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Where is Sam Springer when you need him ?


Alan de Enfield

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Reading gas holder to be demolished for flats - BBC News

 

Plans to demolish Reading's landmark gas holder to make way for a block of flats have been approved.

Councillors agreed the plan to tear down Gas Holder No.4 in Alexander Turner Close after initially refusing the demolition on safety grounds.

Danescroft carried out a risk assessment and put measures in place to prevent the spread of contamination to satisfy the council.

Once the tower is removed, 130 flats will be built on the site.

 

 

Credit_Alan-Fincher_via-Canalworld.net_-e1479828144588-740x493.jpg

 

Even in the seemingly egalitarian world of boaters, there’s a social pecking order and this is rarely more pronounced than where Springer boats are concerned. Springer was a company based in the Midlands that began mass-producing cheap and cheerful live-aboard narrowboats in the 1960s. While their affordability allowed countless people to join the boating lifestyle, the standard of their construction is sometimes, perhaps unfairly, questioned by the sniffier residents of converted working boats or higher-spec residential craft. But there’s still something hugely endearing about the Springer. These are boats made solidly and entirely without pretension, and as a consequence Springer boats have provided a friendly and affordable introduction to the canal network for thousands of boaters.

 

Sam Springer spotted the growing market for purpose-built live-aboard boats in the late 1960s when he was working as a steel fabricator making water tanks in Market Harborough, close to the Grand Union and River Welland. He decided to move into boat-building later claiming “I used to build water tanks, building boats is the same thing but in reverse”. Although his boats were well constructed, Springer had a reputation for using whatever steel was available, meaning that his hulls weren’t always as thick as they could have been. His approach can be summarised by the popular yarn that early in his career, Springer acquired some scrap steel that had once formed an old gasometer and drove back and forwards over it with a truck to remove the bend so it was flat enough to use. Because of such shortcuts, his boats were recognised as providing great value for money and his yard was soon knocking out 400 a year, accounting for almost 50 per cent of the market and at a much lower price than any competition.

 

Springer boats were built to all sizes but most have two distinguishing features: a raised splash board at the bow and, less visibly, a v-shaped hull rather than the usual flat bottom. They were also among the first boats to be built entirely out of steel rather than with a wooden cabin. Springers do have a tendency to look a little boxy, which does nothing for their reputation among waterways connoisseurs, but they are still lovable boats with a colourful history that, as the years have passed, has lent them a certain rakish charm. Belying their reputation, Springer boats also appear to be impressively hard-wearing with thousands still in use despite the fact the company closed down in the mid-1990s. And Springer boats aren’t just confined to the English waterways – in 1990, the boatyard built the Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic from New York to Falmouth. Not bad for a company whose first boats were made from a scrapped gasometer.

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4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Just out of interest, why did he go for a V shaped hull? I'd have thought flat was cheaper and easier, and use less steel.

Would it have given more rigidity and strength to the fairly light-gauge steel structure?

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1 minute ago, Mike Adams said:

less ballast, swims better, get closer to a shallow bank, easier to empty bilge, more stable, less impact on the canal, more rigid, need less power but probably because he didn't have any 7ft wide steel.

probably correct apart from the bit in bold type: the two 26-foot Springers I've been on, including the one which I owned, were both quite "tender".

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47 minutes ago, Athy said:

probably correct apart from the bit in bold type: the two 26-foot Springers I've been on, including the one which I owned, were both quite "tender".

Not just your experience, any textbook on hull design will show that a flat-bottomed hull has a stronger righting moment (less "tender") than a chined hull, and even more so a curved-bottom hull. It's all to do with how much hull leaves and enters the water on the two sides as the boat tilts -- a moment's thought (or trying to walk on a log) will show that a hull with a circular curve has no righting moment at all and will capsize as soon as you look at it...

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I believe the gas holder story to be true, and I may have got this from a publication: "Boatbuilders of Market Harborough", but right now I can't find my copy. To add to this, Sam Springer bought a cheap second (!) hand road roller to flatten out the curvature of what very probably was boilerplate!

More of Springer here:

http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2016/11/springer-canal-boats-from-market.html

and go to the link on the page.

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I think he also folded the chine out of one piece from gunwale to centre of the bottom, they have no wear edge like a flat bottom hull. That would save a lot of welding as underwater it would be welded inside and outside normally at that seam.

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10 minutes ago, JamesWoolcock said:

I believe the gas holder story to be true, and I may have got this from a publication: "Boatbuilders of Market Harborough", but right now I can't find my copy. To add to this, Sam Springer bought a cheap second (!) hand road roller to flatten out the curvature of what very probably was boilerplate!

More of Springer here:

http://liberalengland.blogspot.com/2016/11/springer-canal-boats-from-market.html

and go to the link on the page.

 

 

This video shows one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated. It dates from the 1970s (when Market Harborough's phone numbers had only four digits) and shows the basin before it was redeveloped and still had the shabby charm that attracted people to inland waterways in the first place.

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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13 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I think he also folded the chine out of one piece from gunwale to centre of the bottom, they have no wear edge like a flat bottom hull. That would save a lot of welding as underwater it would be welded inside and outside normally at that seam.

Looking at the film, the chine is a weld, I am wrong, so perhaps the size of sheet is more pertinent to the question. 

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32 minutes ago, Mike Adams said:

Stability and tenderness are completely different. My boat is almost semicircular below the waterline but because Cb moves quickly it is stable but very tender.

Surely for most hulls they're closely linked, if not exactly the same?

 

https://shipfever.com/what-is-stiff-and-tender-ship/

 

A stable ship will stay upright because static CoG is below static CoB, and stability is essentially how far it can heel before rolling over. Tenderness/stiffness describes much force it takes to make it heel in the first place, which is linked to the metacentric height. It's possible to have a hull (like yours?) which is stable to a large heel angle but is tender, meaning it's easy to tilt but has to go a long way before it turns turtle.

 

Either way, a chined or round hull is usually both less stable and more tender than a flat-bottomed one, so this is really nit-picking ?

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

This video shows one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated. It dates from the 1970s (when Market Harborough's phone numbers had only four digits) and shows the basin before it was redeveloped and still had the shabby charm that attracted people to inland waterways in the first place.

 

 

An intriguing film which I hadn't seen before. What a pity that the apparently camera-shy Mr. Springer doesn't make an appearance. It looks like a 30-footer, and a bit of a posh one: the sliding front hatch wasn't standard. I'd put it in the 1980s.

   It's  pleasure to watch the easy skill of the signwriter, who looks a quite young chap; perhaps he'd learned from one of the older working-boat painters.

Edited by Athy
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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

This video shows one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated. It dates from the 1970s (when Market Harborough's phone numbers had only four digits) and shows the basin before it was redeveloped and still had the shabby charm that attracted people to inland waterways in the first place.

 

 

Just a 5 Ton crane 

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

This video shows one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated. It dates from the 1970s (when Market Harborough's phone numbers had only four digits) and shows the basin before it was redeveloped and still had the shabby charm that attracted people to inland waterways in the first place.

 

 

We could have that very boat at our moorings ! 2 down from me ?

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

This video shows one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated. It dates from the 1970s (when Market Harborough's phone numbers had only four digits) and shows the basin before it was redeveloped and still had the shabby charm that attracted people to inland waterways in the first place.

 

 

Cracking film! Thats a young Mike Beech who went on to look after the Inclined Plane Museum at Foxton....and the moorings are the Old Union Canal Society ones half way down the arm....now with a big new bridge and a massive housing development...Im not sure where the paint dock is....possibly in the basin or at Tony Matts in Foxton.

 

Im sure H & S would have a fit several times over if they watched that film now!!

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On 23/01/2021 at 12:10, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Reading gas holder to be demolished for flats - BBC News

 

Plans to demolish Reading's landmark gas holder to make way for a block of flats have been approved.

Councillors agreed the plan to tear down Gas Holder No.4 in Alexander Turner Close after initially refusing the demolition on safety grounds.

Danescroft carried out a risk assessment and put measures in place to prevent the spread of contamination to satisfy the council.

Once the tower is removed, 130 flats will be built on the site.

 

 

Credit_Alan-Fincher_via-Canalworld.net_-e1479828144588-740x493.jpg

 

Even in the seemingly egalitarian world of boaters, there’s a social pecking order and this is rarely more pronounced than where Springer boats are concerned. Springer was a company based in the Midlands that began mass-producing cheap and cheerful live-aboard narrowboats in the 1960s. While their affordability allowed countless people to join the boating lifestyle, the standard of their construction is sometimes, perhaps unfairly, questioned by the sniffier residents of converted working boats or higher-spec residential craft. But there’s still something hugely endearing about the Springer. These are boats made solidly and entirely without pretension, and as a consequence Springer boats have provided a friendly and affordable introduction to the canal network for thousands of boaters.

 

Sam Springer spotted the growing market for purpose-built live-aboard boats in the late 1960s when he was working as a steel fabricator making water tanks in Market Harborough, close to the Grand Union and River Welland. He decided to move into boat-building later claiming “I used to build water tanks, building boats is the same thing but in reverse”. Although his boats were well constructed, Springer had a reputation for using whatever steel was available, meaning that his hulls weren’t always as thick as they could have been. His approach can be summarised by the popular yarn that early in his career, Springer acquired some scrap steel that had once formed an old gasometer and drove back and forwards over it with a truck to remove the bend so it was flat enough to use. Because of such shortcuts, his boats were recognised as providing great value for money and his yard was soon knocking out 400 a year, accounting for almost 50 per cent of the market and at a much lower price than any competition.

 

Springer boats were built to all sizes but most have two distinguishing features: a raised splash board at the bow and, less visibly, a v-shaped hull rather than the usual flat bottom. They were also among the first boats to be built entirely out of steel rather than with a wooden cabin. Springers do have a tendency to look a little boxy, which does nothing for their reputation among waterways connoisseurs, but they are still lovable boats with a colourful history that, as the years have passed, has lent them a certain rakish charm. Belying their reputation, Springer boats also appear to be impressively hard-wearing with thousands still in use despite the fact the company closed down in the mid-1990s. And Springer boats aren’t just confined to the English waterways – in 1990, the boatyard built the Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic from New York to Falmouth. Not bad for a company whose first boats were made from a scrapped gasometer.

 

Springer Add.jpg

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My first narrowboat was a 30' Springer. My partner and I bought a shell from Sam and fitted it out as we wanted to try the canals. Took us about 3 months spare time, cruised a lage part of the system as it was then. If I remember correctly total price including fit-out materials was 3500. We sold it after 18 months for £6ooo and used the money to buy a bare shell from Steven Sagar.

Sam was a great guy. My partner and I were at the London boat show the year he exhibited the big steel Guinness bottle which I think had a BMC 1.5. Someone was going to motor it across the Atlantic. I remember as it came into view David said "I bet Sam built that!" He was correct. You could tell by the rippled plating. 

He got many people into boat ownership at a price they could afford and his boats are still around and Sam will be fondly remembered by many.

Edited by sailor0500
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2 minutes ago, sailor0500 said:

My first narrowboat was a 30' Springer. My partner and I bought a shell from Sam and fitted it out as we wanted to try the canals. Took us about 3 months spare time, cruised a lage part of the system as it was then. If I remember correctly total price including fit-out materials was 3500. We sold it after 18 months for £6ooo and used the money to buy a bare shell from Steven Sagar.

Sam was a great guy. My partner and I were at the London boat show the year he exhibited the big steel Guinness bottle which I think had a BMC 1.5. Someone was going to motor it across the Atlantic. I remember as it came into view David said "I bet Sam built that!" He was correct. You could tell by the rippled plating. 

He got many people into boat ownership at a price they could afford and his boats are still around and will be fondly remembered by many.

I've never owned one, fixed dozens, some with nice Saab engines in. I remember John Jackson at Kerridge Dock telling me that they used to be able the buy a kit from Sam  to re-bottom them but that they never fitted perfectly. Had a few sink because the rudder had wore through the back end.

Hated chocking them on the dock, the weld in the middle of the base often wore through as well. They would come in with no floor inside and loads of firewood banged into the holes!

 

 

 

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I'm surprised some architect hasn't worked out how to convert a gas holder into trendy apartments - all in the name of urban conservation and heritage

 

And once they've done that, cooling tower apartments. 

 

I mean, if 18th century prisons can become hotels and student accommodation, retaining their perimeter walls and bars on the windows...

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5 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I'm surprised some architect hasn't worked out how to convert a gas holder into trendy apartments - all in the name of urban conservation and heritage

 

And once they've done that, cooling tower apartments. 

 

I mean, if 18th century prisons can become hotels and student accommodation, retaining their perimeter walls and bars on the windows...

 

It has been done, though with plenty of steel scrapped for Sam's successors. These are just off Regent's Canal 

https://gasholderslondon.co.uk/

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