The Lifting Of Mossdale

[Tim Lewis]

For those into wide beam boat restoration:

 

 

CRT Press Release

 

One of the largest cranes in the country, together with a giant purpose-built cradle, have been used to raise a rare surviving boat out of the water for what is thought to be for the first time, ahead of its planned conservation.

Mossdale, courtesy of Bill Leatherwood

Mossdale is thought to be the last surviving all-wooden wide Mersey ‘flat’, a type of barge which was once a common sight across the North West with history dating back 150 years. Now volunteers and staff from the National Waterways Museum have stepped in, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund, to save the historic vessel, one of the most important in the Museum’s collection.

Mossdale would originally have been carrying cargoes such as iron, flour and grain – and even sugar for Tate & Lyle - along the Bridgewater Canal as far as Manchester and across the Mersey between Ellesmere Port and Liverpool.

Incredibly fragile

The vessel was donated to the National Waterways Museum by Peter Froud in the 1970s and has been cared for by staff and volunteers, but it was not until June 2012 that a successful Heritage Lottery Fund bid for £147,300 gave hope that the boat might be fully conserved. Lifting Mossdale from the water is an important step towards securing further funding for the work early in 2014.

John Inch, general manager at the National Waterways Museum, said: “Old wooden boats – even those as sturdy looking as Mossdale – are incredibly fragile, so everyone was holding their breath when she was first lifted out. We’re all incredibly excited to see her out of the water for the first time and delighted with how well the operation has gone. Boats like this would have been a common sight to our ancestors and she is the last of her kind to survive. She is part of the story of Merseyside, its waterways and people and we want to keep that story alive.”

 

Tim

Edited December 20, 2013 by Tim Lewis

[by'eck]

I have this photo with Mossdale in the foreground, taken at NWM August 2012.

 

 

You can just make out the name.

 

 

[Pluto]

This was Mossdale in drydock at Northwich in 1976:

[MtB]

I thought the claim in the CRT video that this was the fisrt time ever that Mossdale had been removed from the water seemed pretty unlikely!

 

I must say, I wondered why they didn't dry dock it instead of spending £130k on the crane and purpose made cradles.

 

 

MtB

[Laurence Hogg]

I thought the claim in the CRT video that this was the fisrt time ever that Mossdale had been removed from the water seemed pretty unlikely!

 

I must say, I wondered why they didn't dry dock it instead of spending £130k on the crane and purpose made cradles.

 

 

MtB

 

Got to admit I thought the same Mike! I remember that boat being in nice condition.

The bit I really like is "The vessel was donated to the National Waterways Museum by Peter Froud in the 1970s and has been cared for by staff and volunteers,"

Peter Froud would turn in his grave!

[by'eck]

 

Got to admit I thought the same Mike! I remember that boat being in nice condition.

The bit I really like is "The vessel was donated to the National Waterways Museum by Peter Froud in the 1970s and has been cared for by staff and volunteers,"

Peter Froud would turn in his grave!

 

Well they did have a bilge pump running in it last year

[Timleech]

I thought the claim in the CRT video that this was the fisrt time ever that Mossdale had been removed from the water seemed pretty unlikely!

 

I must say, I wondered why they didn't dry dock it instead of spending £130k on the crane and purpose made cradles.

 

 

MtB

 

I very much doubt whether it would have been strong enough to survive dry-docking.

 

One of my regular early jobs on the waterways (circa 1967, I suppose) was taking a hired 2" petrol pump, on a wheelbarrow, across the pedestrian-only weir stream swing bridge to Hunts Lock (Northwich) to pump out the Mossdale

 

Edit - bear in mind that Peter Froud owned it from the mid-1960s until it was passed to the museum, and to the best of my recollection although it was docked a couple of times didn't do much more than a bit of caulking and maybe a tingle or two in that time. It was generally in decent order but that was forty-something years ago. Malcolm Webster did do some timber work at the museum but that was a long time ago now.

 

Tim

Edited December 21, 2013 by Timleech

[MtB]

 

I very much doubt whether it would have been strong enough to survive dry-docking.

 

I'm sure it would have if the same internal bracing was fitted as for the lift. I can't imagine a lift even being more gentle than draining the water from the dock and letting her settle onto some proper supports. But then with lottery funding to foot the bill, why not make the biggest meal of it you can!

 

MtB

 

 

Got to admit I thought the same Mike! I remember that boat being in nice condition.

The bit I really like is "The vessel was donated to the National Waterways Museum by Peter Froud in the 1970s and has been cared for by staff and volunteers,"

Peter Froud would turn in his grave!

 

Quite. 'left to rot' crossed my mind but it seemed churlish to say so!

 

MtB

[Timleech]

 

I'm sure it would have if the same internal bracing was fitted as for the lift. I can't imagine a lift even being more gentle than draining the water from the dock and letting her settle onto some proper supports. But then with lottery funding to foot the bill, why not make the biggest meal of it you can!

 

MtB

 

 

Dry docking would really not be appropriate anyway, as the plan is not to restore it as a floating exhibit, and the amount of work needed would occupy whatever dock was used for a very long time. The only remotely suitable and more or less operational dock in the area is that at Northwich (as seen in Pluto's picture), and I can't see the MSC co sanctioning the vessel making the necessary trip along their water in its present condition.

 

Tim

[jenevers]

Whatever happened to OAKDALE which I remember being in Canning half tide lock (I think), Liverpool. Apparently she set off for Barrow in Furness, years ago, but started to take on water and was beached on the sands somewhere along the way.

[Pluto]

Whatever happened to OAKDALE which I remember being in Canning half tide lock (I think), Liverpool. Apparently she set off for Barrow in Furness, years ago, but started to take on water and was beached on the sands somewhere along the way.

I did some work on Oakdale in the 1970s, after the person who had bought her hadn't realised that someone had put a sink drain hole just above water line, resulting in her sunken condition in the photo below.

 

Oakdale was one of the last wooden flats to be built, and at 15 feet 6 in wide, could only just reach Burscough, where the photo was taken, but was too wide for the drydock there. Her construction is interesting, in that the framework showed Yorkshire influence, to create the very full bow and stern, unlike the fine lines of a true Mersey flat. The last I heard, she was on the mud flats at Lytham St Annes with the owner living on board, but that was a good few years ago.

[Bee]

I can`t help thinking of the results that can be achieved by a determined and resourceful individual or small team, `Progress` for instance are pretty awesome compared to the results that can be achieved by a whole heap of money and people.

[Derek R.]

Yes, "cared for" does sound a rather generous description.

 

It would be interesting to know in what fashion the renovation will take, with the vessel suspended from the five beams. Clearly there must be some structure within that holds the sides and bottom together and which is attached to the beams as well as the straps around the hull.

 

I note also that the attempt to lower the vessel onto the stands was aborted at 11m.12seconds for an entry end on. Quite a tricky manoeuvre for the driver.

 

So it hangs suspended. What next? Will it remain a dry exhibit in a covered area, or see water again?

[Mike Tee]

Mossdale living the pampered life at Ellesmere in October 2007

 

[Pluto]

From what I have been told, the idea is to conserve Mossdale on the slipway behind the Rolt Centre at Ellesmere Port. Mossdale will be out of water and under cover, with displays about Mersey flats and boat building.

 

Having worked on and researched the construction of wooden wide barges in Britain and abroad, the techniques used and the problems encountered with the conservation of boats such as Mossdale are far greater than that for flat bottomed boats such as Progress. I too am full of admiration at what Chris Collins is doing, but those canal boats whose origins lie in sailing coastal craft are more complex in the techniques used than those for flat-bottomed boats, particularly with regard to framing. The only similar wooden boats to be conserved effectively are the Norfolk wherries and Thames sailing barges, with the Spry representing the Severn. Other than a couple of converted wooden keels just surviving in the south, there are no representatives of wooden boats from the northern waterways in a reasonably complete condition, other than those at Ellesmere Port, and this reflects the cost and expertise needed for their conservation. Several individuals and groups have tried to restore wooden wide boats in the north, but none were successful due to lack of funding and lack of interest generally in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

The three or four people who post here who have been involved with wooden wide canal boats are usually more sympathetic to what happened at Ellesmere Port ten or twenty years ago than those with no experience of the problems, which should tell you something.

[Heartland]

Once conservation is complete, what happens to the craft. I often wonder how the effects of weather, wind and rain make a wooden boat a short term restoration. Is there a case for an indoor location, if costs and funds exist. Mossdale is a rare survivor from the age where wooden craft were regularly maintained.

 

Ray Shill

[Pluto]

Once conservation is complete, what happens to the craft. I often wonder how the effects of weather, wind and rain make a wooden boat a short term restoration. Is there a case for an indoor location, if costs and funds exist. Mossdale is a rare survivor from the age where wooden craft were regularly maintained.

 

Ray Shill

The idea is to keep Mossdale out of the weather under some sort of cover which will be in keeping with the slipway.