The Steamboating Forum

Mike's rope skills were put to good use as we had one of his hefty ropes around the boat from the skeg to the hook on the winch. The latter seemed very powerful and did not require that much effort to pull the boat up. The boat fits the trailer nicely although the bunks need a touch of adjustment.
After lunch we got down to the task of dismantling the build trolley and then clearing space for the new trailer in the garage.

Mike is a wizard with a trailer and reversed it almost perfectly to fit in the garage door. Once we had the trailer wheel through the door we pushed it in by hand which was astonishingly easy given that the drive is on a slope. The fit is pretty close as you can imagine.

The next anxious point was whether the trailer builders' solution for a long boat - short trailer would work. Basically there is an additional stand post on the trailer that takes the weight and then the front metre or so gets unplugged and put to one side. Happily it was exactly right and there was enough room to close the garage door. All that remained then was for me to get down to tidying up as so much junk had been disturbed and shifted out into the garden.
Thus we end the day with a tidy(ish) garage, a boat on its road trailer and the garage door closed.

Regards

Pete

Didn't we do well! Cheers for lunch Pete.

At least it's unlikely that we will need to do that again.

I am really impressed!

She is such a beautiful launch. I cannot wait to hear how she performs after her refit.

Hi Folks

Taking a breather after a very busy few days so it seemed worth adding a trivial post to the site.

Inspired by Russ and his Amazing Funnel Box (sounds like a stage act!) I decided that Frances Ann's funnel deserved rather more than just being unceremoniously dumped in the bilges as in the past. The only trouble was that there was not a lot of useful scrap to hand nor a great deal of time to build it. The funnel is also somewhat awkward having the safety valve outlet pipe plus the whistle and its feed pipe attached. The solution seemed to be a short cradle which, if made shallow, should be clear of the pipes.

Happily, the theory was not too far out and it fits as expected.

Regards

Pete

Looks great Pete. You're funnel will be comfortably rocked to sleep after a long day of steaming.

Pete:
An excellent solution! Nicely and simply done. I like it.
I also like the way you routed the whistle piping through the exhaust column. Warmish...
RussN

'Tis time for more trivia, though at times it felt more like terror (I am scared of loaded trailers that are longer than my vehicle).

We are now living in Wales though not yet fully moved out of the house in Cheshire. I sneaked off on my own back to Cheshire to organise the boat for its trip up to Simpson Boatbuilding at Arrad Foot a little way from Windermere. Greg will be storing the boat in his yard since there is nowhere to keep it in Wales.

Day one was all about getting the dismantled cabin loaded up on the 'Heath Robinson' frameworks that I had created a while back. In making them I fell into the trap of not doing the job with everything that would be there in a 'normal' transit. Thus I came to drop the cabin rear panel into the cockpit where it has always been carried only to find it would no longer fit. The wash hand basin unit and the Windermere Kettle were in the way. A very quick rethink was required as the cabin roof would be sitting on a frame over the cockpit.


With that overcome it was simply a case of installing the framework in the cockpit that would support the cabin sides and front panel. The only trouble was that I could not work out how the frame would fit together and then fit in the boat. After a coffee break and lots of 'I wonder if this piece will fit here' it eventually was assembled. The rear panel modification had displaced the Porta Potti so that went into its original box that was fortuitously still in the loft. The funnel on its new cradle seemed to go well into the gangway, but unlike Russ, I had forgotten that the flag pole and burgee post would need to go somewhere. They ended up wrapped up in a big plastic bag and stuck down beside the funnel.

Things were then ready for the rest of the panels.


The side panels sit one above the other with some padding to protect the lower one in the case of slippage off the framework. Once they are secure the front panel is lowered over them and secured leaving the boat with a nice low profile for towing.