there are all sorts of boats on the waterways narrow boats dutch barges
river cruises and many type of day boats as well the more traveling we do the more we see
and yet there is always something new to discover
welcome to another episode today we have something a little bit unusual for you we were lucky to
meet nigel one of our patrons who has a historic narrowboat our paths crossed here in henley and
luckily he invited us over for the tour and was happy for me to film his boat
obviously he has all the knowledge so he's going to be doing most of the talking
i hope you enjoy geeking out on this beautiful narrowboat owl and let me know what you think
between 1922 and 28 the canal carrying company fmc embarked on an expansion program
they built 30 boats and owl was one of the last ones of the batch it was
completed on 12th of december 1928. at a cost of seven hundred and twenty pounds
hi i'm nigel and this is my name about owl owl is a 1928 yard joshua um they called joshua because
they were made for telesportsman clayton and one of the directors called joshua clayton
she's 70 feet and 9 inches long and nearly 7 feet wide she was used as a as a motorboat and
would have towed a buddy behind though this would have been paired with a boat a boat another boat
that had no engine this boat is a motor because she has an engine and this boat was restored by
sue and jim hutchinson back in the 1990s for a burnt out wreck they just put a cephal engine
in her which is a big single cylinder engine which they rescued from another wreck of a boat
and then um in about 20 years ago they put in the kelvin engine that's in the boat now when the boat
was used it used to carry all sorts of cargos and travel the country being an hour boat she could go
pretty much most of the network apart from the northern network which had some shorter canals
so starting from the stern of about um at the back we've got the boatman's cabin as they would
have had originally and then moving forwards here we've then got the engine room uh with
the kelvin k2 engine in it i then got 10 foot of hold which is an open hole area just under cloths
and they make you roll back there's the sessions and modern technology there um and in there i've
got workbenchers and tall chests and not do any sort of repairs i want um living reason there and
make things on the boat then moving forwards there's a steel um steel conversion under the
boat under the cloth so she's kept looking like a fully working boat um but underneath these
sections here they're actually windows all right okay cool so i i travel generally in disguise
maybe i just have one window as you can see from there um oprah just a bit of
light i mean when there are there's plenty of light in there but of course it's very dark
when they're down so we've got a living area there and then i've got a kitchen area here
and bathroom and then bedrooms at the front at the front here is a tunnel lamp
which came from a london fire engine it's adequate
does it work yes it works yes but i think i'm going to put a bigger bulb in it right i see so
that's that's about from stern to front this part is a lubey which could be used for towing the boat
attaching a rope and towing it and if a boat went ahead into lock the rope would stick off
but they met weight locks going forward so you can pull the
boat going to demonstrate clarkson on this boat
so at the back of a boat we have a traditional breakfast cabin um in which the family working the
boat would live so you'd have a boatman and his wife because his wife would do giant steer stupid
busty um when when were going along and he would drive for motor uh and they live here honestly in
the back cabin in this space with their children often as many as four children at the back here
um so we have bolton's uh stove here um which has an oven in it and a small fire and this heats up
the area very much it is a very effective stove um you've got the lamp here which provides for light
and then you've got um two side beds here um and there used to be there should be a privacy board
here which is a small piece of wood about that high and then across the back here you'd have
the the cross bed which there's a mattress that goes across there joins up to this to give you the
space for the adults to sleep in the space here i use this space um generally just at rallies just
to do the boatman's thing because of course i've got the forward accommodation um but um yeah and
this is what i consider the guest accommodation but it's it's fun at times to do the old-fashioned
thing and sleep in here on a cross bed have a stove going um and you know eat your dinner off
is this the warmest room on the boat definitely warmest yes yes the firebox is only that size
yeah that's that's the bit that opens it yeah but it's the amount of heat it generates is enormous
this isn't a traditional stove per saying that it's not an old design a previous owner has put in
this modern creation which has got a very effective oven i mean i've been huge in this
so i don't live on board um this boat it's a it's a hobby like you have a classic car
but this is like a classic boat so the same sort of hobby so i take her to shows and rallies um
the main one being braunston in june and there's a very good one also huddle split every two years
which i really enjoy um those are times when i enjoy this boat as an old boat um other than
that it's a holiday boat um just to go on all day just go for a couple of weeks go cruising um this
time i'm on a longer holiday and i'm making more use of her and it's um it's been very good fun
that's the crumb drawer crumb yes what does it mean because you catch the crumbs from the table
in here you've got that and you have ribbon plates and they use decorative plates with um your
ribbons oh wow and so these all hang up in it's just all hooks on here to hang all these plates up
but they do get in the way yeah so those are those on their stay on that side
this is the ticket draw that's where in the old days
they used to store tickets for their cargo when there was a lot of paperwork involved
running a boat so you got covers in here which will open um
across here you've got controls for the engine and gears so that's the speed one and that's the
the gear change so they run across the top of the
cabin through to the engine room so this is a cross bed
so it drops down now this was typically this this drawer here where we put a baby
in so the youngster would sleep in there um this is actually being made into a
the bottom jaw um this is just a front on it um with a slide out and then put the baby in
there or two and then sleep in there yeah oh cool that's the coldest place on the floor
what we've got over here is a day tank which all um historic boats had originally this boat um
didn't have a doorway where you're standing and it had a great big tank and a day tank on top of it
so this boat has got underfloor tanks now but it still has a day tank
and it's got a sight glass you can see how much diesel you're using
so every morning you need to pump diesel in the main tank into blade tank using this pump which
you pump to fill up the tank how long does it take you every day um about five minutes it's not too
bad it's quite an efficient pump now this is a kelvin k2 which usually came from a lighthouse
kelvin engines didn't use to go with narrowboats they're using fishing boats
um and in lighthouses and this this one came from a lighthouse on langness
it was one of three engines and it would have powered at the that end um a compressor about
as big um bearing my best engine is actually set down in the floor um very low um it's actually a
baby engine the compressors were huge as well and you'd have three engines in the lighthouse
two would be running at any one time and one would be a spare as a backup
and they compress the air for the fog horns this engine they've been discontinued they've gone to
modern compressors and this engine along with several others was rescued it is a eight liter
petrol start diesel which confuses a lot of people on the top of the cylinders you've
got extra combustion chambers and you see spark plugs here and you've got the carburetor here
which feeds in to these these combustion chambers
to start the engine you've got a valve which linked to these and bears to the main cylinder
and when it's like that it's in diesel and the valve's up about to close and so it's really on
the higher compression but to start it on petrol you need to decompress the engine and thereby
allow this extra bit of capacity to be used for petrol starting you have to prime the carburetor
it hasn't got it hasn't got any petrol source to it just put a measure in there
measuring jug here and that dispenses just the right amount of petrol in there and you prime the
um combustion the petrol combustion chambers with this priming gun which just um just fits up
against there and you just one plunge about when you close the tap there's a magneto here which is
um for provided spark to the spark plugs which are up here this can be hand started
as a whiny handle at the back um this boat has given concession to modern technology and actually
had a starter in ground into the flywheel so this actually starts on electric starter
it's a big engine to turn over by hand it's possible
when this engine was renovated
and addition was made to the engine which is a spermo start which is used on vintage tractors
it allows a small amount of diesel into the intake manifold and heats it up so it burns
and this enables you to start it without using petrol so you can just start it on the thermostat
you just push a button allow this to heat up a little bit diesel because the next cap
drips down ignites and we push a starter and it runs and it starts straight away on diesel
she will just about start on diesel um without anything which is already warm so if you've
stopped in a lock um i find it helps just to decompress the engine spin it on with these
starter and just close it and she'll start without anything but first thing
in the morning you need to use petrol or the thermostat in here is a little reservoir of
diesel it's just a small amount because only a few trips that go through there's a tap here
which allows the diesel to go through but you've got the glow element here which let's it expands
and lets the diesel through and it's got a little coil in it which ignites it this is
just a telltale light to tell you that there's a circuit going to be to be when i start
so this section of the boat is meant to um be as a working boat would have been um but
without stuff that's in it there's a workbench and drawers and stuff in there a cold bunker
gas locker this would have all been opened all the way to the front of the boat
um the cloths um are in two of two parts um if you've got a cargo which didn't need to be um kept
dry or the weather was fine because when they got somewhere to unload it would take a lot of time to
get the clothes off you've got top cloths and you have side clothes so normally they'll just have
side clothes on which just stops stuff falling out um and just keep the car going because you
know you may heap it up it wouldn't be just level with a site with the gunnel so it would it would
be heaped up so you'd have side clubs um and then a working boat would also have a set of top clubs
and you would have stands uh and a plank which provide the bridge the clock for the
top cloths to go over it and so this this this sort of part of it is is a
semi recreation of that setup so to start engine on the firmware start i first
decompress the engine because it makes it spin a bit easier make sure the injectors
are closed so that the diesel will go straight to the engine we'll put a bit of foss along
put the charging circuits on and then i push the button for the thermostat which is just lit up
and after a short period of time you'll see some smoke appearing at the bottom
of the air intake okay we're going to have a smoke from a thermostat so start the engine
so
and that was gorgeous narrowboat owl thank you so much to nigel for letting me film
your treasured boat you can visit ours website linked below or ask any questions in the comments
and of course huge thank you to our patreon community this wouldn't have happened without
you thank you wonderful people for supporting our journey our art and inspiring us to make
more videos every week we are so grateful big love to you dear friends see you next one