On a crazy warm Christmas day, yesterday, i took my lil steamboat with the new boiler out on the Arkansas river. I usually burn large clumped coal but this past year on my big boat "Fearless", i have been burning bagged coal. My MO is to start up on charcoal and then switch to real coal. i had 80# when i threw on a load of of bag coal. Mistake!! The old grate in the Semple boiler was not made for the smaller coal and it fell through choking the air flow and all but killing the fire. i didn't want to start shoveling out the coal.... so after a two mile jaunt we were back at shore. every outing is a success when you are loaded up and headed home.
Merry Christmas memory!
Hi, scene is in the archipelago in the Baltic Sea, Sweden. and the boat is frozen in the ice with boat Houses in the background.
practical with icebreaker reinforced hull in Winter.
Johan