Steve Priest

Surely no mistake, I meant THE Albion, you lot don't boing

I had intended to post a response earlier this morning, but our internet connection has been unreliable. Now I can respond, the main point that I was going to make has already been made, thank you Paul. I tend not to post on discussions regarding boatbuilders, I feel that it would be unprofessional to do so. As far as I am concerned, the decision is up to the individual, you pay your money and you take your choice. If your choice is to come to us for a boat, then that's great, if you don't want what we do and go elsewhere, then that's fine as well. Sometimes there seems a sort of arrogance implied by being regarded as elite, but I don't see that in other people named on the list, most of whom I know well. Certainly most, if not all the builders that most people would consider elite are enthusiasts as well and have at some stage been boating for a living, as Simon, Rex and Myself have. We believe that the shape of the Northwich boats that we build is about as accurate as we can reasonably get, we have had plenty of opportunities to measure and pattern the shape of the real thing with the boats that we restore, such as Antlia and Scorpio. We also build Joshers and Cowburn and Cowpar boats, and have build a copy of a Yarwoods Admiral motor from Yarwoods drawings, one of the few types of boat, I believe, where drawings that are good enough to build from exist Work lined up for this coming year include a steam boat based on the GJC steam tugs, and a little Woolwich copy. However, rivet washers and plate detailing are not obligatory, but optional. If people want a good shaped boat without such detailing then that's ok with us, and that's where the Rose hireboat comes in. The fore end was built from the same patterns that we would use for a more detailed copy, but the stern end is modified to make it more suitable for a hire boat. The draught is a lot less, the swim is a simple vertical sided swim rather than a flared one, the counter bottom flat, rather than concave. Decreasing the draught increases the counter depth, but to minimise this the lift is also reduced, and the guard line altered. This is NOT a detailed copy of a little Northwich, it is a cruiser sterned hire boat, original Northwich tumblehome is therefore irrelevant, David, and conventional style handrails more suited to this use than Northwich style ones. Original Northwich handrails were on 3/4'' stanchions, it is quite easy to trap fingers underneath which has led to injuries when people have tripped or fallen from the gunwhale, hardly suitable for a hire boat. Feedback from Rose suggests that they are very happy with Cascade, and Anthony says that it handles better than anything else in the fleet, as in common with most of the 'elite' builders we tend to fit a decent sized rudder rather than the postage stamp that some builders fit. We have recently finished the second boat for Rose, which I think is due to enter the fleet for next season. I don't know of any elite builder that builds Josher fore ends in 5mm plate, we certainly don't, nor would we. Oh, and by the way, Albion beat Preston North End 3-2 this afternoon ( sorry Sparky). Eight points clear of Forest with eight games to go, premiership football next season - c'mon you baggies!

Almost every G U boat coverted from a National to a Petter was set up like this ( apart from the couple that had levers mounted on the step). and those that have have been like that for the better part of fifty years!

You can alter the national gearwheel arrangement for use on a gearbox with a forwards / backwards movement, after all, Waterways did so when they replaced Nationals with Petters. Petters were fitted with Parsons F type boxes which also had a forwards/ backwards movement. We have fitted H series engines with Blackstone boxes into boats with gearchanges modified for Petters, and also set them up from scratch. The brass u.j. on the bottom end of the vertical rod was removed and replaced with a horizontal arm, which was held onto the rod with a clamp on boss. This arm was 8.5'' from the centre of the vertical arm, to the centre of a hole in the outer end. The lower end of the rod was then supported by a bracket bolted to the bulkhead. This arm was then linked to the vertical gearchange rod with a pair of heavy duty track rod ends joined together at 7'' centres. One track rod end was fitted into the hole in the arm, the other was welded to the top of the gearchange shaft. The vertical gearchange rod measured about 22'' from the centreline of the gear change shaft to the bottom of the track rod end welded to the top, this gave 12''of movement at the top of this shaft. This gives about half a turn of movement at the gearwheel from ahead to astern , but also makes it quite stiff to use, but then people have managed with Petters for years. The cabin rod and roof bracket was moved towards the side of the boat, approx. in line with the engine beds, so that it worked outside the gearbox shaft. If the vertical rod is not far enough to the side of the gearchange rod, then leverage is lost and the gearchange will become stiffer, if it is too far away there is a possibility that the arm will travel 'overcentre' and will jam (in forwards). If there is a tendency to do this, it can be controlled by fitting a chain back to the bulkhead so that the arm can't move too far. If you were to do this I would suggest that you take the national vertical rod out and keep it for the future and fit a new rod (7/8 bright bar), refit the larger roof bracket bevel gear to this, and fit the arm to the bottom. This arm could be welded on, but using a clamp on boss would allow for adjustment. Some boats were fitted with a gear change lever mounted on the step, linked to the gearbox with a rod under the back cabin floor, and bell cranks. The simplest option is just to fit a pull/push lever, as Tim Leech describes, you do get a lot of travel but it is perfectly workable. Hope this makes sense Steve Priest

That takes me back! you obviously visited the WFBCo when the tide was out, we had awful problems with the water level in those days, with shop lock being deeper than 'the eight' oops thats not Bilster! David Gunby's Barrow, on the outside of Cheam Iam struggling with the boat outside Bingley, looks like a Northwich rivetted engine room, and although replated, looks like a Woolwich counter My boats, the motor is Greenock. I had obviously sorted and fitted the cabin by then, and judging by the height of the counter was probably working on the engine (PD2) prior to installing it. I would date that at 1984, the push chair is for my Daughter, Catherine, she's been teaching for three years now.

My understanding is that most insurance companies want to see a minimum plate thickness of 4mm to accept the boat as being in an insurable condition, and that surveyors, therefore, will condemn any areas that they find with a thickness of less than 4mm, your deepest pits will obviously reduce the plate thickness to less than this. However, they will be less cocerned about the odd pit than a large area of substantially thinner plate, if, indeed they find it in the first place. Welding these deeper pits up would be feasable and an acceptable option as long as there aren't too many of them. If you accept that sooner or later that these areas will need plating, and access to the inside would not cause too much disruption, then cutting out and replacing would be viable, but access to weld the plate internally would be needed to make a good job of it. If this much access is not easily possible then overplating would be perfectly ok, remember that you could always have the overplate cut off and replaced in the future if it was needed.

Firstly, my I say that I am sorry to read your recent news, I wish you all the best. Thank you for the comments about the new boat, but I can't personally take the credit for that one, Simon Wain built it. Regarding your own overplating problems, most of the boats that we do this work to were built with 6mm bottoms, I suspect that your boat has a 10mm bottom, which I would doubt will give you any problems for a good while yet. If the areas that concern you are indeed that small, presumably on the footings, the options would seem to be to clean the area thoroughly, black it well and keep an eye on it, (use an epoxy black to be even more sure), weld up the worst of the pits, then black, or to plate, either overplate or cut out and replace. My own feeling is that I would black it, and if I was happy that it was not deteriorating further, leave it until the surveyor picks up on it. I can't imagine that you would need to plate large areas in the immediate future. The problem with cutting out and replating is access to the inside, if you decided to plate it I would probably suggest overplating these two areas, but it is impossible to say for sure without seeing the survey Steve

O.K. , cutting out and replating is a far better job, but may not always be a practical proposition. The boat that you describe is a 31 year old boat, if the prognosis is that it requires plating from the waterline down, as the cost seems to reflect, cutting out would entail stripping out the fit out and cutting the hull at the waterline, and replacing from there down. This would cost more than a new cheaper range boat. If this were to be done, it would still be a repaired 31 year old boat, and it's sell on value would reflect this. Considering overplating, the 10K that you suggest would finish the job and could be done whilst retaining the existing fit out, and I would hope would last longer than ten years, although twenty would probably be optimistic at the least . The bottom line is purchase price 17K steelwork 10K total price, plated , 27k, expect say 15yrs trouble free use, against, well, what do you want to spend? What quality do you want? Steve

On reading Mike Askin's post, I think that Middle Northwich boats have the edge, I owned one once, it was lovely to steer, but had lots of power as well. Round chines for you! Most new boats we come across have rudders which are far too small. This makes the tiller nice and light, but the boat tends not to respond very well. I think that a lot of boats get away with this by power alone. Give me a heavier to steer but more responsive boat every time.

I've just come across this thread, our internet connection has been playing up recently, I hope to get it sorted this week. Alan, thanks for the compliments re Theophilus, we were pleased at the way it turned out. Although the hull has welded rivet washers, the back cabin and engine room were built as pretty much as Yarwoods did, and are pneumatically rivetted. Although Gary has it for sale for 150K (120K now?) we only did the steel work, he fitted it out himself. The price came from an insurance valuation he had done, and is, shall we say, speculative, however it does not refect the price of our steelwork (wish it did, I'd be retired by now!) Building to Yarwoods drawings is an interesting point. I may well be wrong here and stand to be corrected, but the only sets of drawings that I have seen that are complete enough to build from are the LMS station boats (presumably the LMS required more accurate drawings than most of their customers, and I can see that the LMS drawing office had a hand in it themselves) and the Admiral class boats build for BW in the late fifties. We have actually built a motor boat from these drawings, and can vouch for the fact that they do work. A lot of the other drawings tend to be general arrangements and not specific enough, perhaps Laurence Hogg can enlighten us? I wonder what discretion the plating shop foreman had. My Dad was a foreman in charge of a fabrication shop, and his normal dialogue with the drawing office was ' do you want to draw this job?' ' no, you build it, then we'll draw it'. I think it may have been a bit like that at Yarwoods. When we have an order to produce a boat of a particular shape we normally find an original boat, dry dock it, measure it, take templates from it, and produce the boat from these patterns. The boat we then build is accurate to the original, rather than accurate to drawings that may have evolved as the build priogressed. It is also easier to pattern three dimensional shapes from the original than it is to work it from drawings, even when they are accurate. Swims on old boats invariably tapered, they length of the swim often being 15 - 16 ft at the bottom, but only 8 - 9 ft at the top. The reason for this was that if the swim was that long and vertically sided it would protrude through the cabin furniture at the top, and would also I think be more likely to suck air in between the top of the swim and the counter bottom, if this were that far forward. It also increased bouyancy at the stern end, which may not be so important on a boat ballasted to a set level, although in my experience a bit more bouyancy at the stern end is a great help to make sure that the stern doesn't sit too deep. Also, I think that there was a comment about sides sloping outwards from the bottom of the boat to the top guard. Grand Union boats were build with the sides toed in below the bottom guard, in the same way that they were toed in above the top guard, the central portion of the side being vertical (ish). if this is done on a new boat (as we do ) it will increase the internal usable width slightly without increasing the overall width, and also mean that the edge of the bottom plate is well inside the bottom guard. Oh, and by the way, Gazelle is a beautiful boat, as is every thing that Ian Kemp builds.

I started to write a reply yesterday but have had no internet because of the weather ( I think) Aquila still has a National, but not the one it came with (that's still in the workshop, in bits). The one now in the boat was a 'good runner' that I bought and fitted as a quick fix, proved to be anything but, but that's another story. Greenock is definitely keeping its Petter, it's in my workshop having a rebuild ready to go back in. Bilster still has a Petter, I remember it siezing back in '76, I believe that the pipe to the sump pump sheared where it comes out of the sump, and the oil drained out into the bilge. The same thing happened to me when I used to steer Yeoford for the B'ham & Midland. When I had Greenock I fitted a tap into the sump and piped the pump in from there. If there are any other Petter owners reading this I think it is a worthwhile addition

The Petter PD2 was the engine chosen by Waterways to replace the National diesels in the ex Grand Union boats of the S.E. division fleet, The first one was fitted in the Bexhill in 1956, and in the subsequent years the majority of the fleet were fitted with them. During the last decade of of canal carrying on the Grand Union the majority of boats were Petter powered, both with B.W. and later with Willow Wren. They were fitted with Parsons F type gearboxes with a 3:1 reduction, a third wheel in the reduction box meant that they could retain the National blades, even though the Petters were of the opposite rotation to the National engines. They were significantly more powerful than the National, the Petter-Maclaren version developing , I think, 20 H.P. at 1500 rpm and the Petter 24 H.P. at 1750rpm against the National at 18.5 H.P. They have a reputation for unreliability which I think is largely unjust, and stems from indifferent maintenance in the later years of carrying, and they also have a reputation for breaking crankshafts. There seem to be several theories as to why this is, misalignment, incorrect fuel pump timing, fuel injection imbalance, but personally I suspect that torsional vibration is nearer the mark. Most of these factors can be dealt with, balance the conrods, compression pressure, correct timing, careful installation and alignment, basically good engineering practice, and as for torsional vibration, don't leave it ticking over. They certainly have their place in history, and it is a shame that there arn't a few more around. Personally, I like them, they sound well and go well with the right blade on

Most epoxies work best if the surface is abraded before overcoating, rotary wirebrushing should do the trick. Some are moisture tolerant, most are not. Some are temperature tolerant, most need a minimum temperature of 10 deg to cure properly. Decide which paint you want to use. and as Dhutch says, read the info

We crane boats with Barry Tuckey quite regularly, and I did a banksmans course with him some years ago. The straps do look a bit close to me, but in fairness not massively so. They do look further apart in the other pictures. If the straps are too far apart (assuming that no frame is used) the angle between the straps is too great and there is a tendency for the straps to slip inwards. Polyester straps are enormously strong in a straight pull, but any friction, especially when under tension can easily damage them, if not cut them completely. Most accidents that have happened in recent years have been due to strap failure because of friction. We would normally work out the centre of mass and the position of the straps by experience, and fine tune by trial and error. If we start the lift we would normally know wether the balance was right before the boat was clear of the water, if it was wrong, lower again and reposition. Water in the boat is a complete no-no, it can run from one end to the other and quickly upset the balance. I would estimate that the weight of Mendip as in the photograph at 15 tons, but my basis of this is the crane weight guage which, as has been said, are often not that accurate. A narrowboat certainly constitutes a large lift, but in terms of craning 15 tons is not a heavy one Obviously, the weight of the boat is supported at the bottom of the strap, and the boat is braced apart by the bottom itself. At the gunwhale, with the length of strap used, there is little deflection from a straight line and therefore the inward pressure on the gunwhale is not that great. Having said that, it would often be braced by timber at this point. It would be sheer folly to lift a wooden boat in that manner, but I would have no doubt that the Mendip is easily strong enough to cope with it. However, I am absolutely gobsmacked at how close the crane feet are to the waters edge. I would assume that the crane driver has no idea how sound the bank is at that point, and I thought that BW had a minimum permissible distance of three metres. If a foot were to collapse it would be academic how close the straps were, it would be four boats and one crane lying in a heap. Also, whilst he is wearing the obligatory hi-viz jacket and hard hat, the banksman is in no position to direct the crane driver, other people should be positioning the boat whilst the banksman directs the whole operation from a position where he can see whats happening, and be seen by the others

I have just had an e-mail passed on to me to say that The Politics Show, BBC 1, this Sunday (15th) will feature a discussion about plans to sell off British Waterways property portfolio,and the ramifications that this would have regarding Waterways future income and funding. Idon't know much more, don't know if there will be any opportunities to participate or contribute to the discussion but it should make interesting viewing. Steve

Absolutly agree with Dave and Patrick. You need a new survey, or to buy the exsisting one which may well be the cheaper option, so that you have a definite contract with the surveyor, and recourse should things go wrong. I have spent a lot of time sorting out problems when things go wrong, believe me , it does happen

Our yard is at Brinklow, PM me if you would like to discuss whatever work you need

A vertical height of about 4' 6''

Well, I got there eventually. A rake of six inches is about the norm, and is actually specified on Yarwoods drawings for the Admiral class boats that they built. I think this originates from the Grand Union designs, where the stern post and skeg were made in one piece. Prior to this, most boats had a flat skeg plate, braced against the sole plate with a skeg bar, normally about 4'' by 1'', with the bottom rudder cup attached to it. Not only was the rudder bar vertical, it didn't allow any space for a balance on the ruddder. As soon as Yarwoods began to build boats for the G.U.C.C.C. with the one piece stern post and skeg, they adopted the idea for the Joshers that they were building, and I think for everything else that they built as well. The later Joshers are certainly lighter to steer than the earlier ones. The G.U. design allowed for a balance on the rudder, normally 3'', and as been said, the helm is self centreing due to the rake on the rudder post. The rake also brings the rudder closer to the propellor, without compromising the amout of leverage at the tiller. The leverage is the distance from the axis of the centre of the rudder post to the end of the tiller, measured at a point square with the axis. This point will be further aft with a raked rudder post than it would be if it were vertical. We use a rake of 6'' on all our new boats, including the hire boats that we are building for Rose Narrowboats, and the feedback suggests that they handle particularly well. However, we do fit considerably bigger rudders than a lot of builders, which has a far greater effect on handling than the rake on the rudder post

I'm not sure I've much to add. There is a manual and parts list which sound like the ones that you have, There is nothing that gives more detailed information that I know of. The parts list is useful, as it has good cross sectional drawings. National head gaskets were a copper ring on the top of the liner, the waterways were sealed with rubber o rings and brass ferrules, and the push rod tubes with cork washers. There was no paper gasket used, perhaps if you have found remnants of one it was somebody's previous attempt to stop it leaking. Russell Newbury used a fibre gasket for a while, but have now gone back to o rings. I do have some of these fibre gaskets, (I'm not sure wether R. N. keep any), they may be worth a try. The Russell Newbury copper head gaskets in different thicknesses are a Godsend, the bump clearance was adjusted by fitting shims between the con rod and the top of the big end bearing, which is seperate. As Tim said, Nationals had perforated chrome liners, the dots visible inside hold oil. Best of luck with it, Steve

My starter is mounted pretty much as R. N. starters are, on a bracket mounted on the crankcase door, the problem with the original one is that it has a raised panel, so I thought it would be easier and a better job to replace this with a flat plate. My starter motor is more modern than the CA45. I don't know what type, but it is the same as the one on my Land rover, I had considered using a CA45 with the same bracket, but as Ben 2108 says, you can't get the dipstick out if you do because the starter is much longer, there is just enough room behind the one I used to get to it The other reason for using the modern starter is that it would be easier, and cheaper, to replace should I have a problem with it in the future, having said that if you had a CA45 in good condition I would doubt that you would have a problem. I think that the original National starters (electric starting was an option, but not one that the GUCCC availed itself of) were mounted on the engine feet. I have what I believe to be an original starter, but it is way beyond further use. If you do choose to fit a CA45, then perhaps the engine foot is a better place to mount it, and you can leave the crankcase door alone Steve

Yes, thats right, he spoke to me about it as well. I spent some time trying to track down a little Woolwich butty stern, ( there were a couple of butties motorised about that time) but drew a blank. I think his enthusiasm got the better of him Themis and Titania were an original pairing. Bob's ownership of both boats explains the Themis can on the roof. I had also heard that Steve Harmer has bought Themis, It came past us last week

Yes, sorry, it was Ray not Dennis, Ray and Tina spoke to us about doing the work for them but we were too busy at the time so they had it done by Graeme at Stockton

Dennis Wain

Yes Pete, I think you are right, It had a new back end, cabin and engine room at Stockton 6 or 7 years ago