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Old Broads Engines


Vaughan

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  • 1 year later...

Hi everyone, I don’t suppose anyone knows of a handybilly db2 for sale or spare parts for one. I have two in an old boat and have managed to get them both running but am making parts as I go and am critically short of spare parts. Any parts no matter how small or a whole engine in good or bad condition would be most welcome.

Many Thanks

Russell

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This mention of the Thornycroft 'Handy Billy' engine reminded me of a boat my Grandfather owned in 1959  Wyvern 2. she was built by Husk and Son of Wivenhoe in Essex, 1928,  The engine was easy to swing with that big flywheel. (even for a 14 year old!). For several years it had been on a mooring in Folkestone, and when it had a For Sale sign on it grandfather did not hesitate, a rather rash purchase as it turned out, we moved it to Dover where there were berths available (where the Marina is now) The first winter, craned out, rather a lot of planking needed replacing.  A couple of cabinet maker friends and most of the family helping. 

Back in the water looking very smart, a decision was made to sell. The replacement was a new Freeman 22  how different! unfortunately the new owner replaced the Thornycroft with a BMC diesel, and built a wheelhouse over the cockpit, which I thought spoilt the lines.  I wonder if it is still around?  Photo taken in Dover harbour, just back in the water, me at the helm. The steadying sails (I think they were termed?) were put up just to see how they went.  I often wonder if She survived.

 

Untitled-12 Wyvern 2 .jpg

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With nowt else to do I thought I'd spend a couple of hours going through some old brochures, of the time when they listed the type of engines. Vaughan has already listed the main engines of the time in his original post, so here are some of the lesser used ones:

Mid 70s Hoseasons:

Aux yachts;

Stuart Turners from 1.5 & 4hp; 10hp 2 stroke Seafarer; 6hp Penta; 3.5 & 9hp Coventry Victor.

Cruisers: Ford Fisherboy; Ford Watermota 1200; Sea Urchin 1350; Ford Zephyr 1700; Renault 1108; 10hp Buch; Mercedes 636; Thornycroft 1.5; Standard Seamaster; Ford Wortham-Blake; Volvo Penta MD4; Yanmar; Ford Sprite; Ford Altair, Ford Merak (These were also listed as Sutton Altair & Merak - perhaps Fords marinised by Sutton Staithe Boatyard?).

One 22ft cruiser had a 6-cyl Volvo!

1971 Blakes:

E R English's 26ft aft cockpit had a 12hp Gray Marine (fitted forward); Loynes Loch Lomond had a  Godiva CD2 diesel; Most of Brooms boats were fitted with BMC Captains & Commodores but Navigator 3 & 4 had Ford Altairs; Richardsons Ultima had a 2.25 litre Ruston Rover; Woods Conquest (ex Ace of Hearts?) was fitted with a 30hp Coventry Victor Vixen.

1963 Hoseasons:

Wild's Nymph & Fantasy classes were fitted with 14hp Rolls Royce; Newson's Sapphire had a 15hp Scammell; Laura Cruisers' (Martham) Laura 2 was fitted with twin Morris Vedette's; Red Line's Senior had a 18hp Gray Marine; E Johnson's Abel Tasman had an 18hp 2-cyl Enfield diesel; Summercraft's Lady Jane class were fitted with 10hp 2-cyl Petter diesels; Bridgecraft's Tower Bridge had a 10hp Meadows Kittiwake; Hipperson's Steal-a-way class were fitted with 14hp Austin Skipper; R Fisher's Gwyniad had a 15hp 2-cyl Albinco 23; Cobholm's Breydon Lass class were fitted with 10hp Parson Prawn; Cruisercraft's Hibiscus had a 8hp Brit. Marine.

Southgates' Super Stream was fitted with a Morgan Giles Hydraulic drive. Morgan Giles built some of the longest (and sturdiest) GRP canal boats at their factory in Teignmouth - pretty far from the canal system. Some went to their fleet at Aynho on the Oxford canal, while others went to Ladyline and also the British Waterways hire fleet.

As an aside, while I was looking through the brochures I came across Broom's wooden Midshipman. Craig had listed it as a Captain. The pic in Blakes brochure was of a slightly more modern version with window size between those of a Captain and a Navigator. What brought it to my attention was that I was sure I had seen one in recent years. It turned out to be Midshipman 2 which in Craig's list was last seen heading for the Thames named Althea after a few name changes. I have a little bit of movie I took of it moored at Anderton Marina, Trent an Mersey canal, in 2012 looking very smart.

 

 

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Thanks very much for your trouble in researching that. It just shows that yards had all sorts of ideas in those days, to try and produce something "better" than the others.

 

2 hours ago, webntweb said:

(These were also listed as Sutton Altair & Merak - perhaps Fords marinised by Sutton Staithe Boatyard?).

This may explain a lot of other engines as they were often the same basic engine, but marinised for marine use by different companies.

I do of course, stand to be corrected on this  :default_gbxhmm:  as I am only talking from memory, but I seem to remember the Ford Watermota and Fisherboy were the same engine with a different gearbox. Similarly, I think the Meadows Kittiwake may have been a version of the Morris Navigator. 

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No trouble at all Vaughan. What you say about yards trying to outdo each other rings true. I suppose all's fair when the main way of reaching your customer was your boats' descriptions in the Blakes/Hoseasons/Bradbeer brochures.

What are obviously the same engines were sometimes rated as different horsepower by different yards; I suppose the thinking would be that if your boat was listed as 30hp and a similar one from another boatyard was listed at a lower horsepower, that a first time hirer especially, would be likely to go for the higher rated one.

I don't suppose they were being dishonest, just bending the truth a little, as I believe you can have rated horsepower, shaft horsepower and probably others – I've no idea of the difference but I'm sure you have.

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6 hours ago, webntweb said:

I suppose all's fair when the main way of reaching your customer was your boats' descriptions in the Blakes/Hoseasons/Bradbeer brochures.

You don't know how right you are with that statement.  Or maybe you do!

Both Blakes and Hoseasons were marketing on behalf of member boatyards, so each one wanted his own space with his own photo and his own description, even though most of them were now coming out of the same Fibreglass moulds, and it would have been so much better to group them in classes, with a choice of different places to start from.  So the whole thing ended up looking more like an estate agent's window than a holiday marketing brochure.  Jimmy Hoseason and Jim Brooker, at Blakes, used to tear their hair out over this, but they couldn't persuade the owners!

And then in the late 60s we got the "symbols"!  Each boat description had a symbol on it for things such as fridge, heating, hot water, shower and razor point, so an awful lot of money had to be spent by small yards to "keep up with the Jones's" and have all the symbols!  It takes a lot of time and money to fit a shower compartment into an old boat which was never designed to have one.  And then some yards started insisting on a larger space if they had several boats of the same class (started by Martin Broom with the Admirals) which is how the Wilds Caribbean ended up with a full page all of its own!

In Crown Blue Line, our brochure became famous among the travel agents as we only had 10 classes of boats in it, but exactly the same boats, to the same standards, could be hired in 18 different places in France and Europe.  So regular customers could come with us on the same boat for 18 years, in a different cruising area each time.  A very much better way of marketing a boating holiday!

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On 26/07/2018 at 01:04, BroadAmbition said:

Wouldn't it be great if you two could remiss over a couple of pints in a riverside pub and allow the rest of us to eveasdrop?  My broads memories go back to the early Sixties, even further back on looking at Mum/Dads photo's and notes but it is so much better to hear it spoken direct from the likes of you two.

Just to say a small Thanks really :default_icon_bowdown: and if the pub thing doesn't happen, being selfish  then can we do it one day onboard 'B.A' ?

Griff

 

 

 

 

 

How about a series of Podcasts featuring various characters of the Broads?

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8 hours ago, quo vadis said:

Volvo Penta MD4 and Mercedes OM636 were identical :default_icon_wave:

When I had a share in Lightning one of the reasons to replace the Perkins MC42 with a Volvo D2-55 instead of a Nanni was that the Perkins and the Volvo shared the same engine block so it was a fairly straight replacement without any work needing doing on engine mounts etc.

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7 hours ago, Vaughan said:

In Crown Blue Line, our brochure became famous among the travel agents as we only had 10 classes of boats in it, but exactly the same boats, to the same standards, could be hired in 18 different places in France and Europe.  So regular customers could come with us on the same boat for 18 years, in a different cruising area each time.  A very much better way of marketing a boating holiday!

Different strokes for different folks I guess. I know people who don't like to hire the same boat twice even if it's really good - I think I'm a little bit like that too but equally I have my favourites as well which I've hired multiple times.

I guess in the general sense of selling holidays though (ie probably 90% of the market) I would imagine it works well keeping things simple.

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6 hours ago, webntweb said:

When I had a share in Lightning one of the reasons to replace the Perkins MC42 with a Volvo D2-55 instead of a Nanni was that the Perkins and the Volvo shared the same engine block so it was a fairly straight replacement without any work needing doing on engine mounts etc.

I'm sure the fact that Brooms were main agents for Volvo and didn't really want to sell anything else had nothing to do with it....

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1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

It sounds as though that particular Volvo is a Perkins MC42 anyway. A large number of Volvo engines are actually Perkins.

I think basically anything with four or fewer cylinders is, yes - Although it may be slightly more complex now.

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2 hours ago, oldgregg said:

I think basically anything with four or fewer cylinders is, yes - Although it may be slightly more complex now.

Here you go !

D1 / D2 = Perkins

D3 = Volvo Car engine but assembled by VP.

D4 / D6 = Volvo Penta.

D5 / D7 = Deutz

D8 / D11 / D13 / D16 = Volvo Group

V6/V8 = GM

Seven Outboards = GM

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2 hours ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Did the BMC 1.5 & 1.8 share the same block?

Different blocks I think. 1.5 drives the injection pump via the old petrol engine distributor drive. The1.8 injection pump is driven off the timing cover.

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6 hours ago, oldgregg said:

I'm sure the fact that Brooms were main agents for Volvo and didn't really want to sell anything else had nothing to do with it....

We looked at Nanni as well but the difference in cost plus the extra fitting costs were something in the region of £2,000.

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1 hour ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

That works for all trades, you`re not bothered if you don`t get the job and if you do then you feel better about doing it at that price.

Well that will be one good thing to come out of the virus . . . there'll be more people after the same work  . . . bad news for the rip-off merchants.

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