Merry Christmas and a happy new year, Sorry no Model T This year but rather it is our 21 foot long live steamer 1889 Steamboat "Tinkerbelle" going at full speed ahead !
Note : Five miles an hour is full speed !
Nice boat. Does it burn wood or what? Two cylinder, double acting? What pressure do you run? Looks like Lake Tahoe. Do you use the lake water for make up?
Put a Klaxon horn on it and you could call it Thunderbell.
Neil
Nice vessel, Frank. Is this the one that you recently restored?
Oh and...MERRY CHRISTMAS! (That's my Card :0)
The hull was copied off of an 1889 steam launch and is dated 1939. The engine was built in 1906 it is a 2 by 2 1/2 inch double acting single cylinder engine and with our 50 square foot boiler we make two horsepower. At sea level we get between 80 and 100 p.s.i. but at 7000 feet on Big Bear Lake in So Cal we only get 65 p.s.i.
But that drives us along at 5 miles an hours so says our Garman. It originally ran on charcoal and took 45 minutes to get up steam. We switched to propane and get going in eight minutes at full speed.
There is a link on facebook by looking up Tinkerbelle under # 3 son Bill's title and watch a nine minuted film of the first launch.
Frank, hat is a very interesting craft you have there. I have a question: is it possible to design a similar shaped boat that is propelled by a hit and miss motor. Or if not, is there ANY way a hit and miss motor could propel a small boat? (perhaps paddle wheels on either side?)
There are marine hit n miss motors, Hicks is one. A few boats with them show up at the annual Sacramento Delta Steamboat meet. They can propel a not "so small" boat.
50+ years ago all the fishing boats used to have hot bulb engines in the swedish fishing villages along the coast. Quite a characteristic sound. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJjeA38wQi8
@Frank: When at sea it is nautical miles and speed is measured in knots :-)
And the Danish fishing boats had the same type of engine.At the Gręsted Steam fair we see several of them in the stationary engine section:
Enjoy the cooling tower on the first picture :-)
Now I watched Rogers video - that engine is danish build - actually on the same shop that overhauled my Model T engine according to the previous owner.
I saw hit/miss powered small boats all over Nova Scotia and New Foundland. Rob, have anything?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruckzone/2916070121/in/set-72157607822094420/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruckzone/2920316389/in/set-72157607822094420
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bruckzone/2916852478/in/set-72157607822094420/
Almost forgot the most important part.....
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.......
GOD BLESS YOU EACH, FAMILIES AND FRIENDS
As a small boy growing up in Newfoundland I could hear these boats quite often. My father owned one with a Three horse power Acadian make and break. I took it many times and it was lots of fun and quite a challenge getting it stopped and in reverse heading back to the wharf.
Merry Christmas to all as well.
Michael, We are on a lake at 7000 feet and not at sea. We are about 1.4 miles above the ocean and over 100 miles from salt water. Our GPS is land based so gives us miles. So we go 4.334 knots. If you also require kilometers it is 8.05 :<)
Our little two inch bore by two and a half inch stroke double acting steam engine puts out two horsepower with our boiler.
Looks like the style of one of those boats from Disney's Jungle Boat Cruise.
How long does it take to get from one shore to the other?
Martin: The Lake at Big Bear is one and a half miles wide and seven miles long. You do the math. We use a 20 pound propane bottle and can go for 12 hours on it. Wind is our enemy as it can get choppy out there at times. We can always make headway even in the wind and it is a lot of fun.
Let's see some other cards.
The Disney Jungle Boats are rather fat squatty things in order to carry a lot of people and they run on a rail like a train but you have to have a marine license in order to run one. Unions and all that, you know. They have transom sterns which makes them wider and our boat has a fan tail.
Frank
I ran into these this summer at Anacortes Wa. There were about 18 there
Bob
So now I have to ask a question. Where can I find a boiler for a small vertical steam engine. The set-up would be similar to this:
Talk about thread drift!
Herb,
I see you can get a boiler from a boat at Big Bear Lake (see Christmas card above) or there are at least 10 boilers at the dock in Anacortes Wa. (see photos above)!
Why not just build a boiler to the size you need?
I would try to build one, but I know it might have to be inspected. It would be cool to find the remnants of one like the cast iron firebox in the picture.
If anyone has some photos of the inside of one I'd like to see it.
Herb
Herb. If the boiler is under 50 sq feet and the boat is under 34 feet long and not for hire, and you operate under 125 p.s.i. . . . there is no inspection required.
I have the legal papers for California hidden in the boat someplace.
Posted on behalf of Bill Alexander
1925 Pickup
Thanks Frank. I will have to look into that.
Herb