Talk:Thames sailing barge

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[edit] Deleted sentence about coincidence and heyday

I just deleted "It was no coincidence that their heyday occurred during a period of when London expanded rapidly". The fact that their heyday came at the turn of the last century is already mentioned before, so it doesn't add new factual information. What the sentence actually means is left to the reader:

• Did the barges recede after the turn of the century because London was too big?
• Did London's growth end when it was saturated with barges?
• Was both London's growth and the fact that the barges only needed 2 people owed to the common cause that Londoners then were more vigorous?

Of course it's not a coincidence in the sense that both London and the barges had their heyday at the historical pinnacle of a country that had been ruling the waves for 2 centuries. If the sentence said something like this, I wouldn't mind, although I think it goes without saying. Common Man 02:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Mea culpa. I've just discovered that I'm the one who introduced the difficulty. The sentence you deleted used to follow immediately from "materials for building and brickmaking." Which are kinda closely related to London expanding (ie, mass building). Have fixed §, I hope to your satisfaction... JackyR 21:38, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The key reasons for the decline of the Thames Barge were the advent of the coastal steamer, the cost of labour and reliability. The Thames Barge was used extensively as a coastal cargo vessel carrying cargoes from ports on the east coast of England (and further afield) to and from London and the Thames estuary. With the advent of the steam powered coastal cargo vessel the coastal trade could be executed more reliably (ie not dependent on wind conditions) and eventually at a lower cost than a Thames Barge. At the end of the Thames Barge era the barge crew was the skipper, who was usually also the barge owner' plus a 'lad' who was a young boy paid very little money plus food and a bed on board. Sailing a barge with such a minimal crew was extemely hard brutal work. Slowly but surely ecoonomics prevailed and the costal steamer was more economic and reliable. ( A similar set of circumstances caused the decline of deep sea cargo vessels (eg clippers etc) where the advent of the steamer, gradual increasing mechanical efficiency, establishment of coaling stations at appropriate places around the globe and a requiremnt for significantly less crew caused the demise of the deep sea cargo sailing vessel). Boatman 20:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Another reason of the downfall of Thames barges as a cargo vessel was the advent of the Container. It is a simple matter to unload a container from a ship and put it onto an articulated lorry for tran-shipment. This liked to "just-in-time" manufacturing methods killed off any sort of "slow but steady" transport methods e.g. Canals in the uk. Containers put an end to the coastal/tramp steamer too for the same reason; the sea was too slow for most goods. On mainland Europe this effect was not noticed in the same way, the canals were bigger and lage motor barges and small coasters could handle containers and bulk goods to much greater effect. Several Thames Barges were still trading under sail or sail/auxilary power in the late 1960s and were effectivly competing with pure powered coasters.

[edit] Topsail on its own

Just curious: In which conditions would one set only the tops'l? When one needs to heel? Common Man 02:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should just remove this sentence. Common Man 20:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Setting the tops'l on its own was a design advantage of this vessel. Firstly just using the tops'l allowed the barge to be de-powered quickly. The sail was laced to hoops on the topmast, this allowed the hallard to be let go "at the run" dropping the sail, thus reducing speed quicky. Secondly when manoevering in a dock, by wharfs etc. it allowed the sail to get clear air above the lee of the buildings. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Eastcoastsailor (talk • contribs) 11:38, 17 October 2006.

[edit] champagne glass section transom

What is a champagne glass section transom? Common Man 20:26, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

In my experience 'champagne glass section transom' is not a description in general useage (such as 'cruiser stern', 'slipper stern' 'clipper bow' etc etc). I am sure that that writers and observers have looked at the stern of some boats and remarked that it looked like a champagne glass or a wine glass etc but I have not come across 'champagne glass section transom' as a term in common usage. Other contributors may like to comment on this as there may be regional variatins in US versus Europe for example. Boatman 10:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds enough for me. Will change.JackyR 15:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)