A Boat Like No Other (Part 2)

 
The Covers Removed
 
On 22 November 2012 an item was posted on this blog about the creation of a working boat of the type unique to the Chesterfield Canal  -  the New Dawn project.
 
This is a tremendous undertaking totally manned, and funded, by members of the Chesterfield Canal Trust.
   
In November the boat was still draped in tarpaulins, but since then the covers have been removed and the scale of what has been achieved is plain to see.
 

They worked throughout the wet summer of 2012, and now the late bitter coldness of winter/spring 2013, but by early February the volunteers could take delight in seeing what they had achieved.



By late March the major task was caulking.  This means forcing the caulking (created from woven strands of old and new ropes and soaked in Stockholm tar) into the joints and seams, and the gaps between the planks, to make the timbers watertight.
 

At the bows  -  both sides of the stem post are being sealed.
 
Harry, on the left, is cutting out a slot using a brace, and on the right, Richlow's John is caulking the joint with a wooden caulking mallet. 

A Boat Like No Other

 
What's Under the Covers?
 

It’s mid November 2012, and what’s under the covers?  It’s a narrowboat being built, and it's no exaggeration to write that it’s of a kind the like of which you have probably never seen.  Not because she’s a new design  -  the exact opposite in fact.
 
But she’s not a replica, instead she’s the next in line of her unique class, it’s just that it’s been over eighty years since the last one was built.  A cargo-carrying wooden narrowboat with hybrid power systems  -  horse and sail.
 

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Boats such as these operated on a standard narrow canal, a waterway built to the same dimensions as many at the centre of the national network.  But because the Chesterfield Canal is on the fringes of that network its narrowboats did not develop in the same way as elsewhere.  Instead they remained unchanged over centuries and were never adapted to engine power.

They had two cabins, one in the bows and the main one at the stern, but they were below, with access through hatches in the decks.
 
There was a crew of two, who did not live on the boat. They always had homes ashore.


The fundamental influences on their design, other than the narrow canal dimensions, were the vessels that plied the Trent and the other rivers of the region, especially the inland keels.  This was bound to happen because the same men built both types.  Therefore, the narrowboats of the Chesterfield Canal could be described as narrowkeels, a development not seen anywhere else  -  in the world!
 
Unfortunately none of these craft survived the end of cargo-carrying on the Chesterfield Canal, in the 1950s.  However, one, named Ida, survived long enough for astute people to measure, photograph, and note her dimensions  -  people who then waited many decades for the opportunity to create a new Chesterfield Canal narrowboat  -  and that’s what’s under the covers.

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Her name has not yet been announced, but she is being built by the New Dawn Project, and it's being done by using traditional tools, materials and methods, no power options here.  The workforce consists of members of the Chesterfield Canal Trust led by the man whose knowledge makes it all possible, David Bownes, a boat-builder who worked on repairing these boats many years ago.  The funding was raised amongst the membership of the CCT, plus donated materials, such as flannelette, hand-tools, clamps and wooden ladders.
 
So in November 2010 they set to, the team of volunteers learning from scratch some of David's wood-working skills.  It was a steep learning curve but they were fulfilling a dream.
 



November 2010. The boat will be built on the stocks, the trellis-like forms, which have already been made by hand.  The two planks being worked on are the first of the many "bottoms" which will, you've guessed it, form the bottom of the boat. Being planed and drilled by hand - as has everything else.

 

The kind of tools used. 

 

The modern blue twine and the synthetic sheets are only there to cover the boat when work is not being done. No modern materials have been used in building the boat.

 

Two years on, November 2012, and considerable progress has been made. The bottom and flooring have been done, and four runs of planking now form the 70ft sides.

The gaps between the edges of the side planks (strakes) will be sealed.
 
In the second strake up can be see the type of joint used to fit them together along the sides.

A major operation has been steaming some of the strakes to bend them around to form the shape of the bows and the stern.
 
The upright timbers are the headstock, a temporary fixture keeping the bow timbers in place until they are locked in by other permanent planking.

It's labourious work, but fulfilling.  Probably a once in a life time opportunity.

The countersunk bolt holes will be plugged with tar and resin.

Steamed strakes near the stern.  Again a temporary headstock can be seen, holding the planks in place, the same as at the bows.

 This scene is so evocative of the entire project.

It's of another age, and smells of tar and timber.

 

 

When the boat is finished there will be no sign of what is called "traditional" roses-and-castles canalware decoration  -  that didn't spread to this part of the network.

 

What she will have, at some time in the future, is a mast and sail for when she ventures out onto the tidal Trent.  The boatmen of the Chesterfield Canal had no fear of the river, but plenty of respect, because it allowed them to reach other markets for their cargoes.

 

 

A model giving an impression of what the bows and stern of this unique narrowboat will look like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geography ordained that the narrowboats of the Chesterfield Canal would be of a unique type.  Soon, there will be a new one.

 

Phyllis of Barton

      

Phyllis is a Humber sloop, but rigged for sea-going trade on the Humber estuary and up and down the east coast.  She is typical of hundreds of sailing sloops that carried cargoes on those waters.  She is privately owned by two members of the Humber Keel & Sloop Preservation Society, and can often be seen in company with the HKSPS's keel Comrade and sloop Amy Howson.

Photograph by Kate Smith

Built 1907 by Warrens of New Holland for James Barraclough of Barton, Phylllis is 68ft long by 16ft beam and iron construction. She was engined in1943 and stayed with the same owner all her working life until sold off with the rest of the fleet in 1974. After an excursion to Scotland with a new owner she was bought by her present one, towed back to the Humber and is now being restored to her former self as a cutter-rigged Humber sloop of her time.  Full details from http://www.sloopphyllis.com/
   

Phyllis (left) and Amy Howson (right).  The two sloops at their winter moorings at Barton Haven, in March 2010. (The wheelhouse near the stern of Phyllis belongs to another vessel beyond her).  This picture was taken during an exceptionally low tide and shows extensive mudbanks on the Humber.

   
   
   

Syntan of Beverley Beck

     

Syntan is owned by the volunteers of the Beverley Barge Preservation Society.  http://www.syntanbarge.org.uk/

Beverley Beck is an off-shoot of the River Hull, and Syntan may be chartered for trips down to the Humber Estuary, with a crew of 4 and a maximum of 12 passengers.  The trips are tide dependent and last for a maximum of 6 hours.  She operates April to October.

Syntan was built 1949 in Beverley, and was one of a fleet of 16 barges based in that town, owned by Richard Hodgson Tanners.  The fleet carried coal and hides into the tannery, and collected from Hull docks raw materials used for tanning from India, South Africa and Paraguay.  As well as trading between Hull and Beverley, they also carried general cargoes such as grain, flour, paper, and nuts, to South and West Yorkshire.  Therefore, Syntan is a "Sheffield size" barge, 61ft 6ins long, and 15ft 6ins wide.

   
Syntan was bought by the Beverley Barge Preservation Society in 2001 and after years of hard work she has been restored to her original condition, and is once again moored in, and operates from, the town where she was built.

Syntan on her moorings near Beverley minster