davidwheeler

We could have done with that BCN guide. In the late summer of 1978 we swopped, for a fortnight, our Devon thatched longhouse and smallholding for a 36ft Springer, based at the Longwood Boat Club. We did not know the BCN. There was no guide book on the boat, but we were told not to worry, in whichever direction we went we would end up in Birmingham. That may be true or it may not be, but it did not stop us getting lost. From the canals the outside world was securely fenced off. The inside world, completely independant, was the canal. At some bridges there was a door. And a road. And buildings. But no indication of where we were or where we might find some food. Food became a serious preoccupation for us on the BCN. Also, there was nobody to ask. Nobody on the towpath. No passing boater. We spent a full week exploring the BCN and in all that time we were passed by two boats. One the tug 'Caggy', with a nod from Mr Stevens. The other a motor boat from Longwood which passed us at speed pulling out all our mooring stakes. We had hoped to see some commercial movements but we saw none. Large numbers of moored, and apparently laid up BW craft, 30 Alfred Matty boats and 5 tugs at Bilston. But nothing moving, nothing carrying. Even so we had some exciting and challenging times. And in later years came back for more.

I visited the Purton site regularly throughout the late 1950s and the 1960s. I thought that Harriett was a Droitwich Canal barge because an article by Mr Max Sinclair said she was. I have that article still but it is undated. I think it appeared in the 1970s in the Journal for the Thames Barge Sailing Club, of which I was a member at that time. It is worth perhaps noting that the witch barge Harriet is spelt as such in her cargo book, but the Harriett in the photos above is spelt like that: Harriett. Names can be changed or altered of course. For those who are interested in the argument, have a look at the Purton website, under the reference 'Harriett'. I am just an amateur and I now accept that Harriett is a Kennett barge. The last of her kind. And a shadow of what she was when I climbed all over her in the 1950s and 60s. I was one of the lucky ones, I think, to be able to see and inspect these old wooden vessels which in those days could be found all over the place, in rivers creeks and estuaries. Before Councils began to tidy up and vandals start bonfires.

Mr Pluto, that is a fine photograph. I am glad that we are back on Kennett barges. If I cannot match your skill, at least I can beat your date. Attached is a photo of Harriett taken in April 1965, less than a year after her placement. If the picture copies reasonably well, lots of other things to see in the background The human gives an idea of the size. It was difficult to get aboard without a grappling hook which I happened to have handy. The Harriett accords very much with my memory of the barge at Brassknocker Basin, Dundas.

On the Friends of Purton website, under 'Harriett', there is this: "...There are remnants of a Honey Street barge in one of the public houses at Limpley Stoke. These were taken from the barge that lay derelict for many years near Dundas Aqueduct and was totally destroyed by fire in the 1970s." A dangerous decade for old wooden vessels. It is a bit far for me to have a look but does anyone know what these remnants were or perhaps still are?

In the late 1950s , several times a week, I would pass past the barge, and sometimes pass over and along the barge, and cross the aqueduct. The bed of the canal was quite dry, and the barge was huge. It looked odd but rather fine, sitting, as I recall it, in the grass of the canal bed, with the crane and the warehouse beside it. To one side was the junction with the Somerset Coal Canal but that was on private land although we trespassed along it. On the other side the bed of the empty canal stretched on parallel to the river which ran below it. Some way on, but not far, there was a narrowboat, abandoned in the middle of the dry canal and once we climbed up into the boatman's cabin and had a cigarette, a Woodbine's I suspect, which did me no good at all, nor any of us because the cabin filled with acrid smoke and we spent the rest of the afternoon eating polos and hoping that the smell had not got into our clothes. There were no repercussions so it obviously hadn't. Not that these were the only things of interest in this then private canalside world, because a few steps from the barge, up the track to the public road was an old wooden shed with doors which didn't close because one of the hinges had fallen away from the door jam. There inside we could plainly see the bonnet of a small blue Bugatti racing car. It was there for several years before two men came and wheeled it up the track and away. I already had a feeling for barges by then, rather than narrowboats, although our family had one and I liked the Dundas abandoned barge. The school camera club held an exhibition of its work and someone had taken a really fine shot of it. He was a lot senior to me and I didn't dare ask him for a copy. Something I have regretted. So that is the point of this little story. Does anyone have a photograph of the Dundas Kennet barge, and if so will they share it with us? What was its name? Who owned it? Why was it there? What happened to it?

At page 27 of the Robert Wilson publication 'Fenland Barge Traffic, there is a photo of the Ely sugar beet factory, taken in 1926. The motor barge in the foreground was said to be 'Pisgah'. I cannot now remember who said that, but it was an acknowledged historian of the day. The last time that I saw 'Pisgah' was in April 1959, when she passed by, an arm's length away, through the swingbridge at Saul Junction, the smallest motor barge among the flood of larger barges, tugs and lighters that went through that day. But on the River Avon she was the largest and only barge and, coming fast downriver, light, a magnificent but scary sight as we struggled upriver in our underpowered narrowboat. Meeting round a bend was quite exciting.

Has anyone mentioned G K Harris, the shipbuilders of Appledore, Devon? This is the sort of vessel they might have built.

If it is, then would some kind soul turn the drawing the right way up, something I appear unable to do without cutting a bit off. This graphite drawing dates from 1900. It was part of a small 1899/1900 sketchbook of this British artist, collected by an American in Texas, from whom I bought it twenty years ago or so. The others in his collection by Mr Featherstone were of landscapes and seascapes from around the country, so no clue as to where he drew this one. His main object, I imagine, was the lengthman, cutting back the overhanging foliage by the towpath for the horses. Reminiscent, don't you think, of 'Old Willum', and of much the same period. But I like his depiction of the boat and the boatwoman. In my experience not a common subject for artists at that time, but perhaps others know better. I certainly haven't found many.

Has anyone any idea where this may be? I believe I was told the artist was a Bristolian. His first name is Marc but I cannot decipher the surname. It has some age to it, from discolouration on the reverse. I've had it for forty years or more. Any suggestions?

For those who are interested this is what Mr Hugh Conway-Jones, Stroud Canal Trust's historian, has to say about this drawing: " (it) is a very rare depiction of working life in the early days of the Thames and Severn Canal by a highly respected antiquary. The scene is recognisable as the approach to Sapperton Tunnel from the west with the lengthman's house in the middle distance and Sapperton Church on the skyline. Details of the barge under tow are thought to be fully representative of practices in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The drawing is the earliest picture we have of the specific type of barge that developed locally to pass the narrower locks of the Thames & Severn and the shorter locks of the Stroudwater Canals and were carrying sails when on the River Severn. The drawing is an important record.." Mr Conway-Jones is satisfied that the drawing is by Samuel Lysons, made prior to the etching by him published in 1793 under the title 'View of Sapperton from the canal' as Plate LV111 in Part X of 'Etchings of Views and Antiquities in the County of Gloucester'. Since it seems to be an important document in the history of the Thames & Severn, and since it could well be overlooked or missed here in France I have given it to Gloucester Archives. So, anyone who wants to, can see it for themselves there.

Well ,thank you for that. It would certainly be interesting to those who have a fondness for the Exeter Canal's commercial days to have details of those commercial vessels built at Exeter and sent down the canal - they form part of the canal's trading history. My understanding is that vessels like the Malta ferries and aquaculture work boats were launched onto the canal, and then passed down it and the Exe estuary to their respective destinations. I believe, but may be wrong, that the two Malta ferries went up the Channel to Southampton or Portsmouth to be loaded onto a ship. And some photos of those vessels would be more than welcome.

In 1921, just a few years before his Cone invention burst upon the world of marine propulsion, Mr Hotchkiss, through the company incorporated for that very purpose, produced a new system of propulsion by water jet, which he named the Hotchkiss Hydraulic Propeller. Technical details of this system, if you are interested, are to be found in Engineering Jan 4 1924 pages 13 and 16, but a short description, taken from Motor Boat's report of the 1922 White City boat and leisure show, will perhaps be enough. Some Hydraulic Propellers were fitted to a few small vessels, and several were sent abroad, but its success was not immediate. Mr Hotchkiss then designed and had built a series of shallow draft river launches with the system, which he claimed were suitable for rivers such as the Thames and the Severn and others. These launches did achieve some sales and I have included details of a few of them below, taken from the Motor Boat. The illustrations and descriptions speak for themselves, but it is worth mentioning in particular the launch 'Torfrida'. The reports state that this was built to the order of Mr George Cadbury Junior of Birmingham. Mr Cadbury was a firm supporter of canals and inland waterways. He was the co-author of the Pitman's Transport Library's book on the subject of canal transport. But I have found no mention of the boat's use by Mr Cadbury, or how and if at all he used it on the Upper Severn. So we cannot gauge how successful the boat was, or how any of the Hotchkiss launches were used, and for how long and of what became of any of them. Despite the support from such an eminent gentleman of the time, the Hydraulic Propeller was not a success. Not because it didn't fulfill its claims, there is no evidence of that, but because of its complexity and its cost. The company failed after a very few years, and Mr Hotchkiss struggled to settle its debts. As he acknowledged, without sufficient orders, the production costs were too high and without sufficient numbers, could not be brought down to a competitive level. He had better luck with his Cones.

'The Only Internal Propeller Which has Stood the Test of Time' 'Sold to 23 different countries..' The onset of the Second World War brought Mr Hotchkiss' business to a complete and sudden halt. It was only in 1944, when he obtained the order for the 'Exonia' that he returned to his one-man business. He then pursued his aim to provide designs and systems for bigger and bigger vessels. His Cones got larger. He was successful in gaining orders, through the Crown Agency and others, for ferries for lakes and rivers in Africa. Some of these carried vehicles. Some of them may still be in existence, although all my efforts to trace them have failed. But his ultimate aim, the order for a really big commercial vessel, eluded him. He believed, and those that knew him, accepted that he believed, that the bigger the vessel, the better the performance of his Cones. No such order ever came to him. Towards the very end of his life he still went on experimenting. One such was his outboard adaptation. It was not a success. After his death in 1960, his son continued the business for a while and produced some experimental models but none were successful and the business ceased and all its documents were destroyed. The illustrations and specifications for the ferries come from reprints used by Mr Hotchkiss for publicity. That completes my contribution to the subject. If there is interest I may go back to the 1920s and his smart designs for shallow draft river launches.

"From what I can remember it did not work very well..." "...consigned to history and that's the best place for it.." Not every user seems to have shared negative opinions of Hotchkiss Cones in use. Some undoubtedly did, and at least two changed from Cones to prop. Another scrapped the system and the boat as well. It seems to have depended on intended usage. Below I have extracted from the contemporary editions of Motor Boat reports of, it would appear, entirely satisfied customers of boats with Cones. All from the 1930s. How objective and impartial those reports are cannot be assessed against peer reviews. They are all from the same magazine and some have a distinct touch of Hotchkiss about them. It is a shame that we cannot take up Mr Mens' offer, to judge for ourselves. Because you really have to experience them. Next, later and finally, I will just add one or two overseas examples, the last I believe of the bigger vessels fitted with the system. To keep it all here in the same place.

To change a Cone blade Identify, by sound, which Cone is affected. Unscrew the four nuts of the curved inspection hatch cover on the upper part of the relevant Cone. Remove the cover and set aside with the nuts. Ensure the rubber gasket is undamaged. Turn the axle by pulling on a blade until the tip of the damaged blade is upright , clear of the water and immediately beneath the inspection hatch. Each of the four blades is secured to its flange on the axle by two bolts. Reach into the water, and find the fixing. With appropriate box spanners unscrew the nuts and withdraw the bolts and retain. Lift out the blade. The usual cause of damage is some obstruction passing the external grilles and forcing the blade curvature back so that it comes into contact with the inside of the Cone. Replace the damaged blade with a spare. Alternatively place the blade on a firm surface and hammer until the curvature is reformed. Reinstall. Ensure all nuts are tight and the hatch gasket watertight. If necessary replace the gasket. N.B. If on a river navigation or a commercial waterway, it is strongly advised to have appropriate spanners immediately to hand and to have spare blades and securing nuts and bolts readily available. With practice it should take no more than four minutes to replace a blade. Enough time to effect repairs before the next tanker, barge or tug approaches. If you do not you are in very real danger. This procedure is for the simplest case. If the axle cannot be turned because one or more of the blades has jammed against the Cone or through some other cause, further investigation will be required. In which case, on a commercial waterway, sound one long blast followed by two short blasts on the claxon. Repeat if you have time. Use your VHF to warn other shipping. The chances are that the approaching vessel will not see you or will not be able to stop..... The subject of Cones has gone on longer than I anticipated. There is now quite a lot about them and the boats in which they were installed. So that as much information is assembled in one place, in case that is of interest in the future, I will continue to add bits and pieces, including other Hotchkiss inventions. Unless a moderator tells me that enough is enough.