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FMC Northwestern fleet motor design


stagedamager

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Elsewhere in the world wide web, there is a discussion about motors from the Northwestern FMC fleet, and Anderton motors, some of which were built with a sunken counter. I believe this is due to passing through Harecastle tunnel, but it got me thinking, is it known how many motors were built in this way, which could be due to the migration from horse boats to motors?

 

Kind regards

 

Dan

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Obviously some of the GUCCCo "Royalty" boats were originally built with this feature, but would not have been intended to pass through Harecastle.

 

Unless very tall, or you stood on some kind of box, it must surely have been very hard to maintain a clear view ahead?

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1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:

Obviously some of the GUCCCo "Royalty" boats were originally built with this feature, but would not have been intended to pass through Harecastle.

 

Unless very tall, or you stood on some kind of box, it must surely have been very hard to maintain a clear view ahead?

A bit like boats today with the roofs covered in flowers and junk, They peep around the sides

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Royalty 'Victoria' was modified by Brum coal merchant, S T Brant because his boatmen had to duck to go under the low BCN bridges on the high original foot board when being used empty as a tug, i.e. most of the time. It was not a problem steering and provided a useful seating area on fine days.  You really are perched very high on Victoria now when empty. Can't help on Joshers though.

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I don’t believe any of the Royalty boats were built with well deck counters - although Linda/Victoria was modified as such around 1960.

 

The “fish class” Joshers were a revolutionary design intended by Fellows Morton and Clayton to replace some of their single horse boats in the north west with single motors.  They had extra long holds partly achieved by slightly shorter cabins and shorter engine rooms with the fuel tank “dished” to make room for the flywheel of the engine and thus save a few precious inches.

 

There were also experiments at the stern!  The “starn end” cupboard was much prized by the boatmen in their butties/horse boats - it was after all the boatman’s fridge well away from the range - and of course they were familiar with the design of back end hatched.  So there was an attempt to lure boatmen away from horse boats on to single motors with the adoption of “well deck” counters on some of the early fish class motors - Dory, Lamprey and Perch amongst them.  All were pretty soon converted to conventional motors.

 

Paul

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On 20/02/2020 at 19:02, Paul H said:

I don’t believe any of the Royalty boats were built with well deck counters - although Linda/Victoria was modified as such around 1960.

 

Paul

Correct, there being photographic evidence of most if not all of the 'Royalty' motors with visible decked counters. I am pretty sure that these motors were built with moderately low cabins (as the hulls were so deep) and the steerer stepped down from the counter deck to the footboard :captain:

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Another difference in the fish named motors was that they had the lighter 9HP Bolinder engines. As the boats would ride higher when empty, the stern tube is set 2" lower in the stern to keep the blades in the water. The blade for a 15HP engine only just clears the skeg.

 

Tim

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