The Black Prince Owners Club...

[MartinC]

Steve, welcome to the site.

We brought William Gladstone (to give it the full name) from Acton Bridge base to Stoke Priors in the early 1970s. We were going to do the Cheshire Ring, but it was coming up to winter closure time and Black Prince needed to get it to Stoke Priors for a refit so we did a deal with some free extended hire. We took all the partial empty gas bottles but still ran out of gas by Stewponey. Picture at Worcester.

[MartinC]

Correction early 1980s not 70s

[Steve Reynolds]

Some old pics from BP boats, Harpoon at Chirk with my parents and grandparents; October 1984. Second is a blurry shot of my parents moving the boats for turnaround at Whixall marina. No idea which boat they're on.

[Fudge Coburn]

Wow Steve! This takes me back. Myself and my mum and dad, Pauline and Jim, used to also assist at Whixall on a Saturday. I remember your Mum and Dad (K & T) well and had many laughs with them during the "turnarounds". We also had a brilliant boat move with them to Whalley Bridge, which Mum and I still talk about to this day. Arthur was brilliant. Always made us chuckle. In fact, my days at Whixall stayed with me and my partner and I now have our own boat too. So good to see your post. Thanks. 

[Steve Reynolds]

Wow, small world! Great times indeed, sadly my Mum is largely wheelchair bound these days, so messing about in boats is no longer possible for her, but both of them are otherwise in good health and spirits!

Wasn't the Whalley Bridge move the one where the engine failed in Harecastle, and had to be legged for most of it?

Edited October 21, 2021 by Steve Reynolds

[fatmanblue]

We hired from Premier Narrowboats in 1980 ... I was only 6.  Our boat was 'Robert Peel' and we did the Cheshire Ring clockwise, so the first locks we ever did were the Rochdale 9.  From memory we shared these locks with 'William Gladstone' (or possibly 'Benjamin Disraeli').  I had forgotten that Black Prince took over Premier a few years later and all the boats became 'blues and yellows'.

[Ray T]

In days of yore Black Prince also had dancing girls. 

[Steve Reynolds]

Where / when was that??

 

[David Mack]

3 hours ago, fatmanblue said:

We hired from Premier Narrowboats in 1980 ... I was only 6.  Our boat was 'Robert Peel' and we did the Cheshire Ring clockwise, so the first locks we ever did were the Rochdale 9.  From memory we shared these locks with 'William Gladstone' (or possibly 'Benjamin Disraeli').  I had forgotten that Black Prince took over Premier a few years later and all the boats became 'blues and yellows'.

It was said that Premier Narrowboats had tried a boat named 'Margaret Thatcher', but when the first hirers got to the middle of their week the boat refused to turn back towards base.😀

[Ray T]

11 minutes ago, Steve Reynolds said:

Where / when was that??

 

It was an IWA festival, but I have forgotten where and when.

[sigsegv]

Hi all, pleased to be a new member of the black prince owners club if you'll have me 😉. We purchased our 52ft Carla 511743 (and renamed her to Why Wait?) in July this year, down in Slough from VC Marine. After an ardous journey along the *very* weedy Slough arm, and an extremely pleasant summer journey north up the GUC, we've got ourselves pottering around the midlands. She's a 2005 build, with a trad layout. Off the top of my head, I believe we're the 4th owners. Previous owner had the electrics redone, with far too many USB sockets on the walls and all new 240v wiring I believe (great since both me and my wife are computer people). At the front is a very large galley, and there *was* a dinette next to it, but I just got done ripping that out and moving it amidships to make room for the sofa to go next to the woodstove, which you'll see in the pics below. Sorry for the mess.

It's interesting to hear about the pumpout tank being split down the middle - the slight list we developed after waiting a bit too long for a pumpout was a great visual indicator it's time to get a pumpout 😅 One thing I'm very much enjoying is the size of the tanks in general. Am I right in understanding that the tank sizes are pretty big for a boat this size? (300 litre diesel, 600 litre water and 500 litres pumpout)

 

Finally, here's some pics of the interior towards the bow after I've been at it with the toolbox, and a little drone shot for good measure

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, sigsegv said:

Am I right in understanding that the tank sizes are pretty big for a boat this size? (300 litre diesel, 600 litre water and 500 litres pumpout)

 

Cannot comment on the pump-out tank because it was removed from the (last) narrow boat before we purchased it in preference for a cassette.

It was an ex-hire boat

 

The water tank is "reasonable" but not large for a liveaboard our 45ft NB had a 1000 litre tank

The fuel tank is again a reasonable size and (our) 45ft NB was 500 litres.

 

Black Prince boats always jammed in as many bunks as possible to increase income so 12 folks on a boat would require quite a lot of toilet capacity.

 

Our 45 footer (Juno) was really designed as a 2-berth (4 at a push) and Weltonfield were known as providing spacious boats for small families / couples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Alan de Enfield

[sigsegv]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Black Prince boats always jammed in as many bunks as possible to increase income

Yeah that's definitely something I've noticed looking at the layout of other now-privately-owned BPs. The boat we hired from the Canal Boat Club (owned by ABC) was much the same so I figured that's par for the course for rental boats. Thankfully the previous owners of Why Wait? did a good job at changing that, with us instead having a much roomier-feeling boat at 52ft with just the 2 of us

[sigsegv]

I emailed Daniel Horner, the chap that used to run the now-defunct blackprinceowners.org.uk  , , asking if he still had the information that was contained on the site (with a view to potentially rehosting it myself). He provided me with an Excel spreadsheet containing the following information on 538 Black Prince boats: name, class, BW/CRT number, year built, first and last years in service, base marina(s), previous name and 'became' name. I'm happy to provide this spreadsheet to anyone that wants it, I don't think it'll be much of a problem, just get in touch via DM and I'll send it to you!

 

As well as that he also sent me the two original pictures of Why Wait? (né Carla), which I'm really happy about

 

 

[Elvis Smith]

On 21/05/2018 at 22:43, Patrick_C said:

The Black Prince Owners website seems to have gone offline about 2015 but you can still see an archived copy of it on the "wayback machine" here: https://web.archive.org/web/20140602064533/http://blackprinceowners.org.uk/latestupdates.html

 

Not all the links work - e.g to individual boat records and the stories about conversions - but there's a fair bit of the original info including registration numbers and original names, details of the different designs and so on.

 

Our boat is one of the 'experimental' (!) Duchess models from 2000 - when the characteristic roundy-rectangle windows first appeared.

 

 

[Elvis Smith]

Hello very new to this stuff I own a black prince qe2 class HOLOISE can anyone tell me about this boat ??

[sigsegv]

On 25/11/2023 at 17:39, Elvis Smith said:

Hello very new to this stuff I own a black prince qe2 class HOLOISE can anyone tell me about this boat ??

 

I can! Based on the info in the spreadsheet Daniel sent to me, I can tell you the following: She was built in 1990 and was originally based in Chirk. I'm afraid that's basically all I have on her. I also have her license number but I'm guessing you already know that The spreadsheet also says there was originally a picture of her on the old site, so it might be worth getting in touch with Daniel to see if he could grab one for you? If you send me a message, I can give you his email address. though we probably shouldn't make a habit of pestering him for pictures of our old boats, I'm sure a couple of times wouldn't be much of a pain for him.