Towing a Historic Butty

[Morris]

Would it be a silly idea to try to tow a 70' butty with a modern 40' narrowboat? 

 

I love the idea of owning a historic butty. It's probably a pipe dream really, but would it be feasible? Would a 27 horsepower digger engine have the necessary grunt? Would I be laughed off the canal? 

[BEngo]

I assume you are not thinking of putting 25 tons on the butty🙂

 

You should be able to tow it OK, provided the gearbox and prop are set up for towing. You may find that you want a bigger reduction in the box and consequently a bigger prop than your motor has room for.  The towing dollies will need to be in the right place and the right shape for towing on crossed straps.

 

With only a 40ft motor many standard manoeuvres for a full size pair will become more "interesting" : Breasting up, mooring  and winding for example.  Travelling breasted will require some experiment to find the best position for the motor.

 

Your boats, you use them, reasonably,   in a way that gives you most pleasure.  The Trilby Hat Mob may suck their teeth but so what?

 

N

 

[zenataomm]

You'll attract many new friends at single locks when you need to butty through.

[twbm]

From experience of working a full size pair (with varying degrees of success) you will need to avoid situations where you have to unexpectedly hit reverse, especially if you are in the process of turning. The butty will have considerable momentum and you risk it overrunning the towing boat, effectively jack-knifing the pair.  So, with a super-cautious approach to, for example, blind bends that might hide moored boats, you may well be OK.   

[David Mack]

I have towed an engineless 60 footer (albeit a motor boat) behind a modern 40 footer cruiser sterned narrowboat, powered by a Lister SR2, , using both a long line and cross straps (secured to the stanchions of the taff rail). The towing all went fine, including looping the loop with the pair in Tixall Wide. Locking the two boats separately through narrow locks was a pain, as was bow hauling the butty through short pounds in flights when there were moored boats against the towpath.

For a long term arrangement you would want proper stern dollies on the motor to make taking and releasing the cross straps easier, the right stern fender for the butty bow to sit against, and anser pins for effective breasting up through (and between) wide locks. Since the boats are different lengths, for breasting up (assuming stern to stern) you would also need somewhere on the butty to tie the motor's bow rope to.

But no reason at all why you shouldn't do it.

[Rob-M]

Having boated with a pair of full length historic boats your biggest pain will be going through single locks, especially where there are moored boats or wild towpaths.  Bowhauling a butty when the towpath has lots of trees and bushes is a pain or moored boats with TV aerials, solar panels and general clutter on their roofs can greatly extend a journey time.

[MtB]

Are you planning to do this single handed or do you have someone to steer the butty? 
 

[Morris]

Thanks for the replies, it sounds like it maybe isn't quite as mad an idea as I originally thought. 

 

16 minutes ago, MtB said:

Are you planning to do this single handed or do you have someone to steer the butty? 
 

Er indoors would potentially steer it, but she is not too keen on the idea in general! 

[ditchcrawler]

17 minutes ago, Morris said:

 

Er indoors would potentially steer it, but she is not too keen on the idea in general! 

I think she may need to learn how to do it.

[MtB]

2 hours ago, BEngo said:

The towing dollies will need to be in the right place and the right shape for towing on crossed straps.

 

Is it actually viable to tow an unladen butty on cross straps? Might the bow not be three or four feet higher up than the motor boat dollies? Or would this not matter? 

 

I've never towed a proper butty so have no idea...

 

 

 

[spud]

24 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think she may need to learn how to do it.

so will he. men and women are just as capable of steering boats whether motor or a butty - it is just the men that have a problem with this as seen at most locks

[stagedamager]

towing an unladen butty on cross straps is fine, i echo all the above don't thrash it assuming you won't have enough power, you will be fine, but be mindful of having enough speed so the butty steerer has steerage. I find the biggest issue these days is people cruising too slowly so you're constantly in and out of tickover and losing steerage on the butty and therefore starts to throw the motor round. most of the time they won't let you past either!!

When working Meteor with a 55ft tug, mum and dad attached an eye with a shckle on the butty gunwhales to breast up with, and that worked really well. Just do it, you won't regret it!!!  

[magnetman]

I wonder if a historic butty would be easier to tow than a non historic butty. 

 

 

I did actually do exactly this a couple of times when I had a 40ft motor narrow boat and a 72ft motorised horse boat. Only a couple of times and alongside not towing behind. 

 

It was quite good but major agro on narrow canals I think. 

 

The best thing to do with a butty is motorise the elum. 

[spud]

2 hours ago, zenataomm said:

You'll attract many new friends at single locks when you need to butty through.

this sounds like the view of somebody with a sense of entitlement, prepared to push their way through at the expense of others. engagement is a better solution to gain friends

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

The best thing to do with a butty is motorise the elum. 

or learn how to handle them in all circumstances, so preserving part of our living history

[magnetman]

6 minutes ago, spud said:

 

or learn how to handle them in all circumstances, so preserving part of our living history

 

This would require someone to be carrying a significant cargo in the boat. I'm pretty sure an empty butty is going to be a nuisance and historically speaking dragging around empty butties would probably not have been all that common.

 

A lof of butties got cut to make motor boats. A better option I think would be saving the boat by motorising and making it more useable. 

 

 

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

This would require someone to be carrying a significant cargo in the boat. I'm pretty sure an empty butty is going to be a nuisance and historically speaking dragging around empty butties would probably not have been all that common.

 

A lof of butties got cut to make motor boats. A better option I think would be saving the boat by motorising and making it more useable. 

 

 

 

 

Like stately homes, it requires the destruction of a lot of butties for those surviving to become valued. 

 

If there are too many, they are just a PITA. 

 

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

30 minutes ago, spud said:

so will he. men and women are just as capable of steering boats whether motor or a butty - it is just the men that have a problem with this as seen at most locks

Mine was not meant as a sexist remark but he said her indoors would be steering it. Anyone steering a butty needs to know how to do it.

[magnetman]

He also said the woman did not seem all that keen on the idea. I think I know what might happen there. 

 

 

[Rob-M]

16 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Mine was not meant as a sexist remark but he said her indoors would be steering it. Anyone steering a butty needs to know how to do it.

A well trained butty steerer does make things much easier, one who doesn't have a clue or steers the butty like they would a single motor can cause lots of trouble.

[noddyboater]

47 minutes ago, spud said:

this sounds like the view of somebody with a sense of entitlement, prepared to push their way through at the expense of others. engagement is a better solution to gain friends

or learn how to handle them in all circumstances, so preserving part of our living history

I've just spent the week moving various dumb boats and unpowered craft using tugs, pushing and pulling if you like. Most folk at locks are very accommodating once you explain the amount of faffing involved if you have to single out. They very often help you through. 

But I did say MOST folk.

[ditchcrawler]

9 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

A well trained butty steerer does make things much easier, one who doesn't have a clue or steers the butty like they would a single motor can cause lots of trouble.

My point exactly

[MtB]

41 minutes ago, noddyboater said:

Most folk at locks are very accommodating once you explain the amount of faffing involved if you have to single out.

 

What IS involved then? I've never done it and dead interested. I can see that unhitching the long line means having to tie up the butty and coil up the line, then moor the motor and do a lot of walking up and down.

 

Or is there more to it than that that I haven't thought of?  Thanks.

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

53 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

A well trained butty steerer does make things much easier, one who doesn't have a clue or steers the butty like they would a single motor can cause lots of trouble.

That’d be me, causing trouble,

would love to learn,

 

I gather you steer the other way?

Kind of steer to push the motor boat round, rather than steer against it ?

I dunno 🤷‍♂️ 

 

Push is the wrong word,

help is a better word

[Rob-M]

1 minute ago, Goliath said:

That’d be me, causing trouble,

would love to learn,

 

I gather you steer the other way?

Kind of steer to push the motor boat round, rather than steer against it ?

I dunno 🤷‍♂️ 

 

Concentrate on where the back end of the butty is and let the motor take care of the bows.  Steering the wrong way at a corner helps to push the motor round, done well you can often get round a tight bend without easing off as the butty steerer will help push the motor round.

[stagedamager]

The biggest issue at a lot of single locks, especially going up hill, is a lot of lock tail bridges don't have towpaths through them, so involves bow hauling the butty back, which can be ok, until you need to swing the line under said bridge, and fight any weir streams. CRT in their infinite wisdom have also redesigned most of the split bridges as the original engineers got it wrong and left a gap, and the modern office bods deem that too dangerous, so bang goes the gaps for bowhauling lines. 

It is entirely do able, but in certain circumstances it is tricky to achieve, and the age old argument of wasting water whilst stood next to a bywash with a good few inches flowing over is always the first line of reasoning as to why it shouldn't happen. If it is necessary and achievable i always allow the other boater through, but at times it can be safer to allow the pair through together.