Taking advantage of the sunshine, we took a trip on a Thames Clipper riverboat from the London Eye to Greenwich. The pier at the London Eye serves both this commuter-style service and the tourist boats – the Clipper is significantly faster though even with the extra stops.
At Greenwich, the Cutty Sark is still shrouded in scaffolding after the terrible fire last year. We took the kids to the National Maritime Museum and enjoyed the Toy Ships exhibition currently showing there.
What caught my eye, one pictured here as No.5, are some Stirling-engine powered boats. The description for this example reads:
“Hot-air-propelled warship and box. J William Sutcliffe founded his sheet-metal works near Leeds in 1885. Producing its first toy boar in 1920, the company would pioneer the production of boat hulls from a single pressing. This boat, one of their long-running warship designs, is powered by a simple water-filled engine heated by a small methylated-spirit burner.”
In the shop on the way out I picked up a pop-pop boat, powered by candle. On test runs in the bath we found it a bit underpowered so changed the candle for some solid parafin tablets. Lots of dire warnings about how it isn’t a toy and not suitable for children, which is a shame as it makes a lovely sound as it chugs around.
For those of you with your own workshop sheds, here’s a great article about how pop-pop boats work and how to build one yourself.
Hi Rex, some excellent looking boats there. I’m not convinced that they are powered by Stirling hot air engines but as your link mentions, a simpler “water circulatory boiler”. People have made Stirling engine boats but I’m not sure where you can currently see them.