The steam yacht

Steam yacht

A steam yacht is a class of luxury or commercial yacht with primary or secondary steam propulsion in addition to the sails usually carried by yachts.-Origin of the name:...

 Gondola is a Victorian, screw-propelled

Propeller

A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...

, steam-powered passenger vessel

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...

 on Coniston Water

Coniston Water

Coniston Water in Cumbria, England is the third largest lake in the English Lake District. It is five miles long, half a mile wide, has a maximum depth of 184 feet , and covers an area of . The lake has an elevation of 143 feet above sea level...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Originally launched in 1859, she was built for the steamer service carrying passengers from the Furness Railway

Furness Railway

The Furness Railway was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England.-History:The company was established on May 23, 1844 when the Furness Railway Act was passed by Parliament...

. She was in commercial service until 1936, and was then retired as a houseboat. In 1979, by now derelict, she was almost completely rebuilt with a new hull, engine, boiler and most of the superstructure. She is still in service as a passenger boat, still powered by steam, operated by the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

.

Gondola is thought to be one of the inspirations for Captain Flint's houseboat

Houseboat

A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily as a human dwelling. Some houseboats are not motorized, because they are usually moored, kept stationary at a fixed point and often tethered to land to provide utilities...

 in Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...

's book Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons is the first book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome; it was first published in 1930, with the action taking place in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District...

.

History

Gondola was first commissioned by Sir James Ramsden, a director of the Furness Railway

Furness Railway

The Furness Railway was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England.-History:The company was established on May 23, 1844 when the Furness Railway Act was passed by Parliament...

. She was launched in 1859 and carried on working until the First World War, when she was laid up. She was returned to service after the war and finally decommissioned in 1936. In 1946 she was converted to a houseboat and stayed in that form for many years, slowly disintegrating. She finally succumbed to nature and in the 1960s she ran aground during a violent storm.

Rebuild

An attempt to restore her in the 1970s met with financial difficulties. However with support from the local community, fund-raising by National Trust staff and donations and sponsorship from large companies, enough funds were raised to complete a hull survey to assess the damage caused by the storm and to establish whether a full restoration, preferably to a working passenger yacht, was feasible. The survey was disappointing: the hull was seen to be down to 30% of its original thickness in places (it being constructed of fine quality wrought iron of just 3/16ths of an inch (4.75mm) thickness.) Even if the hull had been in good condition, the Department of Trade would not have registered her as a working vessel, as her hull plates needed to be a minimum of 1/4" (6mm) thick.

Vickers

Vickers plc

Vickers plc was the remainder of Vickers-Armstrongs after the nationalisation of three of its four operating groups: aviation , shipbuilding and steel...

 boat builders in Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness

Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport which forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England. It lies north of Liverpool, northwest of Manchester and southwest from the county town of Carlisle...

 were approached and asked to make their own survey to ascertain what could be done. They reported that a new hull would be required, the superstructure would have to be replaced in its entirety, and If it were to be steam powered again an engine and boiler would have to be sourced. However the wrought iron

Wrought iron

thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

 gunnel plate (the curved edge of the ship where the deck meets the hull) was in salvageable condition and could be used as part of the new hull. Some of the barley-twist wrought iron handrails and railings were also found to be reusable as well as many of the bronze and brass deck fittings. Vickers were instructed to proceed with work and funds were again raised for Gondola from the same sources as before.

The boatyard had to build a new hull and to do so lofted the lines off the original boat. First the hull had to be reassembled as it had been cut into three sections in order to be transported to Barrow in Furness. Vickers used mild steel which was laid in narrow strakes to mimic the wrought iron plates of the original.

A firm in the North-East of England, Locomotion Enterprises, was given the task of building the new engine whilst W Bertram & Sons of Gateshead built a new boiler to the design of the Ffestinniog Railway's locomotive Prince.
The hull was made as an engineering exercise for the apprentices at the boatyard. All the parts finally came together, and in 1979 the hull

Hull (watercraft)

A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...

 was transported in three parts from Barrow to Coniston, where she was assembled. Over the next few months she was fitted out with boiler, engine, superstructure

Superstructure

A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships...

, first and third class

First class travel

First class is the most luxurious class of accommodation on a train, passenger ship, airplane, or other conveyance. It is usually much more expensive than business class and economy class, and offers the best amenities.-Aviation:...

, decking

Deck (ship)

A deck is a permanent covering over a compartment or a hull of a ship. On a boat or ship, the primary deck is the horizontal structure which forms the 'roof' for the hull, which both strengthens the hull and serves as the primary working surface...

 and all the fittings associated with a ship of this size.

On 25 March 1980, she was launched by Sheila Howell, granddaughter of the first master of Gondola, Felix Hamill. The New Gondola floated a little below her intended lines and sailed her inaugural voyage in June 1980.

Specification

The vessel is powered by a twin cylinder 90 degree "V" steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

, which has a slip eccentric reverse system and is a double-acting slide valve arrangement. The steam boiler is of the locomotive type, with 90 one and a quarter inch (35mm) steel tubes passing through the barrel. From her launch in 1859 she has been coal fired. First she used an all-copper design as used by the Furness Railway

Furness Railway

The Furness Railway was a railway company operating in the Furness area of Lancashire in North West England.-History:The company was established on May 23, 1844 when the Furness Railway Act was passed by Parliament...

 on their locomotives; this supplied steam to her engines at a maximum of 80psi (pounds per square inch). Around the beginning of the 20th century she was equipped with an all-steel boiler supplying steam at 100 psi. The boiler and the engines were taken out when she was laid up and converted to a houseboat. When she was re-launched in 1980 an all-steel design was again specified, although this time rated at a maximum working pressure of 150 psi. She still uses this boiler today. From 20 March 2008 the firing of Gondola became more green; she is now fired on Blazer Logs, these commercially produced logs being made from compressed sawdust which burns very efficiently, giving off little smoke with negligible sulphur content.

The cylinders exhaust to atmosphere after first passing through a silencer. The draft induced by the steam is used to draw the heat and waste products of combustion through the boiler and up the funnel, and so draw more air into the furnace, a force draft

Draft (boiler)

Draft is the flow of combustion products going from the firebox, through the boiler and up the stack. Draft may be natural, produced by the rising of the combustion gases in the stack, or by mechanical means, for example a blower...

 system. However now the ship is using a different fuel to fire the boiler a flue damper has also been fitted to produce a finer tolerance of control in the firebox; using less fuel to produce more steam, and hence greater economy. The engines produce a maximum of approximately 8000 newton metre of torque at the prop shaft and this turns the 36" diameter propeller at approximately 150-160 rpm

Revolutions per minute

Revolutions per minute is a measure of the frequency of a rotation. It annotates the number of full rotations completed in one minute around a fixed axis...

 giving a hull cruising speed of about 8 kn (9.7 mph; 15.7 km/h). The maximum speed of 240 rpm gives a maximum hull speed of 11.7 kn (14.2 mph; 22.9 km/h). However, at this speed, although just four knots faster than cruising speed, the engines use 60% more steam.

Sailing

It is still possible to cruise Coniston Water on Gondola, which makes regular trips from Coniston

Coniston, Cumbria

Coniston is a village and civil parish in the Furness region of Cumbria, England. It is located in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, between Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District, and Coniston Old Man; about north east of Barrow-in-Furness.-Geography and...

 pier from Easter to the end of October. The basic tour is an anti-clockwise voyage down the western shore of the lake, turning off Torver Common and steaming northerly up the opposite shore to Brantwood

Brantwood

Brantwood is a country house in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people, including John Ruskin. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Ruskin...

 where it is possible to disembark and visit the home of John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

.

Other trips include the Explorer Cruise, which goes to Lake Bank – the extreme south of Coniston Water – the place from where Gondola originally picked up her passengers in 1859. The waiting room is still to be seen, recently restored by the Rawdon Smith Trust to the Furness Railway's livery. Alternatively, the Wildcat Island cruise shows the relevant points around the lake upon which places in the book are based; Peel Island (Wildcat Island in the book), and Bank Ground Farm (Holly Howe in the book) being a couple included in the commentary.

The 'Engineer for the Day Experience' gives members of the public the opportunity to join the crew for the day. Arriving first thing in the morning, partakers will shadow the engineer: lighting the fire to raise steam, polishing the engine and copperwork, oiling round, tending the fire and keeping steam during the day, following the shutting down procedure at the end of the day, interacting with passengers, and even helming (steering) the boat, although this is optional.

External links

• The Gondola at the National Trust

54°21′55.44"N 3°03′46.57"W