Bertha

Bertha was once known as a dredger – a boat which was designed to keep channels clear for shipping by removing silt. I now understand that correctly she’s a drag boat in that she was like an underwater bulldozer which just shoved silt elsewhere.

I saw her many years ago – in the 1970s I think – at the Exeter Maritime Museum which was a great place.

And there she is – or at least was. She looks a bit unprepossessing but this little vessel has claims to fame.

Let’s start with the motive power. This is a steam powered vessel but without screw or paddle wheel. She had a specific use in a specific location and she hauled herself along a chain which was anchored at some convenient point. Bertha would have been a dead loss in open waters for she had no method of propulsion other than the chain.

And then there is the age. Bertha dates from 1844 and was built to keep Bridgwater Harbour clear of silt. She was still operational when presented to the Exeter Museum in 1968.

And then there is the question of the designer. This boat is attributed to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Nobody is 100% certain but it is very, very similar to one he did design for use at Bristol docks.

She is currently at Eyemouth – the other end of the country and out of the water. Actually, Eyemouth is in Scotland.

All Brunel fans hope she’ll be returned to working order and will be seen in operation.

 

A paddle boat

I do not remember this occasion but then I was probably less than 2 at the time and I may not even have been a witness to this event. What we have is my sister operating a hand powered pedal boat.

I believe this was at Southsea, presumably at a boating lake. Brother looks to be enjoying it. Sister looks less sure. I think I might have been worried by that boat at rather a jaunty angle coming in on the starboard side,

A few years later I loved riding the paddle boats when staying with grandparents in Bexhill.

And I still find it hard to get used to the idea that I am the sole survivor of my childhood home.

The putt-putt boat

Or as some say, the pop-pop boat.

I think my daughter gave me this as a Christmas present ten or so years ago. It hasn’t seen the light of day for some time but it has happy memories for me, particularly when I was a teacher and took it to use in one lesson. It really seemed to inspire and motivate a whole class.

It’s a cheaply made bit of tin plate. It had a bit of the look of a heroin addict’s accoutrements, particularly with its little dropper for filling the boiler. I don’t know where that is now, but you can fill it from a tap with no problem.

Here’s the boat on dry land.

This was taken in artificial light which seems to give silver surfaces a golden hue. The outside of the boat is silver coloured. The metal flag at the sharp end is pure decoration.

Here’s the boiler.

It’s that black disc thing, supported on twin tubes and with the potential to be heated by a bit of candle. Apparently they work with one tube, but it is much easier to fill that little boiler if there’s a route for air to escape as water goes in.

Those twin tubes run along the lower deck and then protrude out of the hull.

I used flash which got the colour rendition rather better!

And you can click here to see the boat in operation in what I promise you was a scrubbed clean kitchen sink.

The science of the thing is strange. Water in the boiler boils and the vapour forces water out of the tubes which pushes the boat. But then, away from the heat of the candle, the vapour condenses and water gets sucked back in through the tubes. It boils and so on. I’d have said that the forward motion caused by the water boiling ought to be matched by an opposite force as the water is sucked back in. But this is clearly not what happens. The little boat continues to go forwards.

If you really want to understand it, having first obtained your degree in physics try this research paper.

Otherwise just enjoy a fun toy.

Sorvaag

Back in 1944/45 my father in law was a serviceman based on the Faroe Islands. These remote, North Atlantic islands had been taken over by the British and were part of a chain of listening and radio transmission stations which helped to control shipping which might have been going to or from the then enemy.

But Doug, for that was his name, had time to take photos and here is one of his showing Sorvaag across the bay.

Let’s zoom in a bit.

We can see a decent road (it links the village and the wharf) leading around a sheltered bay with the village nestled under the sheer slope of the mountain. Virtually all Faroese places are in that kind of situation for in times past communication between places was by sea so settlements were by the water.

Now we’ll fast forward 60 years to 2005 when we visited the islands – a wonderful experience. We managed to find just about the identical spot for a photo.

I have zoomed out a bit for I felt the picture was better with all of the mountain and some sky in it.

That’s about as similar as I can make it. There’s no doubt the village has grown but the road and the wall look just about identical.

But what a difference colour makes. In Doug’s photo Sorvaag looks a rather forbidding place but with colour (and a bit of sunshine) it looks colourful and pretty. It was probably just as colourful back in the days of World War II.

But fishing boats, at the wharf, would not have looked a bit like this.

Well what do you know? It’s the good ship Venus!

VIC32

Is this about computers? Well no, not really, but it may be a chance to say something of them. Actually, I don’t imagine there ever was a VIC32 but Commodore’s VIC-20 was said to be the first computer to sell a million units.

My first experience of a computer was when the school I worked in bought one. I was horribly unimpressed but then we got a BBC model B and I was told to take it home and learn how to use it. I guess it was 1981 and in those days a computer did not include any display – you used your own TV for that. Nor did it have any bulk storage. You used your own cassette tape recorder for that. People who remember those days will recall that there was a real problem getting the computer and the tape recorder to ‘talk’ to each other. I could not load the Welcome Cassette which came with the BBC B and I felt very fraught and frustrated. But then some determination set in. ‘Hang it’, I thought. ‘I’ll write my own program’.

I was thoroughly proud of my first effort in which I got the computer to draw the outline shape of a church and then made the bells ring. And wonder of wonders – I could save this little program off on my tape recorder AND reload it. The trouble was, I was hooked. Writing little programs became a passion – but I had to pass the BBC B on to some other user. I needed my own computer.

But the BBC model B at £400 was out of my price range. I got its baby brother, the Acorn Electron. The programs I had written all worked on it.

For a while, in the mid 1980s, I was making money writing programs and writing for computer magazines. Sometimes my monthly income from the computer matched my teacher’s salary. But I was caught in that trap of being a youngish dad with wife, children and mortgage. I didn’t have the nerve to chuck in the steady job and that was probably just as well.

Whoops! Let’s get back to VIC32. She’s a boat and I saw her at Crinnan in Scotland back in 2001. I liked her. And here she is.

She’s a Clyde Puffer and was built in 1943 – a coal fired steam ship which, as I write is 70 years old. She may be the last of her kind of ship still to be in service. She certainly has an impressive front end!

She was moored alongside Duke of Normandy II – the pair of them make a lovely picture.

Looking at 2013 web sites it seems VIC32 steams on – and takes fare paying holiday makers. She could almost tempt me to go cruising!