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Derek R.

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Everything posted by Derek R.

  1. That's a 'project' that would absorb several hundred thousand pounds to complete, and then there's the ongoing cost of maintenance. Nice engines, and most likely will be removed for service in something else leaving this fine vessel to be scrapped, for £5K - £10K is a beg for someone to take it off their hands. Great shame,
  2. Vulcan, the Roman God of fire and forge. As the craft was built of iron in the mid to late 19th C. it seems an appropriate choice of name, as was the locomotive works that produced thousands of steam engines - The Vulcan foundry. (They were all turned out in grey primer). As much of its working life would have been as an open boat, or covered with tarps over hatches, the only colour would have been applied to the wheelhouse, and which would have been chosen by the owner operator. OR, whatever cheap paint was available at the time, and I'm thinking of Matty's yellow now. It stood out like orange or red - the colours of 'plant', easily spotted even if chipped, flaked or muddied. But such colours seem to 'shout' too much on an ex-working boat. Something more subdued would take the eye away from the superstructure, and divert it to the hull shape, the more attractive element. This takes me back to items of sculpture. I worked for a while in a sculpturs casting workshop, where artists would bring their pieces made of whatever medium they had chosen, to be moulded and cast in something more solid and durable. Many small pieces would be very attractive, but often the artists would ask for a particularly nice piece of marble or mahogany as a stand for the piece. We had to put it to them that placing their piece on an attractive base, took away from the most important element - the piece itself, and that a plain and simple base, often in satin black, would set their piece off far better, taking the eye away from the plain base and concentrating it on the piece. With regard to SHELL FEN, the 'blog' shows it on dock late last year painted in orange and yellow, with a blue 'new' wheelhouse. Pass the bucket. [Correction: I see it was an open decked tanker. No wheelhouse].
  3. "It can be Neither allow access to the larger waterway system in England & Wales." By which, I mean that the boat is restricted to broad waterways and cannot access Wales, the West Midlands and other narrow canals. Fine if only broad waterways are intended to be cruised, and it's a 'orrible colour.
  4. It can be done: This was 'TWO BROTHERS' for sale a couple of years back. Good for the waterways of the Netherlands. Our own Tjalk was much bigger with eleven feet headroom from the hold floor boards to beneath the centre of the hold covering boards. Not for English canals though. I find nothing attractive in either SHELFEN or VULCAN. Neither allow access to the larger waterway system in England & Wales.
  5. I knew I had seen that image in a book. Just found it! As shown in Shiela Stewart's 'Ramlin Rose', The Boatwoman's Story. This depicts Ada Skinner (née Monk) in the cabin of a 'change boat' towards the end of WWII, while her regular boat was being used in the film 'Painted Boats'. Ada married Jack Skinner, Brother of Joe Skinner of 'Friendship'. Also mentioned in the final chapter of 'Ramlin Rose', 'Rose' mentions that after they left the boats and went on the bank, amongst her various nick-nacks she had kept: "Granny Statham's Little Cooke's winluss".
  6. You think thieves don't carry tools . . . A 4" pocket adjustable will undo most fender shackles, but I have never had fenders stolen anywhere. Maggots in the cabin, once had a firework dropped down a deck vent at Cowley, but nothing stolen in 12yrs afloat. No - tell a fib, some kids pinched some firewood from my pile in the cratch once to light a camp fire. It was pretty green, so no brew up for them.
  7. The drawing would be 71' 6" long if it were drawn to scale. It is not a drawing for a model boat, but the scale to which the DRAWING was drawn. As mentioned before, 'tradition' comes from safe best practice, but in real life, that can be interpretated in several ways depending on the boat, the waterway, the crew, and sometimes what you can get away with.
  8. The hooks are designed to 'open out' under extreme tension. The strings to break. Most are no longer available (such types of hooks that is) so chain is used, but the outermost should always be string.
  9. That's a Yarwood's plan. It is generally accepted that fenders should not be fixed in such a way that if they get caught or hung up in any way, they could affect the stability of the boat - they need to be 'breakable'. Hence the open hook in a chain, and the string on the outermost fender, the one that is most likely to get caught in a closing gate or under a gate cross beam, fore end or aft. The 'traditional' description, should really relate to the best and safest practice.
  10. This lady must be pouring cold water into the pot. The range has newspaper covering it, so clearly not lit! Unless it's an asbestos dish cloth . . .
  11. That doesn't explain the miniature windlasses hanging up in the boatmans cabin in the IWM image, nor the reference to miniature windlasses in Sheila Stewart's 'Ramlin Rose' paperback. Though that particular one might have been.
  12. I haven't seen any full sized Cooke windlasses, so cannot comment on if the Cooke name appears on them. But the thought comes to mind that maybe the miniature windlasses (as seen in the back cabin in the B & W image above) might have been samples made to attract clients. Bit of a long shot though.
  13. Tied up on the far bank in the gauging image is a boat that looks like KINGFISHER, the company inspection boat. I must have taken these in the late eighties, and after Major Fielding had passed. I recall the cradle used to have a makeshift model narrowboat on it, ready to launch. When we first passed in 1983, The Major was in the garden with his Airdale letting us know he was 'on guard'! I have a thought that the caravan used to be a shelter for those in need.
  14. The load - Barrels of oil for Duckhams? That barn like house in the winding hole, wasn't that where DayStar theatre Co. were based for a time?
  15. Miniature windlasses were sought after at one time. They were referred to in Sheila Stewart's 'Ramling Rose'. Bet that would do well at auction.
  16. Proof of posting number is not a tracking number. Tracking numbers are usually for 'signed for' goods and if going from GB to GB - end in 'GB'. I had something heading my way that took best part of 12 days, it got here in the end. But the industrial action doesn't help.
  17. JAPONICA had that treatment, steel cladding over a wooden cabin. The internal tongue and groove cabin sides in OTLEY do appear to have quite a lot of dark staining along the joints. This could be caused by water condensing onto the inside of a steel cladding, and soaking into the wooden panelling. The roof (deckhead for the nautical of mind) is painted white. I do wonder what may be hidden beneath the paint. Is this reflected in the asking price? Only a visit and/or survey will tell. Someone likes it - Sold.
  18. On the Northern line? or - In the wrong place?
  19. Can the webmaster stop scratching his head. I've got dandruff floating down my screen . . .
  20. I can almost hear that Petter(?) blatting away. Did a few miles behind one.
  21. I would have thought that the area of water more than the depth would be the deciding factor in whether a canal length was an effective reservoir or not. Fill a glass to near the brim, and pour in half a cup more of water, and the result in an overflow. Do the same to a large bowl (a greater area) and the level is barely affected.
  22. The daydreams of modern man. Do they not realise it's all been done before? - Films, documentaries, books and magazines? It was hard graft. Yes it had its own lifestyles which are now gone, but how many would have swopped their back cabin on cold wet days for a council house and bath. 'A Big Ten four' - Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol. Used to love that as a kid.
  23. I have misread part of the website that suggested to me Zeppelin was in his 90's. It was in 1928 that he WOULD have been in his 90's. As to his military intentions, he was indeed thinking of his crafts efforts in wartime use, but prior to, it was passenger carrying that took precedence, as it did after WWI. It seems he fell out with the decisions of the military and naval chiefs. This I also read elsewhere some long time ago, which may have led me up a 'wrong' road.
  24. Thank you. Just a foretaste of what technology was to bring. Graf Von Zeppelin never conceived his aircraft to be used in warfare, the German government did that. His was a dream of commercial flights, and to that end one actually circumnavigated the globe in the late 1920's when Zeppelin was in his 90's. https://www.airships.net/lz127-graf-zeppelin/history/
  25. So who were Maud and Frederick Fellows of Daisy Bank? Workers for the canal? Relations of FMC Fellows? or civilians sharing the name and had the misfortune to be killed in or near thier home?
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