Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on April 11, 2006 at 18:12:40 from 80.3.128.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: The Beckfoot Launch posted by Andy Clayton on April 11, 2006 at 15:43:58:
I fancy that a motor launch on the Lake at this time would be more likely to be petrol driven than diesel.
It would hardly have had a hot-bulb diesel engine, which was the normal marine use at that time.
Even buses were only just changing from petrol to diesel in the 1930s.
Diesels were thought to be complicated - probably WERE complicated. During the '39 to '45 War the Navy built numerous 52 foot steam Harbour Service Launches (which today seem horribly complex to me) on the grounds that WRENS and non-technically trained personnel could handle them more easily than diesel HSLs.
But this doesn't alter the fact that a petrol Beckfoot launch would also have chug chugged.