Lula by Keith Black - 1:120 Scale - 1870s Sternwheeler Supply Boat for Floating Pile Driver

[kurtvd19]

With the currents in most rivers and the obstructions such as sand bars towing on the rope does not provide the control needed to thread one's way through the average river obstacle course.  With the boat behind and a solid link to the barge, the towboat can set up to push through the turn as a single unit rather than trying to get a towed barge through the same space.

Kurt

 

[Cathead]

19 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

Pushing or what's called towing must be more efficient as it seems to have been the preferred method of transporting barges due to the amount of historical photos. 

There's only really three geometries to attach a barge to a power source: front, rear, or side.

 

Towing behind the power source didn't develop because early vessels were sternwheelers, so the wheel gets in the way. Even when propellors came along, same problem: tying up a load at the stern messes with the propulsion and rudders. Whereas towing on any kind of line gives you almost no control on a winding river.

 

Side can work, but you need a wide channel for that, and at the scale of most North American loads, you wouldn't be able to do more than a few barges. Plus it puts a lot of shear stress on however you attach the load to the side of the vessel.

 

Front gives you all the room in the world, keeps the load away from the propulsion and rudders, gives you a lot more control, lets the force be a direct push into the load, and lets the pilot watch the load. How many people pull a shopping cart instead of pushing it?

 

The fascinating difference I've seen between North American and European riverboats is that North America seemed to develop separate vessels for power and load (think towboat with barges) whereas so many European riverboats are combined, like small freighters. No idea why that difference developed. Eberhard?

[wefalck]

I was thinking of parallel towing in harbours etc. However, it seems that in N-America the rivers tend to be more violent than even the unregulated rivers here in Europe.

 

[Keith Black]

8 minutes ago, kurtvd19 said:

With the currents in most rivers and the obstructions such as sand bars towing on the rope does not provide the control needed to thread one's way through the average river obstacle course.  With the boat behind and a solid link to the barge, the towboat can set up to push through the turn as a single unit rather than trying to get a towed barge through the same space.

Kurt

 Thank you, Kurt. i was just coming back to edit my previous post and say that is was easier getting through narrow channels by tow pushing as the two would be single wide. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 09:47 PM by Keith Black

[Keith Black]

8 minutes ago, Cathead said:

Towing behind the power source didn't develop because early vessels were sternwheelers, so the wheel gets in the way. Even when propellors came along, same problem: tying up a load at the stern messes with the propulsion and rudders. Whereas towing on any kind of line gives you almost no control on a winding river.

 

Side can work, but you need a wide channel for that, and at the scale of most North American loads, you wouldn't be able to do more than a few barges. Plus it puts a lot of shear stress on however you attach the load to the side of the vessel.

 

Front gives you all the room in the world, keeps the load away from the propulsion and rudders, gives you a lot more control, lets the force be a direct push into the load, and lets the pilot watch the load. How many people pull a shopping cart instead of pushing it?

  Thank you, Eric. You posted whilst I was answering Kurt. I like your explanation much more than mine. 

[wefalck]

Same for me ... posted too early or too late.

 

I think there is a lot of tradition involved in Europe. You N-Americans seem to have been much less inhibited by traditions.

 

Push-barges didn't came into use on European rivers (mainly the Rhine) until the 1970s or so. Before it was side-wheel or propeller tugs with a tow of a maximum of four to six dumb barges. On Eastern European rivers, that were less well-regulated, wheels seem to have persisted longer, though quite a bit of research had been going on to improve screw populsion in shallow waters through putting the screws into tunnels.

 

One river on which sternwheels have been used for quite some time was the Rhone, but not for tugs, but for fast packets. 

 

No idea what reasons where, why they kept for so much longer 'towing' than pushing.

 

[Keith Black]

4 hours ago, Keith Black said:

12 hours ago, Cathead said:

Keith, that all looks so good! I have one question: in my eye, the angle of the stairs looks a little shallow (close to 45º). So many shipboard stairs are quite a bit steeper, to save space, and my eye says that those on the original Lula are also steeper (more like 60º or more). Also, at the current angle, they look like they'd need some vertical bracing halfway along because there'd be some bounce or sag in that long horizontal run. To my eye, on-board stairs like these should straddle the line between ladders and "normal" household stairs.

 

So I'm curious about the thought process here. And since you said they're not attached yet, it's a good time to ask! 

 Thank you, Eric. I tried matching the angle in the original Lula photo. I'll recheck and also see if I came make the stairs steeper as that would save me space but I want the stair angle to be such that someone could walk up and down them and not have to use the handrail. 

 Eric, currently the stairs are at 45 degrees. Setting the stair angle to 60 degrees only gives me an additional 0.175 inches of increased space at the ladder base. When I'm able to get back to work on Lula I'll look closer at the additional saved space and see if it's worth making the change. Thank you again for bringing this to my attention.  

 

[FriedClams]

Looking really nice, Keith!  I bet that girl frothed up some water getting some of those loads moving.

 

Gary

[Keith Black]

11 hours ago, FriedClams said:

Looking really nice, Keith!  I bet that girl frothed up some water getting some of those loads moving.

 Thank you, Gary. I bet sternwheeler tugs did toss up a stream.

[KeithAug]

Not withstanding the angle debate, the stairs are very nicely made but on the photo of Lula they go up the side of the deckhouse. I have clearly misundersood something along the way.😕 

[Keith Black]

3 hours ago, KeithAug said:

Not withstanding the angle debate, the stairs are very nicely made but on the photo of Lula they go up the side of the deckhouse. I have clearly misundersood something along the way.😕 

 Thank you, Keith. The stairs are off the shelf plastic ones I bought from Cornwall Model Boats seven/eight years ago and I have used them on both the Tennessee and the pile driver. My apologies if I hadn't made that clear years ago.

 

 It's true that in the original photo of Lula the stairs went up the side of the engine room but if on the model I ran the stairs up the side of the ER a crew member couldn't get around them to get to the stern. And you say, "use the maintenance doors". I always look at crew having to get somewhere fast in the case of an emergency. I try to create direct paths to all parts of the ship as much as possible, Thats the reason why the stairs were moved the the fore ER wall. 

Edited Friday at 01:39 AM by Keith Black

[KeithAug]

12 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Thats the reason why the stairs were moved the the fore ER wall. 

Ah! I now understand, you are building the debugged version.🙂

[BANYAN]

You are being too kind to the crew Keith - a good flogging to drive them up steeper ladders/stairs should be the order of the day  

 

Seriously though, Lula is coming along nicely, great work.

 

cheers

 

Pat

Edited Friday at 11:18 PM by BANYAN