Butty hatches

[Liam]

I'm currently reading "Bread Upton the Waters" and it says that when the butty was fully loaded, the hatches were below the waterline. Understandable really, but if this is the case how would they drain in bad weather?

 

Liam.

[carlt]

I'm currently reading "Bread Upton the Waters" and it says that when the butty was fully loaded, the hatches were below the waterline. Understandable really, but if this is the case how would they drain in bad weather?

 

Liam.

Which hatches?

[Liam]

The stern...

 

Probably not called the hatches, I don't know, but the foot well, where you stand to steer and what you use to get on and off the boat.

[down the north]

Good point here,

on Ilford theres 2 small holes in the hull sides that allow rainwater out, but in all honesty, I would think that these have been added in recent days ( not guilty) , but I would think that the usual way was a drain to the bilges under the cabin. In reality, the amount of rain would be quite small over this area, but the most awkward scenario is when locking downhill with the typical leaky top gate !! errrrrrr northgate staircase, ???? ( need a dam big mop to sort that one out ) !!!

Butties are generally loaded nose heavy by about 2 inches or so with the policy of 'if the front gets over it, the rest has to follow' !!!!!!!!!!, hence worn out butty bottoms were generally worst at the front.

 

What say anyone else ??

cheers,

martin

[alan_fincher]

I'm currently reading "Bread Upton the Waters" and it says that when the butty was fully loaded, the hatches were below the waterline. Understandable really, but if this is the case how would they drain in bad weather?

 

Liam.

I may be wrong, but didn't they erect the "pram" hood at the first signs of rain ?

[carlt]

Lucy didn't have any drain holes (a few naturally occurring ones, maybe, but nothing intentional).

 

Any water ingress was dealt with by the bilge pumps.

 

I may be wrong, but didn't they erect the "pram" hood at the first signs of rain ?

Only the ones that didn't have a wheelhouse.

Edited October 12, 2008 by carlt

[down the north]

Only the ones that didn't have a wheelhouse.

 

Never saw a shot of the wheelhouse when Rose Bray was in charge !!!!! ( Arthur would NOT have been impressed )

[alan_fincher]

Never saw a shot of the wheelhouse when Rose Bray was in charge !!!!! ( Arthur would NOT have been impressed )

And Rose would never have fitted.....

[Timleech]

I may be wrong, but didn't they erect the "pram" hood at the first signs of rain ?

 

 

OK, I know it's not a butty

 

 

Tim

[Natalie Graham]

There doesn't seem any way to see out of that contraption, at least forwards. Maybe the black labrador is looking round the side of the cabin to give the steerer directions. Or else the lab's doing the steering.

 

Natalie.

[Timleech]

There doesn't seem any way to see out of that contraption, at least forwards. Maybe the black labrador is looking round the side of the cabin to give the steerer directions. Or else the lab's doing the steering.

 

Natalie.

 

There's a rectangular hole in the front.

 

Tim

[carlt]

Never saw a shot of the wheelhouse when Rose Bray was in charge !!!!! ( Arthur would NOT have been impressed )

No, he was always having to drag her home, after she'd got on the wrong boat.....again!

[Derek R.]

OK, I know it's not a butty

 

 

Tim

 

Nah! That's a bad case of eczma.

[RLWP]

There's a rectangular hole in the front.

 

Tim

 

Oh, I thought the labrador was a guide dog.

 

Richard

[zenataomm]

My butty had a drain hole in each corner of the floor. To each if these was connected a bit of brass piping that ran under the cabin floors and emerged in the hold just short of the bulkhead.

It was a regular task every spring to flush them through with a hospipe to get the dead leaves and other gunk out ready for the pouring summer.

Edited October 13, 2008 by zenataomm

[bargeeboy]

On my butties I have piped them to the hold

but a pain keeping them clear

[alan_fincher]

OK, I know it's not a butty

 

 

Tim

Tam & Di Murrell were seen with contraptions pretty damn near identical to this when operating a pair on the Brentford to Boxmoor Roses Lime Juice traffic.

 

They peered through a small pill box like slot in the front.

 

Incidentally, I always consider that run was sufficiently long, an with enough locks to outdo the "Jam 'Ole run" in it's claim to be the last regular distance narrowboat carrying. (And yes, I know some much shorter runs are regularly being carried by narrowboat even now).

[Blossom]

Here is another example of a 'pram hood'.

This one is on one 'uv Willers and shows motor Curlew (Seaford) as she leaves Stoke with butty Viginis in about 1967

On butty hatches draining I dont think I have ever seen any sort of drain holes, other than as Carl says through leakes through and down the sides of the wooden floor of the hatches. When I lived on butty Bingley in the early 1970's I welded a steel floor in the butty well and like bargeeboy states had holes in it conected by small pipes leading under the cabin floor to the hold.

 

 

http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp184/B...is/seaford7.jpg

http://i410.photobucket.com/albums/pp184/B...is/Seaforda.jpg[/img]

[bristol & argo]

On butty hatches draining I dont think I have ever seen any sort of drain holes, other than as Carl says through leakes through and down the sides of the wooden floor of the hatches. When I lived on butty Bingley in the early 1970's I welded a steel floor in the butty well and like bargeeboy states had holes in it conected by small pipes leading under the cabin floor to the hold.

 

Carl has described Argo's hatches floor precisely!, and you have described what i want to do to improve the underfloor condition... Did you make the floor flat and go all the way upto the sternpost?

 

I read or heard someone had holes to drain the hatches, and a pair of clamp in bungs to seal the water out when loaded.

 

 

Simon.

[New hope]

The answer is that they didn't drain at all.(at least that is my recollection.) You scooped out as much water as you could and mopped up the rest.

"Pram covers" over the slide were usually only used on motor boats as a motor could be steered without getting out of the door- hole. Boatmen called them "rain-sheds" and made them themselves out of wood and canvas with a small glass window in the front panel. Not many boatmen used them.