PS A way to get more leverage on a heavy tiller was to take a line from a fixed point inside the bulwark, around the Brass tiller 'handle', and pull on that - 2:1 reduction.
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Valid comment from Fox. Many a boat has been damaged through thin sheet ice slicing into wood or glass fibre hull sides. And steel is not exempt either. Tycho was rebuilt in 1942 to tackle ice with overplating of the bow plates to below water line to half inch thick, and considerably heavy steelwork within, not to mention the ram on the front which is five feet long and two inches thick solid steel. During its working lifetime it has smashed through several inches of ice. Despite the thickness, the scars are there to see.
Even thin ice of a quarter inch thickness can do damage. We punched a hole in Yarmouth's plating at a weak point, and didn't know until the bilge pump kept cutting in every twenty minutes during the night. Nothing like a bilge pump cutting in during the small hours to wake you up sharpish! I plugged it with a nut, bolt and two washers and that did until we had major steel work done a couple of years later.
Several wooden boats around the Cowley area had ice planks suspended along the water line for just this reason. You have to be very careful when ice breaking, don't do it just for the crack, if you don't damage someone else's boat (and you might not know if they are not in) you'll damage your own even if it's only blacking. It'll look like chrome plating along the water line for a while, but not for long.
And so what if you can't leave the mooring - what better than to get the stove lit, get the kettle on and just enjoy being there! Leave just because you can't move?? Not likely! Take a walk, fetch a few sticks, do something different.
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Re: Thames pack ice at Brentford post:
Interesting questions, and only a fool would answer in the negative, unless referring to the coming few weeks.
The cold spells of those years have not as yet been repeated, and they were the last remnants of the last Little Ice Age of around a Century before. Since then we have gradually been coming out of a cold period with occasional dips back into, and advanced into a warmer period. Leaving aside mankind's alleged influence (and you have to if you accept that warm tropical seas once washed over Britain), we are currently entering another cold period, at least for the next two decades. Whether we see such pictures in our lifetime may be unlikely, but for future generations possible. Similarly, we could at some time in the future experience warm periods like the Romans knew, and those intrepid explorers the Vikings, who first named a big Island whereupon they settled and farmed successfully for hundreds of years. Today we know that Island for it's inhospitable cold and layers of frozen ice - Greenland - so named by the Vikings for its appearance.
I think you will find the photograph in the Telegraph of Deer was by a Robbie Higgins (readers pictures). The composition has much to be desired. It is greatly spoiled by the vertical lines of the tree immediately behind the Stag.
Ice creaking spooky! Imagine how the crew of the Erebus and the Terror felt!! They could have done with one of THESE.
Hearing an Ice breaker coming along the cut is quite something. The noises are incredible long before the boat appears.
Snowdrop
Derek
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The Met Office can't tell you what the weather will be doing in a weeks time let alone March. They feed current data into their computers and come out with an 'idea' of what is most likely to occur, it's vague and prone to great inaccuracies like their forecast that 2009 was going to be a hot one - the barbecue Summer. Didn't happen. This Winter would be mild - don't bank on it.
For those on river moorings prepare for floods and storms around the 28th - 30th December. Much of this will be down to snow melt, but more Arctic weather forecast for January - Feb. and more running out of grit (what grit?) No, I'm not the forecaster- Piers Corbyn is, but you'll need to subscribe for the details.
Derek
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Yes, go for it, but check out all fittings and systems for their fitness for purpose. Avoid complex systems like the plague, and seek the best insulation possible. Many other prerequisites will be down to personal choice. There are many pitfalls, but none that cannot be avoided with research and enquiry. Living with less you get more out of life. Keep it simple
With regard to the political scenario surrounding BW, worse has happened in the past, and if one considers the huge advances made to the system since 1952 or thereabouts, the cut will still be here long after we've all popped our clogs.
With regard to the possibility of renting property - don't get friends or relatives in - they never pay!
Derek
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I would agree with you on that, though it doesn't warrant an assault on someone with a peaceful purpose and demeanour.
What's it all about? - Money, and More Money.
Derek
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Yesterday Midday at Cassio. Another inch and half fell later in the afternoon.
Padlocks all frozen, but I did manage to get in the engine 'ole. All well.
Derek
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It's all part of the New World Order, and is becoming more widespread. They are breeding Robocops.
Even representatives of the Crown are not immune. Assault on Lord Monckton.
Derek
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These figures about the number of cctv cameras are a myth. The numbers in somewhere, I think Windsor, were counted and then multiplied up to give a figure for the UK.
It was on a radio programme the other week about statistics.
Myths are created by tall stories, and that's a tall story. It might have something more to do with installation orders, costs, and sales numbers as supplied by manufacturers.
Derek
irish bolinder on bbc2 now
in History & Heritage
Posted
Could do with some of that right now - cold is what you should fear.
Emissions a Globe doth not warm. (unless you work at CRU).
Let's stick to Irish Bolinders!
Derek