Tam & Di

Do people not bother to shut off sea cocks when they winterise boats now? Not just the water intakes either. I guess new-comers might not think of water coming in via a bath/basin etc outlet if some event made the bath/basin drainhole lower than the outside water level, but I'd have thought it was an obvious consideration to long-time owners.

Phew! I looked at the title "mounting portholes" and "what screws" and thought CW was in very dodgy waters indeed!

No. I didn't work for UCC, and yes, it certainly should be George - I can't remember the Nod Wilson photo and haven't got those books with me. We seemed to pop up in most books at that time, probably because we were the only boats working regularly in the London area. George and Helen on Floan are now the last English couple working a Freycinet boat here (39m x 5.05m loading up to about 350 tonnes where the road will take that much). I did post a photo of them on another thread a while ago. The other couple - Roy and Carole Sycamore - have just retired and their Pedro has already been sold. Yes Alan, your piccy is Towcester - before I used some Royal anniversary to change the colour scheme on all our boats to blue surround with red name panel and cream line. White would maybe be more patriotic, but I was really doing it for the colour effect. I did paint union flags on the top of the stands though.

I see the moored boat has broken the ice next to him - saves ice scratches to his hull, though it does risk Julia sliding over towards him when she gets to that bit as there is then less resistance on that side. I've dug out a picture of when we bought Towcester from Nigel Hollis in 1971 - it was in pretty much that colour scheme then.

Our favourite butty was the middle Northwich butty Leonids. I know a lot of "born and bred" boatmen didn't like them as they thought they rolled. We didn't particularly find that, though we only really used it extensively on the barrels which had a fairly low centre of gravity. Who could build an economic version of these, with its rolled chines?

Might depend on what type of engine hour meter it has. If it is one that in reality records how long the ignition is switched on it will clock up hours if the key is left in the "on" position even if the engine is not running.

But I can't see why you would want to. Why go to the considerable expense, given all the complex double curvature involved, of building a butty stern, and then motorise it. A motorised butty is never as efficient as a boat properly designed as a motor boat. And if you put a counter on it, surely you are not even going to see the butty stern. Once it's properly ballasted you just see the counter. Or are you suggesting you still retain the butty shape ellum and tiller bar? That would probably be even more bizarre. There is presumably something I am not understanding about your concept. Is that prop and cowl fixed, so it only gives thrust directly backwards, or does it move so you get your steering in that way. There does not look to be a lot of rudder left to redirect thrust. We did a couple of hydraulic drive conversions in the 80s, one to a River Lee size lighter owned by Gren Middleton and used as a puppet theatre. We mounted the prop in the rudder itself so it acted as an outdrive. The lighter had about a foot of concrete in the bottom to serve as floor and for stability so was very heavy, but it steered magnificently, even in reverse. We powered it with a 2.2 BMC mounted crosswise right in the very stern. Actually I take back my comment about a motorised butty never being as steerable as a motorboat, as it could be done. But I'd still ask why.

OK, mea culpa and I apologise for the spelling comments. I have a son who is dyslectic and appreciate the difficulty - though it does not bother him or hold him back from running a very successful business. I looked in as there was seemingly someone who wanted work as a deck hand. That is not a term I associate with narrow boating, so I was reacting to a posting saying someone had hired boats hundreds of times, which seemed rather extreme for someone who is 23, and who was wishing to help "skipper" a boat. "Skipper" in my world is effectively captain, and it therefore seemed a rather boastful and confusing mail.

Whoops!!! I can spell and I know my grammar though. What I meant of course was at least 8.69 hirings a year, but I guess I was confused as he himself is a plural "boaters", and I was not sure how many he was. I noted also he promoted himself (himselves?) from deckhand in the title to skipper somewhere along the line.

As hundreds is plural I assume at least 200. You say you are 23 - that's nearly two a year for every year of your life. I know that spelling is not a big thing on this forum, but is this actually for real?

You'll probably find that any pump will do as a rule (sorry - couldn't resist)

That makes more sense to me. I didn't see how simply giving him an address to send money to via PayPal would leave you financially worse off. I've bought and sold things/services with payments made in this way. It might get you a load more phishing mails you don't want, but that's all, as far as I know. I can understand how the follow-on sucks in the gullible though.

But on the other hand if all the people with boats in marinas came out boating at once, no-one would go very far at all as queues for locks/water/pumpout would stretch for miles. BW depend on them staying there for most of the time.

She's also being very sneaky with her caveat - "it MAY BE a reproduction". Also the report to eBay should say "it IS a reproduction". This is absolutely 100% a 1980s pastiche - there is no maybe about it.

We had the wooden motor wideboat Progress there at that time, and cruised it extensively summer and winter. It had metal tingles all along the empty waterline and the hull did not really suffer in the ice. You had to be careful of the prop though, as she had a fine swim and enormous sheets would sometimes get drawn into it. There were still timber barges hauled by narrow gauge tractors coming up from Brentford then as well. You could hear them coming a long way away in the ice, as it started humming, getting louder and louder and becoming a high pitched whine, and eventually a great cracking noise as broken sheets nigh on the width of the cut were pushed ahead of the lighter. People with tender boats put ice boards down as a matter of course. I just can't imagine why people get upset by losing a bit of blacking anyway.

We used to sell exactly that pattern on our tripboat in the 80s - 1980s that is, not 1880s! So there is a bit of misrepresentation there.

And there I was, wondering if his father was Ronnie or Harry H.!

Although 'swan's neck' seems obvious, I never heard any boatman refer to it as that. The 'swan's neck' was always ropework on the butty ellum.

I agree entirely. I was trying to counter the suggestion that anyone would be as well off packing shelves in Lidl as they would doing Mike's job for a skipper. Once we started carrying that was all we did - we did not have a "day job" or do it as a hobby. We were forced into expansion in order to stand still, as there was never enough continuity of work for just one pair. We got offers of 10 ton loads or of 500 ton ones. The limejuice was perfect as Roses needed 100 tons a week - 2 x 50 ton freights. It was 12 hours up loaded from Brentford and 10 hours back empt, plus loading and unloading made it about 60 hours a week (plus maintenance etc). Unfortunately it was seasonal from Septemberish through to the spring, so we had to have other work for the summer, and hence ultimately the expansion to having several pairs on the go, plus tripboats and engineering contract work. We also had to take our two boys out of school (7 and 11 initially) and 'educate' them ourselves. They are both running businesses making much more money than we ever did, so something must have been done right.

Even worse, the butty rudder will not have any counter-balanced leading edge unless major surgery has been carried out to the stern. With a properly designed rudder on a motor boat you "redirect" some 70-80% of the thrust from the blades to push the stern one way or the other. With a motorised butty you are only redirecting 50% of your thrust, and the other 50% is still pushing you straight ahead. This is also the main reason that motorised ex-sailing barges such as tjalks, aaks and so on are often a pig to steer. In fact these Dutch ex-sailing boats are generally quite bluff at the arse end so don't have much by way of a swim, and that makes them even more problematic.