PT Jumna

[Richard Farrington]

My query involves the Jumna a paddle tug boat that was built by Hepple at
North Shields . She weighed 51 tons and arrived at Littlehampton in 1884. In 1923 she left the harbour and was reportedly used on the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers. In one photograph she carries the letters CHC which is believed to be chcampbell.

I am looking for plans or photographs of similar vessels in model form and
would love to see a working model sometime.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Best regards,

Richard

[Khephre]

Richard,

you may have seen this photo already but for general interest, the following webpage has a photo of Jumna.

www.deltatango.freeserve.co.uk/ littlehampton.html

Caption reads: Paddle Steamer (Tug) Jumna Built 1884 51 tons at Quay with Paddle Steamer Worthing Belle backing up to leave.

I noticed the completely open wheel - bet that was a cold post on a wet, windy, wintery day!

Tony

[PJ]

Hello Richard..and first, on behalf of the entire gang here, a very warm welcome to "Paddleducks"..the NUMBER ONE meeting place on the internet for paddler enthusiasts!

So Jumna huh??  That attractive little paddle tug which was the workhorse of Littlehampton Harbour in Sussex? Yep, I know her very well and in fact I've been studying her too for the past couple of years.

Photo Reference:
I have a dozen or so postcards showing her in various situations in the harbour and I also have a couple of excellent large reference shots of her so I'm pretty confident it wouldn't be a stretch to detail her from the images I have.

Plans:
I have been in contact with Ray McKenzie, Curator of the Littlehampton Museum, and he has never seen plans of the ship although he says he has had requests over the years from enthusiasts wanting to model her.
He has very little information on Jumna (in fact leass than I have) but he did send me a copy of an interesting article in the August 1980 issue of Live Steam magazine.  There's a fascinating piece about a fellow in Western Australia who remembered Jumna from his youth and decided to build a large scale steam model of her.  The article has drawings of a profile, plan, and feathering paddle wheels and some detailed diagrams of the steam engine he used for the model and, although I have no idea how accurately these dimensions reflect those of the actual ship,  it looks fairly close.  I recently managed to obtain a copy of this magazine on Ebay.

Without a reference, these drawings may not be sufficiently accurate for a serious researcher, so the original builders' plans would have to be located and, most important, hull lines.  A likely source is the infamous NMM but even if they do hold them, their prices for "research", printing and mailing are so outrageous as to be untenable to most modelers.  I wrote to the NMM a year ago asking them if they hold plans for Jumna but got a reply stating that " owing to the large volume of enquiries my request could not be processed at this time". I have never heard from them again.  

I don't know who holds the "Hepple" factory archives and plans  but this could be researched.  If eventually the plans for Jumna herself do not exist then another approach is to locate the hull lines for a paddle tug from the same builder, of similar dimensions and built within the same time frame.  

History:
I know little about her other than she operated very actively at Littlehampton from the first decade of the 20th Century and is described briefly in Phil Thomas' classic reference work British Steam Tugs as follows:

"The favourite at Littlehampton was the iron paddle tug Jumna (1884, 81.5 ft. 51 tons, 24 n.h.p.) which can be seen in many of the picture post cards of that port steaming towards the harbour entrance loaded with holidaymakers."  So, in the tradition of many harbour tugs of the era, it seems she also doubled as an excursion steamer although I never seen a postcard or image of her with "holidaymakers" aboard.

A small picture of Jumna[/b appears on page 145 of British Steam Tugs

Articles:
I have only been able to find one newspaper article which was published in the West Sussex Gazette of June 25, 1987 and entitled "A timely rescue job by the tug Jumna".  There is the article in

So, Richard, I'd be pleased to compare notes and the folks in Littlehampton would love to see a model built of their famous harbour tug.  I am currently researching all the paddle steamers which were berthed or visited Littlehampton and includes my primary research vessel Worthing Belle.  Incidentally there were a a couple of contemporary and rather similar tugs to Jumna based a little further down the coast at Shoreham.

Look forward to hearing more from you.

PJ
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

[Vasse]

Richard and PJ

Hope you're still watching - I only happened onto this site today - I have knowledge of the replica Jumna built by the "fellow in Western Australia" (actually he was a Minister of Religion skilled in engineering). I lived next door and was the "helmsman" of Jumna for many wonderful trips up and down the Vasse River in Busselton Western Australia.

I have several old photos of this Jumna which I've scanned onto my computer and will gladly email to anyone who has an interest in this little ship. I only wished I'd had a digital camera back in the 1950s and early 60s so I could have taken many more detailed photographs!

Hopefully I've successfully attached one reduced size photo to this post

Please post a reply if interested and somehow we'll work out email addresses

[PJ]

Vasse..so pleased to meet you and a huge welcome to Paddleducks.

I'm so glad you found us especially as you are so familiar with the Busselton "Jumna".  I would love to receive your photos and if there are any of the original tug you'd like, I'd be pleased to send them.

You don't say much about yourself other than your association with the Busselton Jumna. I guess you're in OZ, so please feel free to fill us in a bit with an introduction on the public forum so everyone can know you're here.

My email address is pauljordan@shaw.ca

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards

Paul (Jordan)
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

[greateastern]

Hello Richard,
According to Ritchie--The Shipbuilding Industry--(1992) Manchester Univ Pr--, Hepple was bought out by Brigham & Cowes Ltd in 1924. That firm's records are held by Tyne & Wear Archives Service,  but all that seems to have survived are the firm's business records mainly, no plans holdings there or at NMM, though the company was a member of British Shipbuilders as part of Tyne Shiprepairers Groups Ltd which ceased trading in 1982. Since that was part of the nationalized programm, NMM may actually have some plans since they seem to have others of the natinalized group--but again, they are not listed in either of the 2 record holdings groups for this company...

[Vasse]

Great to hear back PJ - a detailed email will soon be on the way to you  then perhaps you could advise what parts may be of interest to Paddleducks

[Eddy Matthews]

Richard did eventually manage to produce the model of the Jumna - I received this email from him earlier today....

Hi Paddleducks
 
I asked about the Jumna steam tug that plied Littlehampton water. I stumbled upon the forum where I found some very interesting information about her.
I did make a model, not working, based upon plans for a card version.
 
Not very sussed about forums etc so have lost the link but would like to show you the model I made so here is a link.
 
It would be good to thank the people who contributed to my question about the Jumna but I cant remember my passwords etc so could you put a link to the section on my site that shows the model that eventually went on the harbour masters wall in Littlehampton and either thank them for me or tell me how to get back to the conversation.
http://www.richardfarrington.com/gallery_arun.htm
 
Best regards and thanks
 
Richard

Eddy