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Why does a canal boat have a S shaped tiller?


Stubones99

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I think I have an idea of why it is an S shape rather than straight up and forward.

 

It probably does not have rudder stops to limit the travel and if it didn't have the S curve, it would require stops to prevent someone from accidentally turning 180 and the tail of the rudder hits the prop. I guess a sideways U would probably limit the rotational travel too but the rear bend sticks far aft enough that you'd strike the railing before you hit the prop. That is assuming you have a railing.

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4 minutes ago, Stubones99 said:

I think I have an idea of why it is an S shape rather than straight up and forward.

 

It probably does not have rudder stops to limit the travel and if it didn't have the S curve, it would require stops to prevent someone from accidentally turning 180 and the tail of the rudder hits the prop. I guess a sideways U would probably limit the rotational travel too but the rear bend sticks far aft enough that you'd strike the railing before you hit the prop. That is assuming you have a railing.


In general on most boats it is the upward extension on the rudder coming in to contact with the counter that limits how far the rudder can be swung.

Nothing else is actually required to limit the movement.

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1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:


In general on most boats it is the upward extension on the rudder coming in to contact with the counter that limits how far the rudder can be swung.

Nothing else is actually required to limit the movement.

I'm assuming what you call the counter is what we call the taffrail and that's probably the simpler way to limit travel. Most power boats have stops that limit the rudder to 40 degrees off center in each direction. With the top of the S curve hitting the railing, that's your stop.

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My money is on "so the butty can't run into it" theory. I can see no advantage from extra leverage or suchlike. 
I have steered a trip boat that had a simple tiller the shape of a small case letter "r" and it certainly felt no different to steer than the traditional narrowboat "z" setup.

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39 minutes ago, Stubones99 said:

I'm assuming what you call the counter is what we call the taffrail and that's probably the simpler way to limit travel. Most power boats have stops that limit the rudder to 40 degrees off center in each direction. With the top of the S curve hitting the railing, that's your stop.

The S or Z shaped rams head became established long before taff rails were ever fitted to narrow boat sterns.

As Alan says, the top of the rudder touching the counter (hull) is the rudder stop. This is at around 90 degrees. Limiting rudder movement to 40 degrees would, particularly on full length boats, risk catching the rudder on lock cills, and would seriously impede winding and making tight turns.

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4 hours ago, Stubones99 said:

I'm assuming what you call the counter is what we call the taffrail and that's probably the simpler way to limit travel. Most power boats have stops that limit the rudder to 40 degrees off center in each direction. With the top of the S curve hitting the railing, that's your stop.

'Taffrail' - didn't he write books,  'Arctic Convoy' comes to mind.  Not many narrowboats on those.

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2 hours ago, pete harrison said:

Still nonsense to me when used by people off the bank to imitate the way the boat families spoke

Not just boat families, many old people used it.   Do you really want this traditional dialect to die, there are very few, if any, boat people left.

I can't visualise Rosie Skinner saying 'Chimnay'.   How many modern boaters know where 'Cabbage Turn' is.

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On ‎19‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 22:25, Chris Williams said:

When 'Tadworth' rammed me as I slowed for a bridge 'ole she did hit it and bent it.  I used the old forge at Castle Mill, Oxford, to bend it back.  Probably the last time the forge was used. All gone now.

The southern section of the Oxford Canal is my favourite with a motor and butty pair, but I find it can be hard on the boats if you are not careful. I have hung up the fore end of a large Northwich motor on bolt heads that hold the bottom gates together when running downhill, I have caught the motors rams head under cross beams of the bottom gates when waiting below for the butty (usually from the backflush when the bottom paddles are opened), and in 1981 a bit of a freak incident occurred when I caught my butty fore end under the metal lift bridge at the factory just north of Oxford - resulting in the bridge becoming unmounted and placed off its track (stuck in the up position) and ripping out my motors dollies. Like you I had them repaired at a boatyard in Oxford but I cant recall which one. The lift bridge was operational when I headed north again a day or two later :captain:

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8 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

Not just boat families, many old people used it.   Do you really want this traditional dialect to die, there are very few, if any, boat people left.

I can't visualise Rosie Skinner saying 'Chimnay'.   How many modern boaters know where 'Cabbage Turn' is.

I just do not like the falseness of modern enthusiasts copying a dialect that is not there own, just the same as I don't like it when modern enthusiasts get dressed up to go boating in order to look like a boatman - especially as their boats are rarely turned out right.

 

Cabbage Turn is not dialect, it is a location so there is no reason not to refer to it. Chimbley (or whatever) is a corruption of a word which is fine when used by the right people such as boaters or 'old people' but cringeworthy when used by modern boaters pretending to be something that they are not :captain:

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10 minutes ago, pete harrison said:

the metal lift bridge at the factory just north of Oxford - resulting in the bridge becoming unmounted

That bridge used to be electric, operated by a guy in the nearby office.  It was left open on Sundays and at night.  When we lived in Oxford we would go up to Wolvercote after dinner on Friday nights.  There was another lift bridge for the Morris Motors Social Club, always worried in case someone didn't see that we had opened it.

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1 minute ago, Chris Williams said:

That bridge used to be electric, operated by a guy in the nearby office.  It was left open on Sundays and at night.  When we lived in Oxford we would go up to Wolvercote after dinner on Friday nights.  There was another lift bridge for the Morris Motors Social Club, always worried in case someone didn't see that we had opened it.

My feeling is the latter bridge for the Social Club, but either way we were not very popular, I think this bridge has now gone :captain:

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2 minutes ago, pete harrison said:

My feeling is the latter bridge for the Social Club, but either way we were not very popular, I think this bridge has now gone :captain:

I think the Safety 'elf has had a hand in this, nasty dangerous things.

Agree about people dressing up to go boating, but life has changed.  The price of a genuine working boat is ridiculous, who can afford one except yuppies.

My pontoon hull cost Forty-five quid.  No hope for hard-up real enthusiasts today.

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40 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

Agree about people dressing up to go boating, but life has changed.  The price of a genuine working boat is ridiculous, who can afford one except yuppies.

My pontoon hull cost Forty-five quid.  No hope for hard-up real enthusiasts today.

I have recently bought a large Northwich motor and I am in the process of having it restored, but I am far from a yuppy.

 

When these boats were built they cost twice the price of a house whereas my boat restored to full carrying condition will be less than half of the value of the three bedroom house I currently live in (Teesside houses are not of high value) - so the boat seems good value to me.

 

Anyway, I am leaving this thread now as we are taking it way way off topic :captain:

Edited by pete harrison
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3 hours ago, pete harrison said:

I just do not like the falseness of modern enthusiasts copying a dialect that is not there own, just the same as I don't like it when modern enthusiasts get dressed up to go boating in order to look like a boatman - especially as their boats are rarely turned out right.

 

Cabbage Turn is not dialect, it is a location so there is no reason not to refer to it. Chimbley (or whatever) is a corruption of a word which is fine when used by the right people such as boaters or 'old people' but cringeworthy when used by modern boaters pretending to be something that they are not :captain:

Agreed. And in any case dialects are spoken rather than written. When you consider how acutely aware boating families were of the differences between them and the majority of society - and the shame they felt over things like literacy as a result - I very much doubt a boat person would knowingly have spelled a word incorrectly.

 

JP

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9 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

Not just boat families, many old people used it.   Do you really want this traditional dialect to die, there are very few, if any, boat people left.

I can't visualise Rosie Skinner saying 'Chimnay'.   How many modern boaters know where 'Cabbage Turn' is.

There are still quite a few boat people around, I can think of at least a dozen off the top of my head. Five of these live in Longford, Coventry. Every Wednesday I visit a retired narrow boat captain who comes from five generations of Oxford boaters. He worked for Barlow’s and Waterways.

 

From my experience boaters picked up their dialects from the towns and villages they passed through, e.g. you will never hear a boater say “Braunston,” it is always “Braaaunston” with a long “a.”  There are many recordings around of boaters speaking about their lives including Joe & Rose Skinner.

 

With regard to speaking like a boat person, when I visit “my” narrow boat captain I have to use place names he recognises. For example Grantham’s Bridge means nothing to him, it has to be “‘morton,” or Hillmorton. He will say “you are using names I don’t recognise.” This rubs off into every day life, I am not trying to emulate boaters but on occasions I end up talking like one.

 

 

Edited by Ray T
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11 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

Not just boat families, many old people used it.   Do you really want this traditional dialect to die, there are very few, if any, boat people left.

I can't visualise Rosie Skinner saying 'Chimnay'.

No, but then again none of her non-boating neighbours around Sutton Stop would have said “Chimnay” either. Very heavy short vowel sounds is a defining feature of the local accent. I’d need to be convinced that all boaters spoke with the same dialect. A lot of conventional wisdom around boating history is based on a relatively small sample of folks that have their origins in the OC/GJC owner boaters. To my ear the dialect was a conglomeration of Midlands accents which generally survive in their rightful homes.

 

2 hours ago, Ray T said:

There are still quite a few boat people around, I can think of at least a dozen off the top of my head. Five of these live in Longford, Coventry. Every Wednesday I visit a retired narrow boat captain who comes from five generations of Oxford boaters. He worked for Barlow’s and Waterways.

 

From my experience boaters picked up their dialects from the towns and villages they passed through, e.g. you will never hear a boater say “Braunston,” it is always “Braaaunston” with a long “a.”  There are many recordings around of boaters speaking about their lives including Joe & Rose Skinner.

 

With regard to speaking like a boat person, when I visit “my” narrow boat captain I have to use place names he recognises. For example Grantham’s Bridge means nothing to him, it has to be “‘morton,” or Hillmorton. He will say “you are using names I don’t recognise.” This rubs off into every day life, I am not trying to emulate boaters but on occasions I end up talking like one.

 

 

 

Grantham’s Bridge is a made up name - done as a test and chosen because it’s offline I seem to recall - and the fact you need to use the correct name of the place - or a derivative thereof - to be understood by a boater illustrates the potential pitfalls of trying to backfit history.

 

JP

 

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14 hours ago, pete harrison said:

I just do not like the falseness of modern enthusiasts copying a dialect that is not there own, just the same as I don't like it when modern enthusiasts get dressed up to go boating in order to look like a boatman - especially as their boats are rarely turned out right.

 

Cabbage Turn is not dialect, it is a location so there is no reason not to refer to it. Chimbley (or whatever) is a corruption of a word which is fine when used by the right people such as boaters or 'old people' but cringeworthy when used by modern boaters pretending to be something that they are not :captain:

The dreadful modern term is "Cultural Appropriation."

  1. NOUN
    cultural appropriations (plural noun)
    1. the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.
     
Must dig out my "Janet & John" books, life was much simpler then. 
 
Edited by Ray T
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Born and bred in 'Ampshure, when I went to Birmingham (Brum - short for Brummagem), they called me 'Cocknay'.  Back home, I was criticised for having a Brummie accent.  There was an old boy at Cut End who tried to teach me Black Country talk.  Different from Brummie.

Then, much later, I went to Exut'ut in Debun, and came back with a Cornish accent, so they said.

None of this was deliberate copying, it just happens when you mix with people, if you talk to them.

Even in Ampshure, a person from Southampton would struggle to understand a Tadley Musher.

Sadly, we now mostly talk 'Telespeak' - quite different from 'BBC English'.

 

Wot's all this got to do with tiller shapes anyway??  The first tiller for a steam boat was drawn on the back of a fag packet.

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4 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Grantham’s Bridge is a made up name - done as a test and chosen because it’s offline I seem to recall - and the fact you need to use the correct name of the place - or a derivative thereof - to be understood by a boater illustrates the potential pitfalls of trying to backfit history.

JP

Named, tongue-in-cheek by BW staff, after the BW Manager who lived in the house it leads to and who walked over it every day to his Office at the BW HQ. Many of the working boatmen would know that area as Morton just as the long pound from Hawkesbury to Hillmorton was/is Morton Pound. (Hilton overlooked the moorland from up on the Hill)

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19 hours ago, pete harrison said:

This has already been dismissed by ex-professional boatman Chris Williams, and as another ex-professional boatman that worked motor / butty pairs I am going to agree with him :captain:

Missed that. All bets are off ;)
Are we any nearer as to why they are thus?

Things evolve, and there could be several reasons for the shape?

Edited by Guest
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