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Austins Afloat - Steve kay - 30-05-2019
I've just returned from a little cruise round the BCN, the Birmingham Canal Navigations, a gentle holiday of 90 miles and 165 locks. There are still some magnificent Black Country pubs, where the beer is very affordable and canal conversation can make Austin talk sound relaxed and utterly un-anorak. Why did Petter DP 2 engines get called Chip Fryers? Was there really an engine called the Parsons Scampi? Actually this was not an ooh matron sort of joke, but the name chosen for a Ford 100E engine attached to a Parsons gearbox. This made me ponder Austin marine engines, and finding an advertisement in a Motorboat Manual. Do any forum contributors have a marinised Seven engine in their dinghy?
RE: Austins Afloat - David Stepney - 30-05-2019
I may be talking out of the back of my head here, but wasn't the marine version of the Seven engine called a 'Thetis'?
RE: Austins Afloat - Bill Sheehan - 31-05-2019
David - Yes, but suggest in a different era. The contents of the Advert make me think it's very early - probably closer to the Veteran stage? Sounds like you had a great trip - I'm sure many will be envious. Cheers, Bill in Oz
RE: Austins Afloat - Chris KC - 31-05-2019
Bet that was great Steve. I worked on the canals one summer long ago and what a summer it was.
I recall my dad had an A7 marine engine briefly. I honestly don't recall much about it but it was pretty much an A7 engine with different manufolding I think. I believe the Thetis was something purpose-built.
RE: Austins Afloat - Chris Garner - 31-05-2019
The Marine Engines were:
Thetis - 7hp. (747 cc) £62. 10s. either magneto engine and hand starting or coil with electric start and lighting. Magneto with electric starter and lighting, an extra £8.
Triton - 10hp. (1125 cc) £79.10s. Magneto engine and hand starting. Coil ignition, electric starting and lighting £80.10s
Tornado - 16hp. (1711 cc) £113. Coil with electric starting and lighting.
Typically a 25' sloop might require a Thetis. 20' cruisers, fishing vessels, launches a Triton. 40' cruiser a Tornado.
When requesting a quotation Austin required to know the full details of the type of boat the engines be installed in together with offering additional items such as shaft and stern gear, petrol tanks, silencers, seacock, strainer and hull terminals etc.
RE: Austins Afloat - Rogerfrench - 31-05-2019
The first ship I sailed on as a young Midshipman had a marine A7 engined lifeboat. Mag ignition. For safety reasons it had to be started every so often, drove the assigned engineer nuts. Neglect doesn't guarantee an ea sd y-starting engine, and an occasional splash of sea-water doesn't help either.
RE: Austins Afloat - DaveT - 31-05-2019
Now that brings back distant memories, back in the early 1970's I was also at sea and our clinker built lifeboats had I believe Thetis or Triton engines, but it was never the middies job it was either the Junior or 4th Engineers responsibility in Elder Dempster & Blue Funnel lines. The first time we used the lifeboat in anger at anchorage off Apapa, Lagos the lifeboat started to sink and they had to use the derricks to raise us up out of the water. Oh the good old days now all long gone.
RE: Austins Afloat - Steve kay - 31-05-2019
The ad came from a Motorboat Manual, dated 1914. Somewhat chilling, all the advertisers would, within months, have been very busy with war work, and the readers certainly not relaxing on their boats.
Austin later chose heroic names for marinised engines, Triton and Tornado rather bolder than the choice of Prawn and Scampi for Parsons, perhaps a Friday afternoon choice after the advertising dept had been in the pub. Whilst the Thetis was the official factory Seven boat engine, there must have been hundreds of improvised engines, were there even proprietary conversions offered for sale? Differing details observed include hand pumps attached to empty the sump for oil changes, and water pumps for cooling boats on canals or rivers. Yes I should get out more. Tomorrow if the Batho route takes us across the Worcester and Birmingham Canal I'll stop and peer over the bridge parapet in the hope of seeing an ancient launch with a Hotchkiss cone propulsion unit operated by a Thetis.
I'd wondered how on earth a clinker boat kept out in the sun would remain even faintly watertight, musing that perhaps they were kept full of water. The above recollections suggest that tightness was indeed not achieved!
RE: Austins Afloat - Erich - 31-05-2019
Steve,we're planning holiday in the UK in late September-mid October and will be taking a narrowboat up the Llangollen Canal. If these engines are raw water cooled, I wonder if any have survived, particularly those operated in salt. The power of a Thetis would be quite decent. My Aphrodite 101(32 feet and 3 tons) had a 9hp diesel Yanmar that easily drove it at hull speed.
Erich in Seattle
RE: Austins Afloat - Tony Press - 31-05-2019
In the clubrooms in Melbourne we have a marinised standard Austin Seven boat engine - if I remember it has a water cooled exhaust manifold and water pump fitted- which were available as a conversion kit from one of the large hardware stores- McPhersons ?