Steve Priest

Thank you for your comments

I've come to this post a little late, and perhaps it has moved on from the original comments, but as I have been mentioned a few times, I thought I might join it. I am interested by your comments concerning our little Woolwich copy. Few yards make as much effort to get shapes accurate as we do at Brinklow Boats, and the little Woolwich copy, which was named Astraea, was measured from my own boat, Aquila. Allowing for tweaking the width, depth and length to those more typical of a new built boat, the shape is accurate. If sheer is what you want perhaps our tunnel tug Hasty is more to your taste ( google tunneltug Hasty) In this case we used original photos as a concept, and developed the shape from there. I don't recognise the josher copy attributed to me, it could be one of Simon's The Admiral copy (which was named Pellew) was built using copies of Yarwoods drawings (probably from you, Laurence?) . Whilst the internal framing was different, the external hull shape is correct, including the counter bottom and swim. In fact, we have now adopted this swim shape in most of the boats that we build. Anyway, Beech. I went to see Beech when she was for sale at Les Allens, I think in the winter of 1976, following an advert in the Exchange and Mart. In those days most boats were advertised in the Exchange and Mart, or in Motor boat and Yachting. The boat looked marvellous, straight, and immaculately painted, with a largely rebuilt JP2 and an asking price of £3500. I made an offer, and was second in line, but didn't get it. Ian Kemp owned it for a while, after he sold it, it did a couple of seasons as a camping boat in the WFBCo fleet, by then it was clear that there was a lot of filler under the paintwork. A few years later on Ken Ward ended up with it, and moored it at the WFBCo. I used to keep an eye on it for him and pump it out when it needed it. By that time although it still looked quite good it was clear that there was a lot of work to be done, and Ken, amazingly undaunted, took it to Charity dock ( if I remember correctly) and got on with what became a complete rebuild. He was always clear that he didn't intend to retain the exact shape, he wanted to make re fore and stern ends finer, and also give the hull sheer along its length. I mean it as no disrespect to the work that Ken did, but the shape is not really typical of a wooden Josher any more, including the amount of sheer that the hull now has. I hope that Beech ends up with an owner that can do the work that is necessary and can give the boat a good future, not only for the sake of the boat, but also in memory of Ken, and I wish you all the best with whatever you decide to do. I have heard it said several times that whilst Beech was a maintenance boat at Hillmorton, the Bolinder was taken out and went to the museum at Stoke Bruerne, and is the one that now sits in the corner of the tea shop. Steve

I have no experience of the Woolwich prototypes, so I'm afraid I don't know how the tanks were set up, but I would not expect to find the locking bar on anything but a big boat

With regard to Woolwich tanks, the overall height of the big boat tanks is the same as that of little boat ones, but the horizontal portion of a big boat tank is much deeper than a little one, with the vertical triangular part proportionately shallower. Consequently, the big boat tank holds quite a bit more diesel. The fillers and vents are as shown in Fulbourne, the fillers have a male thread which screws into an insert soldered into the tank top. The diameter of the filler is about 4'' bsp but interestingly enough little boat and big boat filler caps are not interchangeable, the big ones being very slightly bigger, the look the same, but they aren't. Woolwich vent fittings are 1'' bsp, with a 180 deg female/female return bend. With regard to Northwich boats, again the horizontal portion is a lot deeper in a big tank than in a little one, but the vertical portion is a similar height in both, so they look to have a similar height in relation to the gunwhale. Again, the big tanks hold quite a bit more than the little ones. I am honestly not sure how middle boat tanks are, but I think they are similar to little ones Fillers are, I think, 5'' bsp and are a stub of pipe with a male taper thread, and a cap with a female thread in it. I have made Northwich style fillers using 4''bsp fittings, using a barrel nipple cut in half and extended with 41/2'' tube for the stub pipe, and a 4'' socket cut in half to make the caps. The vent pipes are 1'' bsp capped with two 1'' bsp wrought female /female elbows joined with a running nipple. The caps are, as Madcat says, in a different position on each side, one side by the bulkhead, the other by the side, and yes, Flamingo's tanks are original. Big boat tanks, Woolwich and Northwich, were made lockable, little and middle ones weren't. The Northwiches had a hasp welded to the tank top that closed onto a tab on the cap, Woolwiches had a hinged locking bar that went across the top of the cap and closed onto a tab on the other side. Big boat tanks are deeper because the engine beds are deeper and the floors fitted higher than in little boats, because the thickness of the wooden bottoms in little boats had to be allowed for, in relation to the postion of the skeg. I have fitted new Northwich style tanks to the Antlia, Scorpio, and Sextans, but have only ever made one Woolwich tank, that being for the Greenock.

105 referred to the cylinder bore, 105mm, the 111 series was a development with a bore of ( to state the obvious) 111mm. Volvo bought out BM in 1950 but they continued to trade under the BM name until, I think, 1970. My luxemotor is fitted with a Volvo Penta MD67C which I think was produced between 1954 and 1966, ( the automotive version of this engine was fitted to the early Volvo Viking truck.) It is a six cylinder engine, 6.7 litres, 96hp at 1700 rpm, It has a bore and stroke indentical to the BM 111 series, and seems to me to be Bolinders technology under a Volvo Penta badge. I have a feeling that I may struggle to go slowly, though!

I was about to say that The cabin doors were replaced around a year ago, but looking at some photos that I took at the same time it would seem to be over three! They were painted by Ron Hough whilst off the boat, before their final fitting. I think Robert Macintyre did the graining. I agree with Phil that the weather board is definitely Dennis Clark, and I had thought that the table was as well, but I take Phil's point, Ron's early work is a possibility. I'm not sure about the castle on the table, it is very basic and seems to have been done very quickly but think it does have a Braunston feel to it in spite of this. I agree with Tony Dunkley that the coal box is much more recent. I don't recognise the painter but I think that Carol Leech ( Ivor and Carol had the boat converted) did do some painting, perhaps it is her work Steve

Lapwing was built as a motor, at Saltley, 1913, one of the first batch of Bolinder boats ( Linda, Lynx, Laurel, Lily, Lupin etc)

You may have joined it late Paul, but not as late as me! Years ago I had heard rumours that G U boats originally had a cable throttle control but didn't think much about it until I bought Aquila back in 93. At the time I was disappointed that the boat didn't have a speedwheel, but looking at the lever and cable I began to think that Aquila probably has never had one. I talked to quite a few people about it, I remember Ian Kemp and Tom Lapworth in particular, and the story I was coming up with is that the lever and cable version was original, the speedwheel was a later modification, and that the speedwheel was first fitted by a boater who had found one of those upper window opening mechanisms that used to be fitted to high factory windows and adapted it and fitted it to his boat, the engineers saw it and decided to start making them to replace the cable throttles. The picture of Sun is not very clear, but I can make out that it is a lever and is the same as the one I still have in Aquila. They are fairly small, brass, or bronze, and have no ratchet, they work by friction. Tom Lapworth said that a few boaters preferred them, and so some did survive. He told me that he used one himself at one time. They have a small screw or bolt in the centre, which needs to be nipped up from time to time to stop the throttle slipping, so I keep a spanner in the ticket draw so that I can do so whenever needed. They seem to have been made for a Bowden type sheathed cable, but I think they were fitted with a bare cable working over a small pulley on the engine room roof. Originally, I kept the one in Aquila because I am pretty sure it has always been here but I'd have to say that I have got used to it and now prefer it, I would post a picture but I haven't a clue how to. I think Nutfield still has one, and we fitted one to Antlia which was actually being used as a stop lever when the front half was a separate boat. I also remember Ron Wilson, who was a dredger and dragline driver for BW at one time, telling me that they were fitted to Ruston Bucyrus draglines, so they may well have been a standard throttle lever available at the time

I don't know what this boat is, but it isn't Malvern. The shape of josher motors evolved over the years, and the very late boats were distinctive in the shape of both ends, especially the counters, the top band of which was much deeper than any of the earlier boats. My feeling is that this boat is an early Yarwoods boat and would date from the mid nineteen twenties

Yes, it is Argo, it has a recent wooden bottom in opepe, but poorly fitted, so Roger is replacing it with steel. As far as I know it is for sale as is but with the demand for butties being what it is at the moment it would seem likely to be cut in half. It would be a shame, it's a really nice boat, but probably inevitable, I had my eyes on it for a while, but I bought a Dutch boat two years ago and I think three boats is probably enough! However, if anyone would prefer a Northwich butty we still have Lupus at Brinklow

I've just come across this topic, and being a professional rivet counter I thought I might contribute. I think Reading/Redshank had a welded replacement cabin at Stockton a few years ago, and as regards butties, I would agree that Corvus was the last of the little boats with an original cabin. As far as I know Leonids still had its original cabin the last time I saw it, but I haven't seen it for some time. If it still has, that must be the last of the butties with one During my career I have riveted replacement cabins on Triagulum, Tarporley and Tipton whilst working for the WFBCo, Antlia and Sextans whilst working for myself at Stockton, and Towcester, Rufford and Scorpio as part of Brinklow Boat Services, and I know that Ian Kemp has done Sculptor, Regulus, Leo, and Malus. When they were built Northwich cabins were lined with 1/2 inch fibre board which was attached with brass countersunk machine screws which were drilled and tapped through the cabin side and roof - if anyone has stripped the paint off an original cabin and wondered what the brass discs on the surface are- that's it. The fibre board was fitted flush with the 1/2 inch steel framing which was left exposed, most of the angle frames were capped, but there was still a lot of steel left exposed which would have run with condensation, they must have been horrible to live in. Both Sculptor and Scorpio have been restored like this. BW decided that the best remedy was to cut the cabin off and replace it in wood, although a few boats retained their steel cabins which were relined with tongue and groove in a more conventional manner which I would have thought was a better option. When I worked for the B'ham and Midland and had the Yeoford the cabin was original and was fitted out like this, but as regards rusting internally, after a 'robust' days boating you could guarantee that the bed would be full of scale! On all of the little boats and the middle boats originally the engine would come out through the bulkhead, which was bolted on. The cabin/engine roof on both little and middle Northwich boats was riveted on in one piece, whilst in the big boats (both Northwich and Woolwich ) the engine would come out through the roof, which was consequently separate and bolted on, and the bulkhead was riveted. Whilst most little Woolwiches were altered to a bolt on roof ( the only ones left with a riveted roof flange are Caillisto, and Corolla - which has a bolt on roof inside the handrail line, and when restoring Aquila I decided to rivet the roof on as per original ) none of the little Northwiches were altered. As regards composite boats, the Sculptor is still composite and was rebottomed at Brinklow boat Services two years ago after a campaign to keep it so - there was a move to replace it in steel but the right decision was made in the end - and I am sure that Bellatrix is composite also. I believe that it is correct that Ash is still composite, but Carina lost it's wooden bottom a couple of years ago

Our take on this is as follows. My understanding is that , as has been said, it is described as an early Steve Hudson boat. The steelwork is by Paul Barber, fitted out and marketed by Steve Hudson, and for the record, it has no rivet washers, and polystyrene insulation. The current owners have owned the boat for ten years or so, and have cruised very extensively over that time, in their retirement. Talking to them, there aren't many places they haven't been, but the now decided that it is time for them to move back into a house and sell the boat. They are really nice people, and the boat is extremely well kept. They put the boat on brokerage last year and agreed a deal with a prospective purchaser subject to survey. During a previous docking they had been told that the boat appeared to have nothing wrong with it, and although it was not a formal survey, they did not anticipate any problems. However, the surveyor found evidence of significant pitting on the hull sides and said that remedial work was required, the scope of the work was to be established by thoroughly cleaning the hull sides under the waterline, which was not possible at the time of the survey. The sale fell through, and the owner decided that the b to have the work done himself before putting the boat back on brokerage, hence he spoke to me. I spoke to the surveyor, and established that it was likely that the straight sides would need overplating, the bottom, fore end and swim were ok. When we craned the boat out my initial response was that it looked to be in pretty good order and that we could probably weld up the worst pits, however, after rotary wire brushing it was obvious that the pitting was too widespread and deep for this to be practical, especially considering the polystyrene insulation. We have a method which we use when overplating boats with polystyrene insulation that greatly reduces the risk of fire, we have done several over the years and never had a problem, however this is easy enough when the welding is confined to a straight run at the top of the new plate, but much more difficult when welding widespread pitting up over the whole surface of the plate. The polystyrene will melt away over a couple of inches behind the weld leaving bare steel, but if the option is to strip out what may be, and in this case was, a sound and tidy fit out then it is probably worth the compromise. So, we overplated the boat on the straight portion of the sides up to the waterline, leaving the fore end, swim and bottom as they proved to be ok, the survey report was transferred to the owner, and the surveyor passed our work off before relaunching. I do not believe for one moment that either ABNB our the owner would try to hide the fact that it had been done, and considering that most buyers would have a survey done anyway it would be discovered in any case, but I am not sure that you would expect it to be disclosed in the initial advert, more likely during a subsequent discussion

I've just read of the death of Chris Daniels. It was Chris who was on Bingley whilst the canal children was being filmed. I am afraid I made him homeless when I bought Bingley from Kim McGavin, something he jokingly reminded me of some years later. He was also a good friend of 'Ernie' Earnshaw who owned my other boat Aquila, and I think I remember him telling me that they had done a trip with both boats at some stage. I didn't know him well, but we chatted several times. Sad news, RIP Chris

Pete, I mentioned the Birmingham and Midland because I remember that Graham was involved, though I can't remember whether he supplied a boat for the filming or not. I have now found the Tardebigge scene, and the boat with the extended cabin on the towpath side is Bingley, what I can't put a name to is the boat on the front of the wharf, although the colours might suggest it is Doug Greaves' boat which would have been Bodmin at that time. I remember some of the boats were filmed with more than one name, and pre printed fablon name panels were used so that they could be changed quickly. I think Bingley was renamed Daffodil for part of it

Hello Pete, The location I would guess to be Curdworth, the lock above the Dog, the big Woolwich is Bingley, I didn't notice the little butty but would guess that it is a B'ham and Midland boat,

The story of the Tardebigge is an interesting one. back in the early nineties I was approached by a prospective customer ( who wishes not to be identified) who talked to me about building a little Northwich copy. Sometime later he took me to see the Tardebigge as it then was, the stern end of the Antlia with the ice breaker fore end, with a view to using the stern end and building a new little Northwich copy fore end onto it. On the way home we discussed the history of the boat and where the fore end was, he chased it up and found that it was for sale, and after another day out he decided to buy it. The job therefore developed into re-uniting the two ends of the Antlia, that had been separated some forty years previously. We had fifty feet of the original boat, so we added a new 10' section ( rivetted, with reclaimed knees) to make 60', then rivetted a new engine room and cabin, rebottomed the whole boat, and fitted the Lister HB2 from the fore end section in the new engine room. As a result of this work I ended up with the fore end of the Tardebigge and the back end of the Kitty, ex Water Vixen, ex fore end of Antlia. Originally the water vixen had, as far as I know a transom stern over a fairly basic swim, but this had been altered in the late seventies by Braunston canal services to a Northwich style counter stern. I used these ends to make a new boat with if I remember 16' of new sides using the name Tardebigge. By this time the middle Northwich Sextans had arrived with me for a rebuild, which was at the time much as it had been when it was a Wyvern Shipping hire boat, with a Lister SR2 under a long back deck. Sextans was lengthened, had a new riveted back cabin and engine room, and a 20' conversion, and was fitted with a Lister HR2 (ex josher Camel) and the redundant SR2 went into Tardebigge I think worked out that the rebuilt Antlia had been fitted with no less than seven sets of engine beds in it's history Probably a good job I don't work on cars, isn't it

Yes, they were wrought iron, but so were iron joey boats, the first batch of little Woolwich boats, little Northwich boats and most joshers. The difference is that they were, I believe, made of B grade iron plate, which does not weld well. The oak was the most difficult boat I have ever done welding work on, and I think that if they had ever been used as hard as the big Grand Union boats were they would have fallen to bits

I think this might have been me, we can get Aquila up lock no.9 without any problems but we get stuck coming down. We got stuck there on Easter Sunday last year when the flight was quite busy, we tried flushing but that wasn't working so we waited until it quietened down and got through relatively easily with a chain puller. I think Aquila is 7' 3/8'' at the widest point, and lock 9 is the only one we stick in

Sorry chaps, it's not Gambia, It's France

Yes, it was a wire works. I worked for Caggy for part of one winter back in the mid seventies, he called it 'the united wire' but I don't know if that was the actual name at the time. I do remember that it had a very good canteen, we used to have breakfast there on a Wednesday morning ( we took an empty boat down every Wednesday). At the time, he would take two boats of rubbish a week, one from the united wire and one from Raleigh bikes on the engine arm. We would change the one at the Raleigh on a Friday, take it back to Bromford and unload it into the united wire boat, and then take that boat to Moxley tip. Caggy would get to Ocker Hill on the Monday, then Ocker Hill to Moxley tip, unload, and back to the top of the thirteen with the empty boat on Tuesday, ready to take it down to the united wire on the Wednesday. I remember the Comet, it was indeed a lovely boat and certainly seemed to be in very good condition at the time, I often wondered what became of it. The other boat that I remember using was a station boat that he called Brenda, there was a lot of paint scraped off the back bends on the Brenda revealing the letters 'NAP', I later understood that this was originally the Naples. Caggy always referred to this boat as a Stour lifter. Once whilst taking the Brenda down the thirteen empty we noticed a trickle of water coming from behind one of the knees, Caggy managed to stuff it full of wet newspaper and stop it leaking before we got to the wireworks, it was still afloat when we went back the following week. Those were the days!

I was going to give a more detailed response but i have loads to do before I go to Braunston, so just a couple of quick points:- I am not convinced that you can see that the top of the stem bar is higher than the cants, the top line of the cants is not at all clear but you can make it out further back, and following the line parallel with the top bend it seems to come out level with the top of the stem. When the photo is enlarged, however, I believe that just to the left of the stem you can make out the front edge of the top bend plate and the rivets that hold it to the stempost flange. Also, when you enlarge the cabin area, it is apparent that the chimney side handrail is right on the edge of the cabin, whilst on the porthole side the inside edge of the handrail is in shade and appears solid. Those points certainly suggest Woolwich to me! Regards, Steve

An interesting set of photographs, and several that I have not seen before. I don't know anything about the plates that appear on the Aboyne's cabin side, I've not heard of them, or seen any, and I haven't noticed any in photographs. As regards identifying boats, the motorboat in the picture is not Taygeta, it's a big Woolwich. If you enlarge the picture there seems to be a Y in the name on the top bend, so Aynho would be my guess. As far as I know, the big Woolwiches were the only boats to have offset headlamps

I've had this piece of film bookmarked for a while, I think it is a great snapshot of Grand Union boats working in their early days. I don't recall seeing any other photographs of boats painted in that style though. Laurence is right that all Woolwich boats had panelling from new, it ran forwards along the engine room and stopped a few inches behind the rear engine room door, the hinges of which were welded to the engine room side, the thickness of the hinge allowed the door to open flat across the top of the panelling. The position of the panelling is clear on boats with original engine rooms from the pattern of small rivets which were used to fill up the fixing holes when the panelling was removed. Big Woolwich motors were built with a bolt on engine room roof so that the engine and tanks could be removed, and you can see from the still that the panelling covered the roof flange bolts along the top of the sides, and as the roof could not be taken off without first removing the panelling, it's not suprising that it didn't last very long. All of the Woolwich and Northwich motors were supplied with one dolly and a hook, the hook was fine when towing with a long line via the butty mast and running blocks to a t stud at the front of the butty slide hole, the motor steerer would just put the line on the hook, and the butty steerer would run the line out off the t stud to take up the tow, but a lot of people came to prefer to pay the line out from the motor boat, and two dollies made that a lot easier to do, hence most boats were altered. This is the reason that more often than not the dollies on G. U. motors don't match, the new ones were made of straight bar with the end heated up and mushroomed over. I am not sure when this happened, I believe that it was in early Waterways days. Another feature of big Woolwiches in their earlier days that is shown is the offset headlights, and I don't think that lasted long either! great piece of film, Steve

Laurence, The rudder you describe is the Harland and Wolff type, and was fitted to both big and little Woolwiches. I'm afraid that the rudders on Northwich boats, wether they were little, middle or big boats, were not like this. Best of luck with the ongoing work, regards, Steve.