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Boats


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aleida

ALEIDA 1 is an iron motor tug built sometime before 1930.  She spent most of her working life towing barges of clay behind her, delivering this essential material to maintain the banks of the low lying Fens in the East of England.
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  AMARYLLIS is a classic early example of a purpose-built motor pleasure craft in near original condition.  Designed and built by J H Taylor & Sons in 1954. Powered by a petrol engine, a fan is incorporated on the top of the engine to remove fumes from the bilge via a pipe out through the side of the hull.
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Bacup

BACUP is one of the last Leeds and Liverpool Canal motor short boats to be built.   Launched in November 1950, she was much lighter than her predecessors and could hold more as she was built with riveted steel plates.  Her Widdop single cylinder engine, a replacement, in the stern of the boat, is one of very few known to still be in existence.
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Bantam BANTAM II, an all-welded steel tug, was laid down on 26 August 1951 at E. C. Jones Ltd., Brentford.  She was built initially as a launch type tug, no. 20 in the Bantam series.
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BASUTO is a canal puffer, known as a Clyde Puffer, built of steel in 1902 at Port Dundas, Glasgow’s canal port, by William Jacks & Co.  They were iron merchants with offices in Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow, and their boats generally carried pig iron to the canal side foundries in the Falkirk area, where it was turned into stoves, ranges, gutters, downspouts and roof brackets. 
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Bigmere BIGMERE is a dumb barge,  ‘Mere’ Class, known locally as a ‘Duker’, it was the second of six steel barges ordered from Yarwood, which were the first steel barges commissioned by the Manchester Ship Canal Company for carrying on the Bridgewater Canal after WW2.
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Box boat 337

BOX BOAT 337 is an unpowered wooden narrow beam craft of simple and economic construction, flat bottomed and virtually slab sided.  She is a rare survivor from hundreds built to a standard design.

She is an open narrowboat (with no cabin) that carried her cargo in boxes that fitted into the hold.  The boxes could be filled with coal on the colliery wharf and then lifted into the boats.
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Chalk barge The CHALK BARGE is a wide wooden barge used on the River Arun, in Sussex, for carrying chalk to Littlehampton.  At one stage this craft had a cabin, engine and engine room.
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Concrete barge FCB18 is a ferro-concrete barge (or lighter), built using civil engineering techniques of reinforced concrete prefabrication.  She is unusual and is the result of war time austerity and shortages of materials such as steel.   A concrete barge of 200 tons dead weight required only 18 tons of steel compared with 56 tons necessary for a steel barge of the same capacity.
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Cuddington CUDDINGTON is a large cargo barge built essentially like a small ship carrying cargoes upwards of 300 tons. She was built by Yarwoods of Northwich in 1948 (yard no. 815) as one of a fleet of seven steel diesel boats built for the Alkali Division of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI).  Along with the other boats in the fleet, she carried mainly salt products such as soda ash along the Weaver from the works at Winnington (Northwich) to Liverpool.
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GD101 Dredger GD101, launched in 1954, is a welded steel, motor grab dredger built for the Manchester Ship Canal Company for use on the Bridgewater Canal. She has a punted bow and stem with abrupt angular plate shaping consistent with a craft built to a restricted budget.  An unusual feature of GD101 was that the Priestman crane’s engine was multi-functional and also drove the boat.
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Ferret FERRET, a motor, composite (iron sides with a timber bottom) narrow boat, was built by Yarwoods at Northwich, Cheshire, as part of the fleet of narrowboats owned and run by Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd. She is known as a ‘Josher’ after Joshua Fellows, the original designer of these narrowboats.
Ferret is sponsored by the London Canal Museum
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Friendship FRIENDSHIP is one of the most famous horse drawn, wooden narrow boats in the country.   She is a rare example of an owner-operated horse boat and, for over 50 years, she was the livelihood and home for Joe and Rose Skinner.
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George GEORGE is a Leeds and Liverpool Canal horse-drawn short boat.  Built of wood she has a distinctive transom stern with a large wooden rudder.  George is now a unique survivor of this class of canal boat, once numbered in the hundreds.
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gifford colours





Gifford as depicted by Edward Paget-Tomlinson

GIFFORD  is the last remaining unconverted horseboat from the Thomas Clayton (Oldbury) fleet and is part of the collection at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port. It is owned, operated and cared for by the Boat Museum Society. 
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Ilkeston ILKESTON is a composite (iron sides and elm bottoms), horse-drawn, narrow boat,was built in 1912 by Braithwaite and Kirk of West Bromwich as one of 24 boats ordered by Fellows Morton and Clayton Ltd for carrying general goods on the canal system.
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Ilkeston is sponsored by the London Canal Museum

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Marbury MARBURY is a wooden horse-drawn ice boat and, to keep the waterways open in the early days of canal transport, was used to break ice.  Ice breaking is something not seen today as there is now very little commercial traffic. 

To keep the navigation channel open, the long gently raked bow was used to help Marbury ride up on the ice, causing it to smash under her weight.  In addition, the hull was rounded to create a forward running wave that lifted the ice.  It also allowed her to be rocked from side to side, thus enlarging the broken channel. 
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Marlyn MARLYN is a harbour launch or ‘gig’ boat.  She was one of a fleet of boats that would service the larger boats coming into Liverpool Docks; not only sea-going craft but also those from the inland waterways.  She is typical of what must have been thousands used at docks all over the country.
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Mendip

MENDIP is a composite (steel sides and wooden bottom) motor narrow boat, famous as home to ‘Chocolate Charlie’ for many years.

After the Second World War, Fellows, Morton and Clayton (FMC) ordered six steel motor boat hulls from Yarwoods of Northwich which were delivered in 1947.  No. 5 was Mendip so she was one of the last two ‘Joshers’ ever to be built to a unique design of which had hardly altered from the 1880s.  The boats drew their nick-name of ‘Josher’ from Joshua Fellows, who produced the original design. (exterior display) (more & more)
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mossdale MOSSDALE is a wooden Mersey flat built of oak with pitch pine planking, following the design of the original Mersey sailing flats.  It is believed that she was built to the design of one John Smith of the City of Liverpool.
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Pelican PELICAN is a large, motorised, single screw steel tug/maintenance boat, fitted with a crane.  She was built for the Manchester Ship Canal Company and launched in 1956.  She carried out light lifting duties and general bank protection work and, to this end, she was fitted with a Priestman No. 7 lifting crane.  With a jib length of 40 ft, which was capable of lifting 25 hundredweight on a 15 ft radius.
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Perseverance PERSEVERANCE, known as Steam Dredger No. 14 throughout her commercial life, is a 70-ton grab dredger. The riveted steel box hull and two stabiliser side pontoons (sponson tanks) were constructed by James Pollock & Sons and the steam crane was supplied by Grafton Cranes of Bedford.
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Shad SHAD is a motor narrow boat of composite construction (steel sides and an elm bottom).  She was one of 16 ‘Fish’ class boats built at Yarwoods, Northwich, in 1936 for Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd (FMC).  Shad is designed to work singly.
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STRATFORD is an iron riveted boat that worked on the southern part of the Stratford Canal.  She was definitely used as a maintenance boat and is typical of the many small workboats used on canals. (more)
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The STARVATIONER in the Boat Museum collection is one of only a few examples left of the prototype narrow canal craft built of wood and used in the mines at Worsley. These cigar-shaped craft may have been the earliest built specifically for canals.  They were mentioned by Gariel Jars, a German visitor, as early as 1765.
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WAPPENSHALL is a small ice breaker, sturdily built of iron.  She has a particularly narrow beam and so could be a one-off design built specifically for the Shropshire Union Canal.
When she was ice breaking, she could have been towed by up to 10 horses hired from the Railway Company.
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The WEED CUTTER, affectionately known as ‘Jaws’, built in 1954, is a steel hulled Bedford Type B weed cutting boat. Propulsion of the Weed Cutter was by means of paddles and steerage was by movement of the whole drive/paddle assembly, running on a 10 hp Ford E93A industrial engine.
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Worcester WORCESTER was built in 1912 for use as a tunnel tug on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. She is currently fitted with a 30 hp semi diesel Bolinder engine. It is owned, operated and cared for by the Boat Museum Society.
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