American towboat?

[Dinosaursoupman]

Googling Monogahela River Shipyards got me this result; http://books.google.com/books?id=BjBUV4t7YO8C&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=Monongahela+River+shipyards&source=web&ots=yLKwTlKBXe&sig=DHIkkL3Xs5watX7rwII6x504gxA&hl=en&ei=RLiMSYq7LYr2sAPFhbiOCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result, which discusses the shipyard of Snowdon and Mason of Brownsville, Pennsylvania having to move their operations downriver in order to be able to build "Monitor" class warships. Snowdon, Snowdon, where have I heard that name before? 

Randy

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's.....very interesting reading Randy ...by the time you get to page 78  ....you could think it would be a good script for a TV soapie....like "would they float or not"?.... with all the extral weight of materials....... anyone the answer.....let them read it for themselves....Derek 

[AlistairD]

The Clyde stern-wheeler was built by David Napier, who was then living in Worcester, for service on the Severn and named SEVERN according to Napier's autobiography, and renamed KILMUN.  She was built at Worcester and was 137ft long, 15ft breadth, and 107gt, and was flat bottomed, She was broken up late in 1860, so was obviously not a success. I believe she was fitted with Napier's rotary engine. She ran from Glasgow to Kilmun in 1860

[AlistairD]

I see we discussed the sternwheeler KILMUN on the old Yahoo! foum on 19 June 2005

Alistair

[towboatjoe]

I've always liked the American towboats, and I've built three so far - Two screw powered, and one sternwheeler. But where there ever any sidewheel towboats?

Sorry for not being around for a while Eddy. I have plans for about five sternwheel towboats.
There were hundreds of them plowing the Western Rivers at the turn of the century, up to 1960. There are still some smaller ones still in operation today called "pool boats" because they mostly worked the pool area of the river and seldom locked through the dams.

[towboatjoe]

Here's the major I have plans for.

Somewhere I had some drawings of the Alexander Mackenzie

John fryant has many plans for river towboats. His link is http://modelplans.steamboats.org/

[towboatjoe]

I also have two excursion boats. Homer Smith used to run the Ohio River and the other I designed from photos from the 1950 film Showboat. It's called Cotton Blossom.

[towboatjoe]

I think your asumptions probably answer the question Keith - No American sidewheel towboats and no British sternwheelers for the reasons you mention.

Regards
Eddy

But we did have sidewheeled towboats. Though not many. We even had a tractor drive back in the 1940's that was convereted to a sidewheeled drive in the 1950's, then was converted to three harbourmaster outdrives on the stern in the 1960's.

[Eddy Matthews]

Do any photos or drawings exist for a sidewheel towboat Joe? I've been unable to find anything, so would appreciate your help!

Regards
Eddy

[towboatjoe]

I'll look and see if I can find anything. Some of the tinclads that still had good hulls under them were converted to towboats. most of the sidewheelers were packet boats then they discovered a way to add payload to barges and push them too. After the packets were aging they were discarded for the more powerful sternwheelers that could push bigger loads.

Here's the last boat used as a sidewheel towboat. Sunco was orginally designed as a tractor drive, it was converted to sidewheels, then to out drives. Last photo of her existance before scrapping named City of Catlettsburg.

[mjt60a]

...the caterpillar drive... they actually built those!!!  there's a (partial) model in the science museum showing something very similar but I didn't know it was ever really used....

[mjt60a]

How about Indiana, was that a towboat? There was an article (in model boats) on building a model, I'll have to try to find out if I still have that issue as it had a bit of the history of the real boat...

[amdaylight]

I may be all wet on this but I think the Indiana was a packet boat not a towboat, the way I understand the distinction is that a packet boat carried the cargo on board the boat and most of the time never pulled or pushed a barge. If you look at the picture there are no knees to push a barge with. Where as a towboat never carried the cargo, it was always on a barge that was either pushed (most of the time) or towed.

Andre
over yonder in Portland Oregon

[Eddy Matthews]

Yup, that's my understanding too Andre.....

Towboats are normally flat fronted with towing "knees" for pushing the barges. Definately a unique design of boat specifically built for one purpose, that of pushing large barges full of cargo.

The Americans developed the idea (in the 1840's I beleive?) and apart from a few of the larger European river systems they remain a unique American type of vessel.

One thing that confuses a lot of people is the term "towboat", here in the UK (and most other countries) we assume that "tow" means to PULL - Whereas towboats PUSH their barges. The reason for this is quite simple, a string of barges is called a "tow", hence the boat that pushes them is a TOWBOAT.

Regards
Eddy

[towboatjoe]

Packet boats, like the Indiana, were the fore fathers of the towboat. In latter years they started building barges and pushing them with a packet boat. How they done it was pushed three wide and the packet fit in the middle knotch with a barge on either side.