How fast did flyboats go?

[Pete Morrison]

As in miles per hour / knots - given the leisurely pace of modern narrowboating, it seems a stretch that any boats could deserve the title "flyboat".

I realise canals weren't the long linear moorings that they mostly are today with shouty fistwavy folks if you go any more than tickover (which of course I wouldn't). But wouldn't they have the same issues as we do today with generating a wake on most canals if you were to approach the 5mph speed limit, ending up limiting the speed anyway? Or is there some sort of shape that the hulls had to avoid that?

[Kingdom Isambard Brunel]

I met an old(er) guy who used to do Leeds to Liverpool and vice versa in 54 hours carrying sugar for Tate & Lyles.

[Belle]

My understanding is that they didn't go any faster per se, as they were still horse drawn. More that they were "faster" because they travelled for 24hrs a day

[Rob-M]

The Saturn fly boat web site states that the fly boats could get up to 10 mph by rising there own bow wave.  They were worked continuously without stopping overnight.

[David Mack]

And with frequent changes of horse.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I would have thought a boat with the right shape would go faster when pulled through water than a boat with engine drawing water to pull itself?

 

 

 

and of course fly boats had a right of way and worked 24hr with a change of horses

 

 

[magpie patrick]

23 minutes ago, Pete Morrison said:

As in miles per hour / knots - given the leisurely pace of modern narrowboating, it seems a stretch that any boats could deserve the title "flyboat".

I realise canals weren't the long linear moorings that they mostly are today with shouty fistwavy folks if you go any more than tickover (which of course I wouldn't). But wouldn't they have the same issues as we do today with generating a wake on most canals if you were to approach the 5mph speed limit, ending up limiting the speed anyway? Or is there some sort of shape that the hulls had to avoid that?

 The original fly boats were horsedrawn, a mode of propulsion that causes far less issue with wash than propellor driven craft. 10mph average was not unknown, but to achieve this locks had to be avoided! 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

some physicists will have to tell me if I’m right or wrong,

but I think it’s much harder and slower to drive my boat through a narrow bridge hole while pulling water than it would be if I were simply pulled through that bridge hole ???

 

With those who have experience steering a butty is it easier/quicker to go through a bridge hole than it is the motor?

Edited June 30 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[MtB]

55 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

10mph average was not unknown, but to achieve this locks had to be avoided! 

 

Reminds me of a question asked of me by a rather posh-sounding lady at a lock on the K&A. 

 

"Why don't you just open the doors at both ends of the lock together, and go straight through?"

 

I spent a while trying to get her to look at the differing water levels above and below the lock but her eyes were all glazed over....

 

 

[NB Saturn]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Reminds me of a question asked of me by a rather posh-sounding lady at a lock on the K&A. 

 

"Why don't you just open the doors at both ends of the lock together, and go straight through?"

 

I spent a while trying to get her to look at the differing water levels above and below the lock but her eyes were all glazed over....

 

 

 

I think that’s  called the Niagra method, and only for very advanced boaters.

[magpie patrick]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Reminds me of a question asked of me by a rather posh-sounding lady at a lock on the K&A. 

 

"Why don't you just open the doors at both ends of the lock together, and go straight through?"

 

I spent a while trying to get her to look at the differing water levels above and below the lock but her eyes were all glazed over....

 

 

 

Sadly the solution was more prosaic for flyboats - the passengers walked round!

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

41 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

some physicists will have to tell me if I’m right or wrong,

 I’m sure your m8 will be along to explain it all to you in 25 paragraph's and a couple of graphs 😉😉😉😂😂🍻

Edited June 30 by BoatingLifeUpNorth2

[jonathanA]

2 hours ago, Kingdom Isambard Brunel said:

I met an old(er) guy who used to do Leeds to Liverpool and vice versa in 54 hours carrying sugar for Tate & Lyles.

So about 2 1/4 miles an hour, ignoring locks and swing bridges. 

 

I'm finding the suggestion ( by others) of 10 mph a bit of a stretch. Wasn't the horse walked by someone on the tow path ? so at best something like 4 mph being a fast walking pace. 

 

54 hours for the 127 and a bit miles of the l&l seems a bit more believable to me. 

 

ETA: adding in 91 locks on the l&l that's about 4 lock miles an hour. 

Edited June 30 by jonathanA
Add in locks

[Slim]

57 minutes ago, NB Saturn said:

 

I think that’s  called the Niagra method, and only for very advanced boaters.

AKA Flash Lock.

[springy]

Some years ago I helped bring Gifford up Wolverhampton 21 horse drawn, I was somewhat surprised how fast it came out of the chambers compared with a motor.

 

AIUI all of the FMC steamers worked "fly", and somewhere on the web I have seen letters from various canal owning companies to FMC complaining about the behaviour and speed of the steamers (though I can't find it at the moment). 

 

springy

[magpie patrick]

10 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

 

I'm finding the suggestion ( by others) of 10 mph a bit of a stretch. Wasn't the horse walked by someone on the tow path ? so at best something like 4 mph being a fast walking pace.

 

The soliton wave was discovered by a fly boat on the Union Canal in Scotland, this wave lifted the boat and enabled these higher speeds.

 

The boat profile was different too - sometimes round bilge, sleeker than the typical cargo boat and certainly more hydrodynamic than the leisure brick of today. 

 

Passenger Boats between Bradford and Bath on the K&A were referred to as "Scotch Boats" as they were bought from the Union Canal and were significantly faster than anything else. 

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

Reminds me of a question asked of me by a rather posh-sounding lady at a lock on the K&A. 

 

"Why don't you just open the doors at both ends of the lock together, and go straight through?"

 

I spent a while trying to get her to look at the differing water levels above and below the lock but her eyes were all glazed over....

 

 

I saw and heard exactly the same conversation between an American lady and a Volockie on the Mon and Brec last week. I thought it was an urban myth.

[TheBiscuits]

I'm just thinking how impressive a log flume Wigan flight would-be if you opened all of the gates 🤣🛶

[IanD]

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

 

The soliton wave was discovered by a fly boat on the Union Canal in Scotland, this wave lifted the boat and enabled these higher speeds.

 

The boat profile was different too - sometimes round bilge, sleeker than the typical cargo boat and certainly more hydrodynamic than the leisure brick of today. 

 

Passenger Boats between Bradford and Bath on the K&A were referred to as "Scotch Boats" as they were bought from the Union Canal and were significantly faster than anything else. 

 

However IIRC the soliton only works under very specific circumstances which you can hit if you're lucky on a given stretch of canal (fairly deep and wide, and at one specific speed!) where everything is "just so", but this isn't going to happen over large parts of a journey on normal UK inland canals. A bit like surfing the Severn bore and then saying you can use this on all rivers... 😉 

 

There's a picture of an old fly boat hull in one of the books on my boat, and it has much finer lines than a normal narrowboat, is narrower and draws less water, so it'll slip through the water much more easily.

[mhsuffolk]

8 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

I'm just thinking how impressive a log flume Wigan flight would-be if you opened all of the gates 🤣🛶

Thats how they do it in France

Fonseranes Locks Canal du Midi

[magpie patrick]

9 hours ago, IanD said:

 

However IIRC the soliton only works under very specific circumstances which you can hit if you're lucky on a given stretch of canal (fairly deep and wide, and at one specific speed!) where everything is "just so", but this isn't going to happen over large parts of a journey on normal UK inland canals. A bit like surfing the Severn bore and then saying you can use this on all rivers... 😉 

 

This is true, but if you look at the canals that were well known for fast boats (well known is a relative term here - well known to uber geeks who are also information sponges) they are, or were, canals with long, relatively straight and deep lock free levels - the Lancaster, The Shroppie,  and the Union. No one in their right mind was going to try this on the southern Oxford! 

 

One also has to remember that the canals were in much better condition then

 

My point is that someone here didn't believe these speeds of 10mph - they happened, not everywhere, but they did happen. 

[Pluto]

The term 'flyboat' may have had different meanings, depending upon the canal. Generally, it suggests a general cargo boat which had priority at locks, and often working to some sort of timetable. Reliability, rather than speed, was important.

 

When it comes to speed, we are talking about 'packet boats', so-called because they were allowed to carry small packets, perhaps up to 56lb, as well as passengers. They usually operated in areas where there were long pounds and few locks. Considerable work was put into the design of the hull in the 1820s/30s, but the growth of rail traffic killed them off. The last on the L&LC worked between Burnley and Blackburn, but by 1840 it had become more of a pleasure boat, the owners claiming that as a mode of transport, the bar could be open throughout the trip.

[Ronaldo47]

This passage from the entry for Canals in the 1910-11 edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica describes how fast passenger boats were operated on the Glasgow & Ardrossan canal.

 

Edited July 1 by Ronaldo47

[IanD]

4 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

 

This is true, but if you look at the canals that were well known for fast boats (well known is a relative term here - well known to uber geeks who are also information sponges) they are, or were, canals with long, relatively straight and deep lock free levels - the Lancaster, The Shroppie,  and the Union. No one in their right mind was going to try this on the southern Oxford! 

 

One also has to remember that the canals were in much better condition then

 

My point is that someone here didn't believe these speeds of 10mph - they happened, not everywhere, but they did happen. 

 

The only records I've seen of the soliton/wave effect being used are on the deep/wide canals in Scotland -- the Union Canal was mentioned earlier, and the Glasgow & Ardrossan in the snapshot above.

 

It's possible it might have been used elsewhere (e.g. on the wider/deeper English canals) but I can't find any record of it -- and if there isn't any, it's just speculation to say it was used there... 😉 

 

(like pulling boats with tractors/light railway engines -- yes it was done but only rarely and not for very long)

 

Since it needs boats specially built for the job as well as two horses, it would be expensive to run this way (using solitons) and pointless unless a large part of the journey can take advantage of it. My guess is that the narrow/fast/light boats referred to didn't use it most of the time in England (if ever?) but they still travelled faster than normal by having lower drag.

 

Unless there's actual evidence to show otherwise... 😉 

Edited July 1 by IanD

[booke23]

5 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

 

This is true, but if you look at the canals that were well known for fast boats (well known is a relative term here - well known to uber geeks who are also information sponges) they are, or were, canals with long, relatively straight and deep lock free levels - the Lancaster, The Shroppie,  and the Union. No one in their right mind was going to try this on the southern Oxford! 

 

One also has to remember that the canals were in much better condition then

 

My point is that someone here didn't believe these speeds of 10mph - they happened, not everywhere, but they did happen. 

 

I've certainly read about the Lancaster canal flyboats/passenger boats that used to attain those speeds. 

 

1 hour ago, IanD said:

Unless there's actual evidence to show otherwise... 😉 

 

Yes....right under your nose it seems! 

 

15 hours ago, IanD said:

There's a picture of an old fly boat hull in one of the books on my boat, and it has much finer lines than a normal narrowboat, is narrower and draws less water, so it'll slip through the water much more easily.

 

Edited July 1 by booke23