Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on May 14, 2006 at 19:54:28 from 80.3.128.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: Re: The Beckfoot Launch posted by Bulldozerman on May 14, 2006 at 09:39:59:
I didn't say that the Beckfoot launch hadn't been built as a steam launch. I said that it wasn't one when mentioned in SA and SD. Because it chug-chugged. Steam launches, I repeat, do not chug chug - they, or at least the Windermere type, are absolutely silent.
So, for that matter were electric launches. And in the late 1920s I don't believe that there were diesel marine engines apart from the hot bulb variety, which nobody in their senses would have put in a pleasure launch. So this launch must have been petrol or paraffin engined, either built as such or converted from steam or electric.
Quite why anybody thought that to change from either steam or electricity to internal combustion would be a good idea is a mystery to me, but that is another topic.