Historic value of early pleasure boats

[Athy]

39 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

Having seen the number of bridges with chunks taken out of them at cabin corner height -- and the number of new "big cabin" boats with little or no tumblehome or pulling in of the (often bashed) cabin front corners-- maybe reintroducing them on some boats (like training wheels on a toddler's bike) would be a good idea?

Yes. I suppose they went out of fashion only because they mad access to andf egress from the well-deck difficult.

[Ray T]

4 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yes. I suppose they went out of fashion only because they made access to and from egress from the well-deck difficult.

 

Didn't some poor chap get his head trapped in one in collision with a bridge?

[David Mack]

10 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yes. I suppose they went out of fashion only because they mad access to andf egress from the well-deck difficult.

Bridge bars were particularly common on the Llangollen Canal where the old wooden lift bridges did not open that high, and it would be easy to catch the open bridge deck with the cabin. Through the 70s and 80s BW replaced almost all the original lift bridges with rather characterless steel versions, which were designed to open to a near vertical position, so the original problem largely went away.

 

I think also bridge bars were originally provided to protect wooden or fibreglass cabins from bridge impact. With the change to steel cabins the damage to the boat would be less (although more to the bridge), so another reason they fell out of use. 

Edited May 17, 2022 by David Mack

[Athy]

Thank you, that makes sense.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

 

Didn't some poor chap get his head trapped in one in collision with a bridge?

 

 

If that's true, we're lucky they didn't decide to get rid of bridges.