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Air an Smùid/Steaming - The battle to save a rusting puffer. The team set to work on the badly corroded hull.


Robbo

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I'm not sure but I thought the boat that played the part of the Vital Spark was Vic32.

She had already been rescued sometime in the 70's by Nick Walker from duties as a council rubbish skip in (???) Whitby (somewhere in the Northeast anyway)

I thought Vic 32 was still doing cruises through the Caledonian and Crinan canals and was still owned by Nick Walker

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I'm not sure but I thought the boat that played the part of the Vital Spark was Vic32.

She had already been rescued sometime in the 70's by Nick Walker from duties as a council rubbish skip in (???) Whitby (somewhere in the Northeast anyway)

I thought Vic 32 was still doing cruises through the Caledonian and Crinan canals and was still owned by Nick Walker

 

VIC 27 according to their website

 

Richard

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Vic 32 also survives, though.

I do like the (I assume Gaelic) word for puffer: "phufair".

The program showed Vic32 along side Vic27 on the slipway.

 

I hadn't realised before that many of these boats were made outside of the Clyde. VIC27 being made near Northwhich on the river Weaver by Isaac Pimblott & Sons.

 

I enjoyed it. I shall watch the next episode on Iplayer this evening.

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That is some project. Thank goodness there are people prepared to undertake hugely expensive and difficult tasks like that or we would have no SS Great Britain, Warrior, and the rest of the list. That's without starting on rusted out steam locos from Barry and all the other stuff that still exists. If I had a hat I would take it off for them.

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The program showed Vic32 along side Vic27 on the slipway.

 

I hadn't realised before that many of these boats were made outside of the Clyde. VIC27 being made near Northwhich on the river Weaver by Isaac Pimblott & Sons.

 

I enjoyed it. I shall watch the next episode on Iplayer this evening.

 

The VICs were built by several yards outside Scotland, and were built to service R.N. ships, rather than for the traditional puffer trade. The design was simple, well tested and they were cheap to build.

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AFAIK the reason they were steam powered was because of the wartime shortage of diesel engines (they were needed for producing combat equipment)

 

eta and also because they didn't need to be designed, the plans came straight out of the archives

Edited by John V
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The VICs were built by several yards outside Scotland, and were built to service R.N. ships, rather than for the traditional puffer trade. The design was simple, well tested and they were cheap to build.

Dunston Ltd was one of these yards, they built a number of them of which Vic32 was one.

 

Peter.

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I hadn't realised before that many of these boats were made outside of the Clyde. VIC27 being made near Northwhich on the river Weaver by Isaac Pimblott & Sons.

These boats fall outside of my field of research, but I do have a few scraps of paper with a some notes scrawled on that may be of interest.

 

Isaac Pimblott and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a number of 'Steam Puffers' with completion dates between 01 April 1942 and 28 September 1944. These were all named VIC followed by the numbers 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35 - but were not built in numeric order.

 

Isaac Pimblott and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a number of 'Steam Coastal Lighters' with completion dates between 08 June 1944 and 26 August 1947. These were all named VIC followed by the numbers 49, 50, 51, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67.

 

James Pollock, Sons and Co. Ltd., Faversham built two 'Steam Coastal Lighters' with completion dates of 1945 and June 1946. These were both named VIC followed by the numbers 56 and 57.

 

W.J. Yarwood and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a considerable number of vessels for the Admiralty during and shortly after the Second World War but none appear to be of the VIC series.

 

captain.gif

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These boats fall outside of my field of research, but I do have a few scraps of paper with a some notes scrawled on that may be of interest.

 

Isaac Pimblott and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a number of 'Steam Puffers' with completion dates between 01 April 1942 and 28 September 1944. These were all named VIC followed by the numbers 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35 - but were not built in numeric order.

 

Isaac Pimblott and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a number of 'Steam Coastal Lighters' with completion dates between 08 June 1944 and 26 August 1947. These were all named VIC followed by the numbers 49, 50, 51, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67.

 

James Pollock, Sons and Co. Ltd., Faversham built two 'Steam Coastal Lighters' with completion dates of 1945 and June 1946. These were both named VIC followed by the numbers 56 and 57.

 

W.J. Yarwood and Sons Ltd., Northwich built a considerable number of vessels for the Admiralty during and shortly after the Second World War but none appear to be of the VIC series.

 

captain.gif

Interesting, thanks. As an aside I see that the Isaac & Pimblott builders on the Weaver also built some Admiralty class Narrowboats post WWII as well as VIC 27 in the program.

Edited by churchward
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Interesting, thanks. As an aside I see that the Isaac & Pimblott builders on the Weaver also built some Admiralty class Narrowboats post WWII as well as VIC 27 in the program.

Isaac Pimblott and Sons Ltd., Northwich built four motor / butty pairs of 'Admiral Class' narrowboats, all of which were delivered in the late 1950's and were built for 'British Waterways' for use in their North Western (Southern) Division carrying fleet.

 

All eight of these boats are still extant:

 

ANSON and BENBOW

COLLINGWOOD and DRAKE

EFFINGHAM and FROBISHER

GRENVILLE and HOWARD (different fore end design to the above three pairs).

 

This company also went on to build a few narrow beam pleasure boats captain.gif

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  • 2 years later...
1 hour ago, Boater Sam said:

Miserable, BBC won't let be see it 'cos I'm abroad.

You can get a very cheap VPN that can get around that. However you probably won’t know this as you have me on ignore :D

  • Haha 1
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