History of work-boat Nelson

[stevebacon]

Rob Locatelli of River & Canal Services generously donated a 40ft converted steel narrowboat named 'Nelson' to the Wilts & Berks Canal Trust, and it was transferred by road from Woking to Royal Wootton Bassett on Saturday 15th May 2021. When lifted out of the water, the hull has the shape of a narrow-boat with a curved stern, although in the water this isn't obvious thanks to a square housing protecting the propeller and rudder. It is equipped with a Lister 2-cylinder diesel engine. Hidden behind a lattice of square-section steelwork, there are narrow-boat rubbing strakes. There is a wheelhouse that has the potential to be removed although R & CS have never needed to do so; it has a room for a cartridge toilet. The boat has a HIAB, purchased from R & CS, which will be particularly useful in dredging a shallow section of canal where a small river named 'Hancock's Water' enters from the north (and exits to the south 200 metres further east at Woodshaw spill-weir).

 

We have no idea why the boat was named 'Nelson', so I wonder whether a working narrow-boat would once have had that name.  Does anyone know the provenance of this boat? 

[Derek R.]

Got knobs on one end - should be called the bedstead. I've seen prettier beds though.

 

Used for salvage?

[Bee]

Wonder how wide it is? All that 'lattice work' on the outside must make it more than 7`. Looks as though someone has got an old seized boat, cut the upperworks and the fore end off and welded all the offcuts of angles and channels in the workshop to the outside to make it bombproof. Could have been used by a contractor as a road transportable workboat to lakes and rivers not connected to the system. Probably not a very old boat but trying to find its history could be hard

[John Brightley]

Right, back to basics first. Have you asked River and Canal Services where they got the boat from ?

Is it of riveted or welded construction ? (if welded it's likely to have been built after approx 1950)

To me it looks like half a 1970's mud hopper.

[billh]

The stern end is very similar to the standard BW workboat design of the 1970s . Built in large numbers by  Hancock & Lane (?) at great cost to the customer.The length and power unit  varied from 30ft to 50ft and Lister air cooled ST1 and 2 fitted. Some of these originals are still about, some much modified ,like this one appears to be.

[David Mack]

Unless built particularly narrow all that square tubing down the sides will make this too wide for narrow locks. Makes you wonder what purpose it serves.

[matty40s]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Unless built particularly narrow all that square tubing down the sides will make this too wide for narrow locks. Makes you wonder what purpose it serves.

How many narrow locks were there on the Wilts and Berks???

[Tam & Di]

I'm rather out of touch now, but assume that Rob Locatelli is son of Vince who founded Illetacol with a maintenance contract for the Wey Navigation. Such a vessel would be ideal for that. Vince had/has a Dutch wife and they imported quite a few Dutch barges before ex-trade craft became almost unavailable, though this one looks far more like a standard UK build from the 60s/70s as billh suggests. It's fine as a crane barge, but it's not hoppered, so was not designed for carriage of mud or spoil itself. It's not clear from the photo or OP's description if it was built as a powered craft or motorised at some later date - it doesn't look to have a counter stern anyway. As for why it is called Nelson - why not? It's certainly not ex-FMC Nelson though ?

 

Tam

Edited May 19, 2021 by Tam & Di

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, matty40s said:

How many narrow locks were there on the Wilts and Berks???

42, + 3 on the Calne Branch,  according to Wikipedia. How many on the restored line depends on a number of route decisions yet to be made.

But my original point was that if Nelson is just over 7 feet wide that would have limited its usability by the former owners RCS, without gaining the advantages of a wide boat. Maybe that's why they gave it away.

[Rose Narrowboats]

On 19/05/2021 at 09:02, billh said:

The stern end is very similar to the standard BW workboat design of the 1970s . Built in large numbers by  Hancock & Lane (?) at great cost to the customer.The length and power unit  varied from 30ft to 50ft and Lister air cooled ST1 and 2 fitted. Some of these originals are still about, some much modified ,like this one appears to be.

I don't think it is - the RY-131 and RY135s had no lift to the counter, and were basically transom sterned with (generally) a cut out for the rudder and the corners rounded off - that looks more like the back end of a conventional narrowboat to me.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Rose Narrowboats

[stevebacon]

I'm told that the beam including the normal lattice protecting the hull is within 7ft, but the two box-sections where vertical stabilisers are used when dredging take the width to 7ft 4in. For the next year or so, this won't matter - until after the next lock is restored. At that time, these box sections will be replaced by an alternative method of stabilising the boat.

[Derek R.]

Begging pardon Steve, but there's nothing "normal" about that external box section lattice work.

I'd be curious to known the actual dimensions, because if the claim that the overall width is within 7' including the lattice of box sections - that is no ex-working boat hull used as the basis. They were/are 7' plus maybe an inch. That external box section looks to be at least 2" square, then there are those two hydraulic rams sticking out - that's another 3 or 4 inches each side - they also look far too short to ever touch canal bottom!

 

It's an odd craft to be sure. 

[Heartland]

I am curious as to the purpose and function of the protecting lattice work and why the knobs ? -unless the knobs have a function for tying up ropes, chains etc.

 

The only thing missing, it seems, is the broomstick

 

[stevebacon]

There are slots in the lattice work that have been used to insert scaffolding poles, and we're continuing the tradition. They allow us to moor the boat away from the bank, which deters casual intruders. I think the knobs were to help with tying up; there are now only three. I measured the width of the boat including lattice work, and it does seem to be 7ft, so it should fit the locks when the time comes. We'll remove the bigger box sections when we reach that stage. By then, we should have steel pontoons that would give stability; they would also allow the HIAB to be taken to other stretches of the restored canal.

 

If you visit the web-site wbct.org.uk, you'll find a link to a PDF that records the journey from Woking to Royal Wootton Bassett.

 

We hope to take the boat all the way along the Templar's Firs stretch in the coming week; on Thursday on a training run we got to the first bridge where there was around 18 inches of clearance.

[Derek R.]

It might not have caught Nelsons' eye - but if it does the job!

[stevebacon]

When we took the boat out this morning, I noticed that a steel plate on the stern was etched with an anchor on the left side and the name 'Marine and Power Engineering' on the right.

I’ve found out that Nelson originated as a 60-ft Springer narrowboat built in 1970 (so less than 7ft wide) and named ‘Longbow’. It had been based on the Medway, registered as M120704, and was converted by Alex Vanstone of Marine and Power Engineering in Kent. The company is now based near Burton-on-Trent, and the website has a series of photos showing the conversion.  

[matty40s]

Wow, that's a drastic conversion, did they build 2 at the same time, there appears to be a long stretch of side bars which are longer than the finished product?

[Rose Narrowboats]

There are photo's of two boats in that gallery one of which is a Springer, but not the one that is now yours.

 

 

[Ronaldo47]

"Nelson"  was the name of one of the pair of boats that Black Prince started out with in 1976 (the second was Rodney). AFAIR they were 60' and built by Harborough Marine and I guess quite different from your workboat Nelson. Photos of the BP Nelson from our 1977 trip attached.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Tim Lewis]

A couple of pictures of the boat on the Basingstoke Canal a few days before it was moved to the Wilts & Berks

 

Edited June 1, 2021 by Tim Lewis

[Derek R.]

That's a lot of work for one small workboat. I wonder if they split the Springer longways down the middle, chopped out a sliver, then 'glued' it back and put the lattice on the outside! I feel certain they were built to 6' 10". Tell me it ain't so!

 

One image shows work on the 'V' bottom which makes me wonder if the above is the case. Very clean inside - Bridgewater Boats (Berko) Springers were ballasted with gravel!

[Bee]

One of the pics of the boat hanging from a crane seems to show a flat bottomed boat and not the V of a Springer. Hard to tell really.

[black cap]

Gordon Bennet this has created some chat, WHY NOT just ask Vince or Rob, out of interest, Vince's wife Cheryl is English, borne I believe on the IOW.

[BWM]

I'd imagine that the metalwork would create a lot of turbulence and drag!