Lucky Duck, 48ft trad stern

Our boat, based in Cambridgeshire is for sale 
(Update: July 2013: The boat is sold)

Lucky Duck is a 48ft traditional stern narrowboat first registered in 1986, with a reliable BMC 1.8 engine. It sleeps 2, makes a great live-aboard boat and is well adapted to coping with being away from shore power. Easy to handle and well laid out inside with a traditional 'saloon forward' layout, it would be a good starter boat for anyone looking to begin a life afloat, or enjoy some holiday cruising. All systems are in good working order.

Last backed August 2011, BSC until 2016. Hull surveyed 2013 and available for viewing.

Guide Price: £23,500 ono 

Accomodation
Starting at the bows, there is a large storage locker, with water tank below, and an outdoor space, with a vinyl cratch cover. Rolling up the the sides makes this a lovely space to sit outside in the summer. In winter there is plenty of room for fuel storage without resorting to using the roof. The two 19kg gas bottles are also out here. 

Entry into the cabin is through a pair of beautiful unique curved metal framed doors with glass panels. The boat is lined with a combination of T&G and plywood, with polystyrene insulation. It was completely refitted by the previous owner, with new wood floors, in 2006. Moving back through the boat there is a comfy living room, with shelving, a two seater sofa, a fold out table and some fixed seating with storage under. The boat is heated by the Morso Squirrel solid fuel stove, with a back boiler to a radiator in the bedroom.

In the kitchen, there is a domestic sized gas oven and four hobs, a very efficient Shoreline 12V fridge freezer, a sink and lots of storage space. All the oak cupboard doors open to reveal sliding drawers, maximising storage and access. There is a wet room with a Morco instantaneous gas water heater (no need to run the engine to get hot water!), a shower, sink, and a Portpotti toilet.

The bedroom again maximises storage space by having a double bed which folds away in seconds on gas struts when not in use. Underneath is a top access wardrobe, lots of deep shelves for storing books and clothes, as well as two chests of drawers, and a step with a lid for even more storage. Part of the space under the bed used to be a desk, and could be easily converted back. Up the step and through the door is the engine room, housing the reliable, skin tank-cooled BMC 1.8 diesel engine, which has been regularly serviced and run. I 2009, we had the engine re-aligned and new skin fittings installed by Fox's boatyard at March. Its relatively short length for this size engine means that it is a nippy boat. 

Electricity 
The battery bank consists of 4 100Ah Elecsol deep cycle semitraction batteries and a dedicated started battery, which are all two years old, but have been well-looked after and continually charged by the 136W solar panel on the roof, which charges the batteries through a top of the range MPPT (maximum power point tracking) regulator. There is also an alternator and a 20A charger which can be used to charge the batteries when connected to a generator or shore power. A 2000W inverter allows you to use mains powered devices when not connected to a shoreline or generator

The boat has a 12V circuit which runs the fluorescent lights, water pumps, fridge and 12V sockets, and a 240V system which runs additional lights, and power sockets. The solar panel means that from March until September, the boat is entirely self sufficient for electricity, This is great for live-aboards, but also means peace of mind if you are leaving the boat for extended periods of time, as you know the batteries will be full when you get back.

Exterior
We repainted the boat (taken back to bare metal) in 2011, and refreshed in Summer 2012, using Craftmaster Grand Union Blue on the sides and International Atlantic Grey on the roof. We don't know who the boat is built by. Best guess is a Colecraft hull with a bespoke, one off cabin. The roof is double skinned as it seems to have been extended from a cruiser stern to a trad stern at some time in the past, and a new roof put over the whole lot. The hull was blacked in 2011 with two sprayed on coats of International Intertuf.  There is some minor, historic, pitting on the hull which the survey picked up, but this has not advanced  at all in the five years since the previous survey, so are not of concern. All mooring lines would be included in the sale. There is a double skinned chimney.

Bilges/Ballast
The boat is ballasted with shingle in the cabin bilge and with moveable paving slabs for adjustment in the bows.

 

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Willow's History

For us, one of the best things about owning an historic boat is the history behind it, and the cargoes carried and routes used, along with the people who worked the boat. Here's what we know so far after a little research; we're planning on visiting the waterways archives to discover more!

Willow was built by Charles Hill of Bristol, one of eight new motors ordered by Severn and Canal Carrying Company at a cost of £700 each. It was registered at Gloucester (no.533) on 18th February 1935. These eight boats were composite of wrought iron (from Hingley's at Netherton) with elm bottom boards. The hull was welded rather than riveted together, and was one of the first to have this revolutionary construction. They were built to carry the maximum load possible, specified at the full 72' long, and the welded construction, very bluff fore-end and short double curved swim allowed a capacity of 33 tons on a 3'9" draft. The design was not pleasing to all, as Rolt called them "ugly and clumsy". 

A number of additional features distinguished Willow and the other "tree class" motors; the 9hp S-type Petter Semi diesel was located in an engine room at the back of the cabin, with the accommodation between engine and hold. This was very unpopular, for the steerer was subject to all the noise and exhaust smoke, and could not tend the range when travelling. Other features included water ballast tanks under the cabin floor (Willow still retains traces of the in-built tank) along with very pointed sterns, bell-mouthed ventilators, engine exhaust funnel and portholes being very much like those fitted to the seagoing ships that were Charles Hill's normal output. In addition, the tee-stud on the fore-end was sideways and the counter was fitted with two small tee-studs rather than dollies; this was to prevent ropes from high tidal dockside walls such as at Gloucester Docks slipping off. The engines were problematic; although apparently never intended to tow a butty, the 9hp engine was inadequate for a single motor on the fast-flowing Severn (earlier wooden S&CCCo motors had 15hp and 20hp Bolinders) with, for example, Willow once being swept downriver and becoming stuck on Maisemore weir. 

Willow had a very short working life with S&CCCo, being worked by Walter James Tonks and others.Major contracts included carrying chocolate crumb for Cadbury's to Bournville - this contract and Cadbury's presence as a director on the board of S&CCCo secured the construction of the "tree class" boats - along with (reputedly) Typhoo Tea, England's Glory matches, and other cargoes such as timber, wheat, canned goods and metals from the Bristol Channel ports to Birmingham. In the 1940s it was leased to FMC who used it, and 4 others of the tree class, around the Midlands and North-west region, before 1949 when the DIWE relegated them to maintenance craft. Willow (along with Ash) had a crane fitted in the hold and languished in Hayhurst Yard in Northwich, before being bought by Malcolm Braine (along with President, Holland, and Ash) in the late 1970s.

It was advertised for sale, and was sold into private ownership in 1979, despite it being sunk at the time! It was rebottomed in steel in 1980, replacing the elm, and a wooden framed full length cabin added for the owner, who lived aboard since then, with the cabin being recently skinned in steel. It was rebottomed and refooted in steel in 2010 at Langley Mill.

Links: 

Photographs of Willow (not Oak) at Hayhurst Yard in the 1970s

The Tonks family, who worked Willow in the 1930s

Photographs and details of Oak, another Severner, still in original condition and unconverted

Photograph of Oak, looking in need of another refurbishment, showing the original arrangement of chimneys, marine style ventilators and exhaust funnel

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Fitout of Willow is in progress

See http://severnerwillow.wordpress.com for lots of photos of Willow in dry dock.

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Historic Boat Owners at Last!

I've been teasing our blog readers with a few images of our new old boat for a while, not wanting to tempt fate by revealing which boat we had made an offer on, but now, I can say that our new old boat is the 1935 Severn & Canal Carrying Company motor, Willow.

Today, the boat was surveyed by a specialist in historic boats, and he assured us that the hull, rebottomed three years ago, was in good shape, and that in general, the boat was an excellent buy! So, we are going for it!

The boat is in need of a lot of work on the interior but we are very excited to be embarking on our next adventure! We have started a new blog for Willow, at http://severnerwillow.wordpress.com

We can also show some photographs of the boat now we can say what it is....

Midsummer Common

Whilst we wait impatiently for Friday's survey of the New Old Boat, and to hear if anyone wants to buy the Duck, it is good to remember that living here, in this city, on the river, on a boat (a boat!), is simply wonderful. And that whatever happens over the next few days and weeks, however stressful it is, we are lucky. Lucky ducks in fact (for now at least!).

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The Key to the Kingdom

Some years ago, we needed to get hold of a BW Key and Sarah (then on Warrior, now of Chertsey and Bakewell) came to our rescue to lend us hers. It was a symbolic moment - once you have the key that opens up all the waterways locks (both the navigational and the door sort) you are officially a boater. 

So it was with great pleasure that we gave this EA key as a gift to our friends who have just bought their first boat. I bought a mini picture frame and put a photo of them and their boat inside it. It's got an extendable string and a clip too for attaching it to your belt whilst boating (I find this is more reassuring than having them on a cork ball).

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Inside the Duck

I rarely post photos of the interior of the Duck, because photographing the insides of boats is notoriously difficult and the Duck is rarely tidy enough! But we had three viewings scheduled this weekend so the boat was looking nice and the sun was shining so I took a few photos both for the the blog and to use on the Apollo Duck ad, which is now updated.

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Still Waiting

Well, we had hoped that by Valentine's Day we would have our New Old Boat, but we are still waiting. The dry dock was booked for the 8th but the boat being worked on in the dock was not finished due to the bad weather. (It is not a covered dock unfortunately). So we re-booked the dock and the surveyor for the 22nd and went up to the boat anyway. Since the boat is not lived in (due to not being fitted out!) we were able to stay over in it for the weekend, make more plans and take measurements. It was really useful to have the time to poke about and get our heads around the task we will have ahead of us if the survey comes back with good news.  Thankfully the stove is installed and proved to be quite wonderfully warm, we had a shoreline and a sofa bed to sleep on. 

As well as drawing plans, we also went over to the current owner's garage to see the things he took of the boat when he removed the fit out to have it rebottomed. There were a lot of very useful bits and pieces like a  nearly new Spinflo oven/hob, a gas water heater, table and chairs and a boat size mattress which would all come with the boat. Additionally we went to the nearby IKEA and spoke to one of their consultants about how much a kitchen would cost. We weren't sure if we'd like any of their kitchens but we found one very traditional looking style which we both liked, and when they helped us cost it up, we found that it was well under our budget. They also gave us a free lunch because we had to wait to have an appointment with them. Since we'd been planning to eat there anyway, this was a bonus! 

We'd planned to stay the whole of the half term week at the boat had the survey happened on the 8th and gone well, so that we could make a start with the fit out, but since we didn't want to do any work to a boat that's not ours yet we only stayed until Monday morning. We decided to have a break anyway, and so spent two days in nearby Nottingham, somewhere neither of us had been before. The weather was fairly grey but we had booked a nice little hotel near the Arboretum and we enjoyed wandering round the city and taking rides on the trams! We walked the length of the Beeston Cut in two parts: from the railway station to the Trent on Monday and all the way out to Beeston  on Tuesday. On Monday night we ate in the pub which now occupies the ground floor of the British Waterways building in the centre of the City. 

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