Naval steamboat T4

Thanks again to Tramontana, will pug the pipes off, but i guess they are plugged from the outside or id be sinking fast. The boat in the picture has taken quite a clout, from the ss river clyde on the way in id guess, looks twisted. From the chronology of the boat pontoon bridge, and its dismantling, where the other boats were taken off for other work, just leaving the one damaged boat behind, this was then salvaged later, for it then dissapears from ss river clyde photos. I have gotten through a fair amount of filler on t4, much of the damage/scars may be battle damage from shrapnell. I have been dismissing much of the repairs as poorly done work from the seventies, when the diesel engine was fitted, this may not prove the case, for emergency battlefield repairs may be a more plausable senario. It may not be the boat in the picture but then again it may. Im not a qualified surveyer but i will take another look and see if the theory fits the damage/repairs on the boat, like new ribs, transom repairs for strengthening and on rear corner, twisted frame, new tiller?

cheers

Anthony

Will do so, some pipe and jubilee clips in stores. its not that i cant fit valves but cant justify the time or expense right now, sure i can tat some valves from somewhere eventually.

The photo of the widebeam steam pinnace, shows the front third open then a canvas roof to the back deck, the funnel is towards the back of the cabin? Looks cool, i have an old print of the back of a pinnace off HMS London circa 1881 that shows the back of a similar canvas cabin over a lightweight wooden frame like an old barrel top wagon, steamed to a low curve. The roof extends for 2ft further than the canvas bulkheads, creating a overhang/porch type cover for and aft. You can see why they converted them to I/C engines, for you could have power and an entire deck for loading, instead of a cabin/boiler room taking up 2/3 of the space. No sign of a gun mounting or mast.

Have looked for numbers on transom, but no numbers in view, could be under large chunk of oak that has been added to strenghten transom, where exactly should i be looking? How large will they be an inch, three inches.

It is a historic boat, just look at how much ive learnt about the navy from studying her, but it may take some time to pinpoint the exact service recold. Have been emailing anyone i can find that may be able to help. Personaly i think T4 more intresting than T3, but i maybe a tad biased. We have the age of steam, battle scars and maybe a gallipoli campaign medal, dreadnoughts and Battleships and rocket powered toy boats. What more do you want? Have you any idea of which campaigns to study, surely T4 would not of been the crimnea, so what happened in between Crimea and ww1, apart from the suppression of slavery in Africa, could T4 have been at dunkirk.

will try to get a bit of pipe on the valves today, hopefully the Steamboat Trust people at Gosport can throw some light on the matter when i speak to them on Monday, will go down to see what going on and photograph everything if they'll let me, and I think my mums friends nephew is doing an apprenticeship there.

cheers Anthony

Clive see page 11, also referred to as T3, I should have said lighter rather than pontoon, I think it was Phil. S. and his friend who brought it to light.

T4. the rocket powered boat needs more work I think best left to another race who were quite good at rockets, unless of course you were the unfortunates on the receiving end. Having been to East Africa slavery has not been suppressed it is still going on unfortunatly, only it is a "home business" now. I think you have covered just about everything in your research on your boat you have certainly caught the bug like the rest of us.

This is the link to T3's website, clive

http://nationalhistoricships.org.uk/index.cfm/event/getVesse l/vref/712