The Steamboating Forum

And now the ruddy colonials all gang up on Jack (grin).

The thread being nicely steered in this direction, I haven't been up to speed on what full retail for engines and boilers has come to. I've bought my boat for a song because everyone else who looked at it saw the dreadful hull and shied away from a project.

I just went online and added up the new cost of what I have and it runs to about four times what I paid for the boat and trailer. And if I hadn't been salting away odds and ends like valves and such, I would be looking at even more startling outlays.

To wit. My hot well started out life as a small metal filing box. I found it in a thrift shop for a buck. The wood I'm just now making into boiler lagging started out life as a shipping cradle for huge pleasure boats coming from Taiwan. An old longshoreman dragged half a semi truck load of it home and I bought it all for a couple hundred bucks from his heirs. Need any very high density Mahogany?

On the other hand, there are several very nice boats in our local club that were built or half built some years ago and are now in the hands of people who are not wood workers or machinists and are taking wonderful care of them. And improving them. And, most importantly, steaming them! As long as they don't make me attend events with a bag over my head, I'll continue to drool over their beauties.

Meanwhile, back to the shop. I've generated about a cubic meter of hardwood sawdust in the last day or two for Barbara's garden walkways. Thanking my lucky stars for that nice planer/joiner I found cheap in an estate sale.

I'm not so tight that I squeak when I walk. I'm just careful with my money.

Mr Lopez, this site was started by my son to help and inform people regarding steam launches, Hydraulic steering is an option used by quite a number of people in the UK. I do not usually be rude to people in public but your superior ramblings are to say the least boring. In the case where you state to need for a rudder angle indicator is complete rubbish.
If you do not wish to pay $900 then don't. The option is there for those who may not know how reliable and simple such a system is.
Should I have offended you I do apologise now, I shall say no more on this matter here or in the future and will not enter into any correspondence. You of course may say what you will.
Regards
Jack

Apology accepted.

More 'superior ramblings'.

I went down to the 40' power vessel that I had installed hydraulic steering in many a moon ago. It has performed without a hitch for fifteen years now in the hands a dolt of an owner.

Indeed, each wheel moves independently of the other thus when one gets ready to leave the dock, one must spin the wheel from lock to lock and split the difference to have some hope of starting with a centered helm. In fact, there is a warning about this in the installation manual and the operating instructions.

I offered him a rudder position indicator at the time but he declined and has not yet sunk anyone.

It is sooo smooth and powerful. I thought at the time that the plastic lines were cheap and would fail but not yet. But again, out of my price range.