Bridge 19-40 Boats

Other Boats

Members boats

Game Bird
You can see details of Game Bird, owned by the Ann and Iain Street, at: http://www.ann.street.btinternet.co.uk/gbird/

Bluebell

Our main boat is Bluebell, a canal narrow boat suitable for most canal networks.
Bluebell is 35 feet long, 6 feet 10 inches wide and has approximately 2 feet draft. This is a standard Narrow Boat size.
She is powered by a Lister SR2 (13BHP@2000RPM) diesel engine that has spent a bit of its time beneath the water. It was siezed when we acquired Bluebell and the mechanical wizards in the society have worked magic to make her into a reliable, efficient engine again.
We obtained Bluebell in a delapidated state. It had been sunk and vandalised. It has taken many hours of work to get her operational again.

The boat we call Bluebell started life back to the 1970's in England. She was purchased by Claire Hanmer in memory of her brother and was run on the Midland Canals.
Hugh Mackay, chaplain to the Order of St John in Scotland was part of the Embryonic Seagull Trust, formed in November 1978. This boat was purchased from Claire Hanmer with the assistance of funds from the Order.
In 1979 she was renamed "St John Crusader" at a ceremony in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh, and a berth was provided courtesy of Ronny Rusack, landlord of the Bridge Inn at Ratho at that time. She was the very first Seagull Trust boat.

"St John Crusader" was used by the Seagull Trust based at Ratho until 1996 by which time they had more boats custom built and had expanded from one base in Ratho to bases at Ratho, Falkirk, Kirkintilloch and Inverness. "St John Crusader" changed hands to a community group in Wester Hailes but unfortunately, there was not enough interest and she was left unloved for several years. During this time she was vandalised and sunk several times.
In 2004 the Wester Hailes group decided that the boat should be made available to a group who would actually do something with her and the Bridge 19-40 Canal Society acquired her for a nominal sum.

The picture above shows how it looks in 2009, fully restored and running with canopies now fitted to the front and rear. You can hire this boat with a crew, for up to 12 passengers. We can run a variety of longer trips as time permits. So long as the canal remains navigable (i.e. no ice), we can also run trips out-of-season. Bluebell now has the added bonus of central heating for those cold winter days.

The pictures below show some of the work we've done on Bluebell to get her to the present condition.

Before the work started - July 2004 Not quite Blue Bell, but Greybell makes her first trip Picture of Bluebell before the canopies were fitted
Bluebell pictures 2004 Bluebell pictures 2005 Bluebell pictures 2006
Bluebell pictures 2007 Bluebell pictures 2008 Bluebell pictures 2009

Roseann

Old Roseann

We'll refer to Old Roseann and New Roseann, since when Old Roseann went for repairs to BVT Surface Fleet recently, we received back nothing less than a new boat!
Old Roseann was most appropriately described as a skip with a canopy.

Roseann was the Bridge 19-40's only boat until 2006 and as such she had to fulfil many roles. We used her as a work boat to collect litter from the canal and its banks, we used her to give people boat trips and she was our main means of raising money. Quite a versatile little lady in fact.  She is basically a metal box about nineteen feet by five and is powered by an outboard engine which, it has to be said, had been less than reliable and in fact, in October 2003 we got a grant from Awards For All to buy a bigger, better outboard.  Roseann had a canopy which not only gave her some style but helped keep the rain off. The canopy, which was made by Peter Brock, was also showing signs of wear and a new one was specially made for us by Sail Loft at Port Edgar. See new canopy photos

Roseann has been far travelled this year (2003). Not only has she pottered about her home waters, she has been hired by members for  visits to the Bridge Inn at Ratho and has been to the Wheel - a long way for a wee boat.

The first Scottish Boat Show was held in August and BW asked the canal societies  to give members of the public free boat trips. This was too good a chance to  miss and plans were made! Fortunately, when we heard about the show, Roseann was undergoing a strip down and repaint etc and we reckoned that if we got our skates on she would be ready in time. Ian McDougall volunteered to take her through to Falkirk and he, with his sister and daughters on board set off on a nice sunny morning. Fortunately, Roseann had a support vessel (Gamebird) as the engine decided to stop working just after Lathallan bridge. Very mindful of the fact that we were now running  behind schedule to get down the wheel that night (Gamebird was being moored on the Forth and Clyde for the show), we attached Roseann to Gamebird with cross straps and towed her the rest of the way. We kept BW informed of our position and they very kindly let Gamebird down the staircase and wheel at 7pm that night. Roseann was left chained up at the top of the staircase where she would do boat trips in the company of the Kelvin from Edinburgh Canal Society.

Investigation the next day revealed that a sheer pin was bent and stuck in the prop and could not be removed using the tools to hand. BW came to our rescue by lending us their outboard for the event. This enabled Roseann to carry several hundred passengers over the three days of the show and by assiduous can rattling and by sponsorship from Canal Boat magazine, we raised enough money to make the trip worthwhile.

During the following years, Roseann made trips to the Lancaster canal and the Grantham canal.

However, on returning from the Grantham canal in May 2006, Roseann started to leak when we put her back in the Union canal. Investigation showed that her metal base was showing the signs of her age and several small holes had appeared. She was put back on her trailer and there she stayed while we discussed what to do with her. She was the Society's first boat and no one wanted to part with her but we couldn't afford the cost of repairing her.

New Roseann

After exploring lots of blind alleys, we contacted BAe Systems (now BVT Surface Fleet) in Govan, Glasgow and they agreed to repair Roseann. However, when they saw her, they decided to build us a new boat! This they did to the same measurements as the old Roseann so that the canopy would still fit. Iain and I were delighted to see what a wonderful job the apprentices had made of her when we went to collect her in September (2007).

Here are a couple of photos of the new Roseann

New Roseann emerges is handed over to the Bridge 19-40 Canal Society The engineers at BVT that helped rebuild Roseann

The Bridge 19-40 Canal Society is a company limited by guarantee, registered in Edinburgh and it is also a registered charity no SC023110.
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