Thames Sailing Barges

[Crab and Winkle]

Hi everyone

After talking about modeling Thames sailing barges in the S7 section of this forum I thought it would be good/have been asked to put a few notes together on the subject hopefully suitable to railway modelers in all scales.

Part 1

What did/do they do?
Flat bottomed Thames Sailing barges historically had two main tasks shipping goods between ports large and small on the East and South coasts and particularly in and out of London and performing lightering tasks.
This involved loading and unloading goods onto moored ships waiting to get a berth alongside warfs or unable to berth because they drew too much water.
Barges carried a vast variety of goods but some of the pricipal ones were, grain, timber, coal, bricks, sand/gravel, expolsives/munitions, malt, hops, stone, manure, refuse and hay.
From the 1960s onward an increasing amount of barges became barge yachts and there are still 20+ active barges performing charter work or privately owned. Each year many compete in a series of races or matches (some of which date back 100 years) for the title of champion barge in 2012 the winner was the Edith May.

Where could/can they be found?
Thames barges, particularly the larger ones can and do stray a long way from the Thames. Inculding Holland, the Baltic, the Channel islands and in one case the Carribean. One also went to Canada as deck cargo in the 70s.
Of more use to modelers however is where the could be found in the UK. Loosely speaking at their peak they could be found from Portland to Newcastle with the larger ones (boomies and mulies) being found further from london. The greatest concentration was of course in the Thames Estuary on the North coast of Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and the wash and through to Hull where Humber Keels carried out tasks similar to the smaller barges.
When they became yachts they could turn up pretty much anywhere like some of the preserved steam locomotives. However their flat bottom isn't suitable for long swells and they tended not to linger on the west coast or were based in ports for various static uses. I have heard that when the Northdown went to its new home at a maritime museam in Brest France. The decks rippled and spat pitch pieces as the swell past underneath.

Types of Barges and Cargos

TBC I will look for some photos to illustrate the next section as it starts to get complicated when talking about rig types,

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Part 2

Basically there are four main type of barge, a couple of subtypes and a few experimental barges. However there was little uniformity in construction so within certain parameters they come in a wide range of shapes and sizes. Few were built from plan more commonly they were built frm half hull model and different builders had different styles such as Canns of Harwich.

I will start with the most common type sprities or more correctly spritsail barges. These Barges were the middle of the road type usually ranging from 78-90 ft in lenght although this is probably not as important as their differing tonnage.
Asside from a flat bottom the key feature would have to be the sprit pronounced "spreet" it is a large piece of wood or steel that runs diagonally upward from the base of the mast. It supports the mainsail and holds the topsail out and also acts as a derrick when the sails are stowed.

The Sprit is the the large yellow pole in this photo running from the top left to the base of the mast.

This photo shows the Reminder, Dawn and Repertor from left to right. The Sprit can clearly be seen on the Reminder and Repertor it is always on the starboard side of the mainsail so can't be seen on the Dawn as it is on the other side of the sail. Another key feature is the black object on the side of the Reminders hull. It is a Leeboard these can be raised and lowered by hand winch called a crab winch. These serve the same purpose as a keel on a yacht or a centre board on a sailing dingy and keep the barge upright and stop it from being blown sideways due to the flat bottom.

This photo shows the a leeboard on Decima there is one on each side.

Some spritsail barges have a bowsprit (a large pole extending from the bow) they are known as bowsprit barges and are usually the fastest. Spritsail barges without a bowsprit are known as staysail barges.

The bowsprit and extra sails can be seen in this photo of the Adieu.
The bowsprit can be raised to take up less space when moored. As in this photo of the EDME heading into Maldon the Bowsprit is vertical above the capstan winch. When you see how the barges are moored and you consider the situation in the small docks in London it is obvious that it is a space advantage.

The masts can also be lowered flat to the deck which allowed the barges to be towed or skulled under bridges to load and unload. I don't have a photo of this but will look for one online and post a link.
More to come........

 

[Dog Star]

Excellent stuff! Thank you.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

Fascinating Bill, keep it coming mate

ATB, Col.

 

[Alan]

Nice to see a photo of Dawn. I've sailed on her many times taking parties of junior school children on 2 day trips out of Maldon in Essex, when she was owned by the Passmore Edwards museum in the London Borough of Newham. Also had a couple of week long floating pub crawls exploring the East Coast rivers to Aldeburgh, Not with juniors I may add but with adults, most of whom were sailing instructors who helped out at Newham's Outdoor Education facilties just outside Maldon.

 

[mickoo]

Of the 5,000 plus ship photos I have, I only have this 'one' of what I generically call an East of England sail barge...not my biscuit you see...no idea of the vessels name or type but it, along with another 'brown' one, are very common at Felixstowe, if I see them again I will try for some better photos for y'all.

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Hi Alan and Mickoo

The Dawn along with the Gladys and the Kitty were barges my dad took me sailing on as a kid so I have a bit of a soft spot. I will put some more up when i start to talk about cargos in a bit more detail particularly stackies or hay stack barges of which Dawn was one.

The photo that Mikoo has suplied is the TSB Cambria and if you have any kind of interest in historic shipping (which 5000+ photos would definately suggest) this is the one you would want.
The Cambria was built at Greenhithe Kent in 1906 91ft long and registered at 79 tons. She is famous because she was the last british vessel to trade under sail alone hauling her final cargo in 1970 under skipper and author A.W. "bob" Roberts. She has recently completed a rebuild in Faversham Kent which has taken several years.

Many barges were based at Harwich and Ipswich historically performing lightering at Harwich and carying grain to Ipswich and returning with flour or animal feed. The navy aslo used several at Harwich for carying munitions to moored warships. Barges were built at Harwich and Mistley and haystacks, malt, bricks, and etc were carried from the smaller towns on the Orwell and Stour.
Today there is a barge centre at Pin Mill on the south bank of the Orwell where a number of barges are based. Each year the passage match runs from Gravesend to Felixstowe and usually the Pin Mill race is the following weekend these are 2 of the 8 championship races held each year.

Part 3
The photo of the Cambria shows she is Mulie rigged that means the second or mizzen is quite tall for a barge and gaff rigged (it has two wooden poles at the top and bottom called a gaff and a boom). This was a common rig for the larger barges the largest of the barges the Boomies had two gaff rigged sails like a ketch and no sprit. This made them better for deepwater sailing but was more labour intensive and required a larger crew many were converted to mulie rig in the 1920s and 30s.
The usual crew for a barge like the Cambria was 2 and a dog. Many of the smaller barges would have a crew of a man and a boy or a skipper and his wife. It was this efficency and the fact that a barge would only draw 2-3 ft unloaded that allowed them to survive in trade for so long.


This photo shows thr Reminder in the foreground she is staylsail rigged with a small mizzen, in the background is the Hydrogen which is mulie rigged. The mizzen being much larger the top being level with the join between the mainmast and topmast.

On the other end of the scale there were the small stumpy or stumpsail raigged barges these were 60-75 ft long and primarily worked in the brick trade between Kent and London. In Victorian times these would have been the most numerous type there small size allowed them to get a long way up the Thames and into the canals in places. These barges had no bowsprit a small mizzen and no topmast on the mainmast.

The Nellie is one of the last of the stumpies and can be seen at the left of this photo. Here is also a link with a better photo
http://www.thamesbarge.org.uk/barges/barges/nellie.html
The final type of barge is the swimmie or swimheaded barge these are the oldest remaining type and are basically a Thames lighter with a spritsail rig. These were common through to around 1910. Two lighters have been rigged as barges in recent times (barges frequently becoming lighters and lighters barges over the years). These are the Fertile and the Montreal here is a link to some photos of the Montreal.
http://www.sailingbargeassociation.co.uk/matches/medway_match/gallery2002.html
look towards bottom of the page particularly at the shape of the bow.

next loads and traffic flows

Cheers
Bill

 

[mickoo]

Bill, I doff my cap, you got me beat mate, your anorak is far more enveloping than mine LOL, Containerships, stowage and container handling I can cope with, RoRo too, but all these sailing thingies! And all those ropes and knots, Noooo, not for me LOL I'll stick to steel boxes inside bigger steel boxes any day

I was going to say how on earth you knew that barge from one small image, but then I could probably do the same for most if not all container ship profiles that visit Felixstowe LOL.

I will concede that East of England barges probably have grand father rights to today's modern behemoths, it's all about adapting vessels to cargoes and flows, we still do 'lightering' but it's now called transshipments, large vessels discharge 4000+ TEU and maybe 1500 will never leave the Port gates and will go out again on smaller 'feeder' vessels to Europe or around the UK coast.

Nice photos, top one looks like Shotley in the background? Second one is definitely not the River Orwell....too clean....too blue! LOL.

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Hi Mickoo,
more luck than anything with the Cambria one of my uncles is heavily involved with Standard Quay at Faversham where she was rebuilt and I had a trip aboard her when I was in the UK last September.
Also I have done a fair bit of barge racing aboard the EDME who is part owned and skippered by another uncle. When your racing you need to be able to recognise the other barges quickly and know their capabilities rather like recognising members of an opposition sporting team. The only difference the barges come with a 100 year history. Also the family buisiness over in the UK is largely built around restoring traditional wooden boats (smacks and barges mostly) with the most recent being the TSB Thallata. Although along with the local fisherman they are increasingly involved in windfarm tender boas.
The picture of the Reminder and Hydrogen was taken on th blackwater looking south between Steeple and Bradwell. The one with the Nellie is also on the Blackwater near Maylandsea.
Cheers

Bill

 

[mickoo]

Bill, yes I suppose racing does hone ones recognition skills LOL, the photo was taken 23rd Aug 12, probably just before you embarked.

Blackwater, hmm only went there once on a skills building exercise, which required three of us to race around the coast in a RIB to Burham on Crouch, wish it had been as smooth as your pictures, we'd done each leg in an hour, took four there and three back!

 

[Buckjumper]

Excellent stuff Bill, please keep it coming

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Hi Mickoo
going between the Blackwater and Crouch in an RIB, so presumably as close inshore as practicable you probably went right over the top of the lost Saxon city of Ithancester. Somewhere off St Peters-on-the-wall. Suprisingly for a lost city only a small tiny amount of research has been done on it but the old fisherman of Brightlingsea and Tollesbury some times used to bring up bits of pottery, masonary and timber joined with treenails. It appears to be associated with the older roman Orthona fort in the same area.
I must admit I did consider a continuation and beefing up of the Southminster branch terminating at Ithancester (that was never washed away) for my layout.

Cheers
Bill

 

[Eastsidepilot]

.......I must admit I did consider a continuation and beefing up of the Southminster branch terminating at Ithancester (that was never washed away) for my layout.

Cheers
Bill

I too had thought of an imaginary extension of the Southminster branch to Bradwell back when I started with Scale4.
Could be interesting in S7

Col

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Yep Bradwell would be another option, possibly a ww2 layout with trains of brick rubble from blitzed london houses for construction of the airfield.
This traffic was in fact carried by barges one of which was mined with the loss of her mate. The Green Man pub at Bradwell had the names of the airman carved in the bar when I went there last year the bar had been replaced but the top had been made into tables to preserve the carvings. The Green Man was the only one of the four pubs I used to drink in with my grandfather still open. The Black Bull in Clacton is now a tescos express, the Anchor in Brightlingsea apartments and the White Hart in St Osyth has been bought by a property developer and closed to become part of a new housing estate.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Interesting stuff on the Thames Barges. I was doing some family research a couple of years ago and found out some of my grandmothers family were lightermen on the Thames.

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Hi Dave
there are several websites useful for tracing family history particularly on th lighters. You may already aware of them but a couple for anyone interested.
http://www.bargemen.co.uk/
http://www.bhsproject.co.uk/occ_lighterman.shtml
http://www.watermenshall.org/
Lighterman had to serve an apprenticeship of several years hear is a short documentary about it from the early 60s

Cheers

Bill

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Part 4
As well as the difference in rig as highlighted in earlier posts. The shape and size of barges varied dramatically depending on builder, owner, age and cargo rquirements.

Have a look at the different shapes on these two barges, the curve in the hull of the iron barge Wyvenhoe on the right and the difference between deck hight and width. Also look at the different shaped transoms (the decorative coloured part of the stern).
This Pictute also shows differences in hull shape the Betula on the right was built of Steel in Holland for coastal and cross channel working including coal. She has a round chine (where the side of the hull and bottom meet) and a high bow for dealing with larger waves. The EDME on the left was built of wood for the fast shipment of grain between Ipswich/Harwich/Mistley and London. She has a hard (or Square) chine the line of wich can just be made out in the red antifouling paint just above and to the right of where the rope meets the ground.

The grain trade was a big part of the barges work loading from local warves and ships coming in from Australia and Canada and taking the grian to mills sometimes returning with a load of animal feed etc. Sometimes grain cargos were split with other cargos such as cement (bagged obviously not bulk) a barge might load imported grain in London, then some cement in Kent for a trip to the south coast where they might venture as far a Cherbourg or Plymouth several certainly brought china clay as a return load.
Another example is loads of grain or animal feed for Yarmouth then going on to the Humber or Tyne to get a return load of coal for London. My grand father taught me a well known poem about the trip from the Humber to the Tyne that identifies the shoals and lighthouses etc.

First the Dudgeon, then the Spurn,
Flamborough Head is next in turn,
Filey Brigg is drawing nigh,
Scarboro' Castle stands on high,
Whitby Rock lies out to sea,
So steer two points more northerly,
Huntscliff Foot is very high land,
Twenty-five miles from Sunderland.
Hartlepool lies in the bight,
Seaham Harbour is now in sight.
The skipper says if all goes right
We'll be in the Tyne tomorrow night

One skipper in the grain trade spent his entire career hauling wheat from Faversham to London only to load wheat in London to take to Faversham. Of course the London wheat was imported for baking and the Faversham wheat locally grown for animal feed.

Barges loaded just about any cargo wool bales, barrels, crates, coal, grain, malt, skins, rubish, coal, manure, cement, explosives, stone, bricks, sand, timber, gravel even oil and gas in tanker barges. Frequently barges operated with 3 inches or less freeboard (the distance between the water and the deck) as can be seen on the 2nd and 3rd photos if you scroll down the page of this link.
http://tsbtcharters.org/25.html
Also on this page you may have noticed a stackie or haystack barge with a load of hay for the horses of London these barges would colect hay from ports in Kent, Essex and Suffolk and return with loads of manure for dressing the fields of farms. The Dawn and the Ethel Maud are two examples of stackies still in existance they are broad and flat with little sheer which is not suprising they were more stable as opposed to the fast grain barges.
Compare the flat shape of the Dawns rail/deckline to the likes of the Betula above.

Like the grain trade the brick barges worked a circut taking rubish from london part of which was burnt in the brick kilns in Kent and returning with bricks. The ashes were also shipped for industrial and agricultural purposes.

next a barge on the layout..........

 

[Alan]

Not quite as I remember Dawn fom the late eighties. She didn't have a white mast and bowsprit in those days.

I can remember one trip on Dawn when we were picked up in Collier's Reach opposite Heybridge Basin and stopped at Osea for low tide so that the propeller could be put back on as it had been taken off for the previous weekends barge match.

 

[Crab and Winkle]

Osea Island has been used (probably for hundreds of years) for barges and smacks to scrub off and in more recent time remove or replace propellers for racing without having to pay yard fees.
I have done the same thing sailing on the fishing smacks Electron and ADC before and after races in the Blackwater. Osea is an interesting place the remains of the WW1 Costal Motor Boat base can be found just east of the peir. These were the predecessors of the MTBs in WW2 the commander of the base won the VC for a succesful attack on the Russian fleet in the Baltic in 1919. They were basically large wooden speedboats that would start a torpedo on the deck, it would slip over the stern and the CMB would speed off one is preseved at Duxford.
The Island was at one stage owed by a brewery and set up for rehabilitating wealthy alcholics. The bouy off the peir is known as 'the Doctor' Tollsbury fisherman would leave bottles of spirits tied to the bouy and the residents wouls swim out for them leaving considerable sums of money. The Island was being used as a rehab centre (rumoured to cost 1000 pounds per night) and closed to the public when I was last there in 2008 but I understand it has been closed down since.

 

[Alan]

When I was working for Newham we did once have to pick up the Dawn by taking the children across the causeway to Osea. I think at the time it was owned by Cambridge University. By the way on the day the propeller was being refitted I took the children on a walk around the Island on roughly the High Water mark. Which was interesting as the landward side as it were is much more marshy then the main river side.