Extant full length butty's and horse boats

[alan_fincher]

8 hours ago, billybobbooth said:

What about Mary ( as in william and mary guccc)

Blimey, that's an obvious one missed until now!

[alan_fincher]

8 hours ago, billybobbooth said:

Couldnt see on your list.

Ditton lms butty

Birdsworth still being horse pulled

 

8 hours ago, billybobbooth said:

Station butty Lincoln

 

All these three however are on Pete's original list......

Quote

 

RHINE (DITTON)

ROSS (BIRDSWOOD) (m - hydraulic)

VENICE (LINCOLN) (m - ?)

 

 

8 hours ago, billybobbooth said:

There is a butty on the inside of motor bootes at grand union narrowboat services.

 

That's "Crater" I think, also on Pete's original list.

Edited January 2, 2018 by alan_fincher

[Jrtm]

I didnt know the name of the butty.

The lms one must have miss read them on list.

[Ray T]

On 1/2/2018 at 01:24, billybobbooth said:

Couldnt see on your list.

Ditton lms butty

Birdsworth still being horse pulled

There is a butty not sure if full length thats with a modern motor tug Tory.

There is a butty on the inside of motor bootes at grand union narrowboat services.

Birdsworth also has a hydraulic drive!

https://www.birdswood.org/product/regular-powered-boat-trip/

As well as horse drawn

https://www.birdswood.org/product/horse-drawn-trips/

Edited January 3, 2018 by Ray T

[stagedamager]

that's a nice looking dry dock.

[Jrtm]

35 minutes ago, stagedamager said:

that's a nice looking dry dock.

That docks a long way from her mooring.

To above yes she has hydrolic drive, i mentioned horse as was being horse pulled when i last went there.

[stagedamager]

9 hours ago, billybobbooth said:

That docks a long way from her mooring.

To above yes she has hydrolic drive, i mentioned horse as was being horse pulled when i last went there.

Some could also argue the closest one too!

[pete harrison]

On 02/01/2018 at 01:29, billybobbooth said:

What about Mary ( as in william and mary guccc)

 

On 02/01/2018 at 10:18, alan_fincher said:

Blimey, that's an obvious one missed until now!

Oh yes, and I am supposed to know a bit about 'Grand Unions' 

[pete harrison]

On 02/01/2018 at 01:11, billybobbooth said:

Pete i cant belive you missed out the boat you helped raise! How about tco butty monnow

I had nothing to do with the raising of MONNOW (this was Mr Hogg's project), and it was not included because I was lead to believe it had been broken up.

I have been involved with raising numerous boats over the years but my 'claim to fame' would be PROSPER, the 'Hampton' boat that now lies sunk at the end of the arm at the Black Country Museum - lead by Pete Dodds on MEROPE (NarrowBoat Recovery Group) and would have been in the late 1970's.

[Jrtm]

2 hours ago, pete harrison said:

I had nothing to do with the raising of MONNOW (this was Mr Hogg's project), and it was not included because I was lead to believe it had been broken up.

I have been involved with raising numerous boats over the years but my 'claim to fame' would be PROSPER, the 'Hampton' boat that now lies sunk at the end of the arm at the Black Country Museum - lead by Pete Dodds on MEROPE (NarrowBoat Recovery Group) and would have been in the late 1970's.

My fault i thought it was you that helps raise her, i hadnt hurd she had been broken up i know she was docked not so long ago at Uxbridge. By this i mean 2016-2017

[knobsticks]

On 10/12/2017 at 14:00, pete harrison said:

As already stated by Mr Fincher and Mr Elsdon these boats generally pre-date F.M.C. Ltd. motors and I am certain most were horse boats, but without good traffic records it is difficult say which worked as horse drawn singles and which worked in horse drawn pairs. Richard Thomas has done a considerable amount of work on F.M.C. Ltd. steamers (as well as all of the others) and has collated numerous inspections that formed a part of the Canal Boat Act. These were snapshots of pairings at the time of inspection and usually indicate the pairings  

I have always understood the sister boat, Ilford, to have been built as a butty, pre dating most motors but built as one of the batch from Braithwaite and Kirk, in 1912, for FMC. Steamers had butties! Always understood it to be a butty from the Alan Faulkner FMC book in the Robert Wilson series.. Would like to know if records exist of the Braithwaite and Kirk boats being towed by horses (acknowledging this may have taken place at certain Lock flights too).

[pete harrison]

30 minutes ago, knobsticks said:

I have always understood the sister boat, Ilford, to have been built as a butty, pre dating most motors but built as one of the batch from Braithwaite and Kirk, in 1912, for FMC. Steamers had butties! Always understood it to be a butty from the Alan Faulkner FMC book in the Robert Wilson series.. Would like to know if records exist of the Braithwaite and Kirk boats being towed by horses (acknowledging this may have taken place at certain Lock flights too).

I have never heard the term 'Sister Boat' before, and I can not help thinking that this is an enthusiasts term - and why are you singling out ILFORD ?

Is all of the above based on Alan H. Faulkner's booklet FMC which states "Between May 1912 and April 1914 Braithwaite & Kirk of West Bromwich delivered 24 iron composite butties for £190 each". Mr Faulkner used the generic term 'butties' throughout the section of the booklet where the building of unpowered boats is concerned. Personally I think you are taking this too literally. I also have a very good transcript of the F.M.C. Ltd. Boat Register and there is no suggestion of the Braithwaite & Kirk built boats being intended for use with Steamers, although four horse boats are described as being intended for the Dickenson's paper traffic - two paired with Steamers and two later paired with Motors.

As a businessman it makes no sense to me whatsoever to build a number of unpowered boats and reserve them as buttys to Steamers, of which there were relatively few in thei F.M.C. Ltd. fleet. I would want these boats to be fully employed to give me a return on my investment, and I can not imagine that the Directors of F.M.C. Ltd. would think any differently. This would mean operating them as a single horse boat, one of a pair of horse boats or behind a Steamer or Motor. My own understanding is that Steamers worked with any unpowered F.M.C. Ltd. boat that was heading in the same direction, and only occasionally operated as a 'long term' pair, and this is certainly substantiated by period photographs and period Inspections carried out by local Sanitary Inspector's.

If you would like to see a photograph of a Braithwaite & Kirk horse boat being towed by a horse then please see NarrowBoat magazine Summer 2007 page 38 - "The horse drawn pair JAMES and VERBENA in Cassiobury Park, Watford, approaching Ironbridge Lock on 29th July 1928". This took me about 2 minutes to find so I imagine it will not be too difficult to find more  

 

[knobsticks]

2 hours ago, pete harrison said:

I have never heard the term 'Sister Boat' before, and I can not help thinking that this is an enthusiasts term - and why are you singling out ILFORD ?

Is all of the above based on Alan H. Faulkner's booklet FMC which states "Between May 1912 and April 1914 Braithwaite & Kirk of West Bromwich delivered 24 iron composite butties for £190 each". Mr Faulkner used the generic term 'butties' throughout the section of the booklet where the building of unpowered boats is concerned. Personally I think you are taking this too literally. I also have a very good transcript of the F.M.C. Ltd. Boat Register and there is no suggestion of the Braithwaite & Kirk built boats being intended for use with Steamers, although four horse boats are described as being intended for the Dickenson's paper traffic - two paired with Steamers and two later paired with Motors.

As a businessman it makes no sense to me whatsoever to build a number of unpowered boats and reserve them as buttys to Steamers, of which there were relatively few in thei F.M.C. Ltd. fleet. I would want these boats to be fully employed to give me a return on my investment, and I can not imagine that the Directors of F.M.C. Ltd. would think any differently. This would mean operating them as a single horse boat, one of a pair of horse boats or behind a Steamer or Motor. My own understanding is that Steamers worked with any unpowered F.M.C. Ltd. boat that was heading in the same direction, and only occasionally operated as a 'long term' pair, and this is certainly substantiated by period photographs and period Inspections carried out by local Sanitary Inspector's.

If you would like to see a photograph of a Braithwaite & Kirk horse boat being towed by a horse then please see NarrowBoat magazine Summer 2007 page 38 - "The horse drawn pair JAMES and VERBENA in Cassiobury Park, Watford, approaching Ironbridge Lock on 29th July 1928". This took me about 2 minutes to find so I imagine it will not be too difficult to find more  

 

Forgive me, I don't often contribute to the forum so had commented on the wrong bit of the thread - I anticipated my comment would be associated with the comment from the person who currently owns a Braithwaite and Kirk butty. Hence the term I used 'sister boat' - as in a vessel of the same ilk, like one would say 'sister ship', note I didn't use a Capital 'S' in 'sister'. It was just an expression of speech, like you would say 'sister ship', although perhaps that isn't the best way for me to convey it use! From my memory, the first motor boat built for FMC was the Linda, built in 1912. At that time motor boats were being built at Saltley, so sheer lack of space probably contributed to FMC ordering a batch of butties from West Bromwich. Thank you for mentioning the photo, I am a great fan of Google and I'll probably go back to reading the forum rather than commenting. Incidentally I have always said 'big' woolwich and 'small woolwich', although I expect the boatmen would have referred to them as just 'boats'.

[pete harrison]

4 minutes ago, knobsticks said:

Forgive me, I don't often contribute to the forum so had commented on the wrong bit of the thread - I anticipated my comment would be associated with the comment from the person who currently owns a Braithwaite and Kirk butty. Hence the term I used 'sister boat' - as in a vessel of the same ilk, like one would say 'sister ship', note I didn't use a Capital 'S' in 'sister'. It was just an expression of speech, like you would say 'sister ship', although perhaps that isn't the best way for me to convey it use! From my memory, the first motor boat built for FMC was the Linda, built in 1912. At that time motor boats were being built at Saltley, so sheer lack of space probably contributed to FMC ordering a batch of butties from West Bromwich. Thank you for mentioning the photo, I am a great fan of Google and I'll probably go back to reading the forum rather than commenting. Incidentally I have always said 'big' woolwich and 'small woolwich', although I expect the boatmen would have referred to them as just 'boats'.

We are all from different areas and we are all subject to local opinion and take that as being fact. For me it is 'large Woolwich' and 'small Woolwich', but like you I am sure the boat families would have called them by a different name.

It appears to me that you know more than you are letting on so please be a contributor rather than an anonymous reader as we can all learn something from everybody 

[alan_fincher]

49 minutes ago, pete harrison said:

For me it is 'large Woolwich' and 'small Woolwich', but like you I am sure the boat families would have called them by a different name.

I must admit that I thought I was the same, but seem not now able to avoid either "big" or even "little" because more and more people seem to use these, and I seem to copy involuntarily, however much I try not to.

The trouble is that if you now ask me to remember what was common parlance 40 plus years ago, I'm not sure I can now reliably do so.

I still don't think I ever heard of "thumb-lining" before this century though, even if people like David Blagrove, (who should presumably have known), have since claimed the name as being the one generally used.

[fittie]

That's odd, trying to think about what I used to call boats and I find that I an not at all consistent. Here goes - big Woolwich and large Northwich - now why should that be. As far as I can remember that is how I have always called these boats...

[Ray T]

7 hours ago, fittie said:

That's odd, trying to think about what I used to call boats and I find that I an not at all consistent. Here goes - big Woolwich and large Northwich - now why should that be. As far as I can remember that is how I have always called these boats...

Interestingly Mike H refers to them both as "large." The other type as "small."

When speaking with Mike I find I have to use terms he knows, as if i use names from "today" he doesn't recognise them. 

E.g. Moira Cut for the Ashby, Hillmorton bottom not Grantham's Bridge, the stop lock at Hawkesbury junction is always Sutton's and so on.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Ray T

[David Schweizer]

14 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

I must admit that I thought I was the same, but seem not now able to avoid either "big" or even "little" because more and more people seem to use these, and I seem to copy involuntarily, however much I try not to.

The trouble is that if you now ask me to remember what was common parlance 40 plus years ago, I'm not sure I can now reliably do so.

I still don't think I ever heard of "thumb-lining" before this century though, even if people like David Blagrove, (who should presumably have known), have since claimed the name as being the one generally used.

I was taught both the term thumb-lining, and the thumb-lining method in the 1960's by a former working boatman who (thanks to X Alan W) I now know was working for BW in the 1950's

Edited January 9, 2018 by David Schweizer

[Paul H]

I think this is one of the expressions that has changed or become misused over the years. A thumbline used to be a holding back string for butties in GU locks but now appears to be used for a gateline.  A swans neck used to be decorative rope work but now is used to refer to a the rams head on a motor.  

And back on topic, Gertrude was broken up at Newbury about 12 years ago.

Paul

 

 

[Ray T]

35 minutes ago, Paul H said:

I think this is one of the expressions that has changed or become misused over the years. A thumbline used to be a holding back string for butties in GU locks but now appears to be used for a gateline.  A swans neck used to be decorative rope work but now is used to refer to a the rams head on a motor.  

And back on topic, Gertrude was broken up at Newbury about 12 years ago.

Paul

 

 

Time to dig this out again. By Edward Padget Tomlinson. Interestingly there is no "swans neck" on the butty.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Ray T

[alan_fincher]

40 minutes ago, Paul H said:

I think this is one of the expressions that has changed or become misused over the years. A thumbline used to be a holding back string for butties in GU locks but now appears to be used for a gateline.  A swans neck used to be decorative rope work but now is used to refer to a the rams head on a motor. 

Yes this.                                                                                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Which is why it now sounds wrong to use the term for gate lining, because for working boatmen to have had the same term for two entirely different things just doesn't sound right to me.

[pete harrison]

2 hours ago, Paul H said:

And back on topic, Gertrude was broken up at Newbury about 12 years ago.

Paul

Thanks for the update on GERTRUDE, I was sure somebody would know.

Alan Elyard Brown and I visited Newbury on 27 February 2002 and spent some time on GERTRUDE chatting with the owner, who had a folder on board detailing a comprehensive history. At that time GERTRUDE was pretty ropey and the owner told of a recent short trip which almost lead to its sinking due to its fragile condition, and bilge pumps were cutting in regularly whilst we were there 

[David Schweizer]

2 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

Yes this.                                                                                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Which is why it now sounds wrong to use the term for gate lining, because for working boatmen to have had the same term for two entirely different things just doesn't sound right to me.

Maybe, but I have heard another term used to describe two different features on a narrowboat. The term is "Top Plank", which is generally accepted as the term to describe the plank(s) which run on top of the mast and stands in a working boat, but I first heard the term used in the 1960's in a working boatyard to describe the top hull side plank behind the "Top Bend" on a wooden Narrowboat. Of course as we were helping to fit it, and were not experienced boatbuilders, the builder may just have used the term to ensure we knew what he was talking about, so the term may not have been used genericly. With virtually no wooden boats being built these days, it would be irrelevant on a steel boat anyway.

Edited January 9, 2018 by David Schweizer

[Tam & Di]

3 hours ago, Paul H said:

A thumbline used to be a holding back string for butties in GU locks but now appears to be used for a gateline.  A swans neck used to be decorative rope work but now is used to refer to a the rams head on a motor.

Which is how we knew them in the 60s too. There was a little "thumb pin" in the ground under the balance beam that the eye of the thumb line went on to stop the butty being drawn out as the motor left an empty GU lock. I remember hearing that many of these pins were removed in the 70s as someone at Watford thought people might trip over them, but I'd guess you'd have to have extremely large feet to do that.

[Ray T]

Just now, Tam & Di said:

Which is how we knew them in the 60s too. There was a little "thumb pin" in the ground under the balance beam that the eye of the thumb line went on to stop the butty being drawn out as the motor left an empty GU lock. I remember hearing that many of these pins were removed in the 70s as someone at Watford thought people might trip over them, but I'd guess you'd have to have extremely large feet to do that.

Wasn't the thumb pin also used as part of a 2:1 purchase along with a pulley on the mast to help a horse start a boat out of a lock?