Bidding on E bay has now opened for SL Dyad

Thomas Mason (Tom) of SNB Emily Anne passed away peacefully on 10th February, 3 days after his 91st birthday, in his home town of Bolton.

A long standing member, Tom was a loving family man, attending family holidays of four generations until Easter of last year.

An Engineer and keen sailor, he met life long friend Geoff Newton at Manchester University, the pair got up to various mischief, including sailing to the Isle of Man from Preston in a 14ft dinghy. They got around half way before the weather closed over, with little more than a compass and with the very real risk of missing the island completely, they turned around, washing up on an MOD beach in the North Lakes, both suffering considerably from hypothermia. 

Geoff was later responsible for seeding the idea of steam propulsion for a proposed narrowboat, over a drink while discussing the project, with Geoff subsequently planning his own boat, Suilven. 

Tom is survived by a large family, including grandson Daniel Hutchinson who has followed in his footsteps, and taken on operation of the boat.

The funeral will take place on Monday 16th March; 12 midday at Bolton Parish Church, Churchgate, Bolton BL1 1HX. Wake to follow from 1pm.

All welcome. 

We are saddened to report the death of Lanarkshire based John Macmillan on 25^th January . We have heard that John died peacefully and have been advised of his request that there be no funeral: nevertheless it is hoped that at some point SBA colleagues who knew him may be in a position to read about and gain a picture of the life of this interesting Scottish member and friend. Our thoughts are with all those close to him.

Just in case anyone wants/needs to refresh their memory prior to attending this year's AGM, here is a link to last year's DRAFT AGM Minutes.

Starting in April and going through to October it is proposed to hold monthly events at the Windermere Jetty, Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories

June, August and October will be covered by the various rallies; April, May, July and September will each have a different theme and details of these will be published on the Events Page.

The first event will be a St George's Day Parade on the 23rd April 2020 details on the Events Page.

September 17th will see a repeat of the successful Heritage Open Day, s'TEA'm Party.

Dot Bullough

Stonehouse Court

I have, after some grief, finally managed to wrestle a ‘deal’ out of this hotel where many of us stayed last year – don’t they want us there? Perhaps we were too naughty last year!

Bed and Breakfast (single) £91.50/night

Bed and Breakfast (double) £100/night

Call them on 01453 794950 and mention ‘Steamboats’ to get this price.

There will be a ‘Chairman’s Dinner’ on the Friday evening at this hotel, details of which will be notified separately and will be limited to 40 people due to the size of the available room.

If you are thinking of staying over on Saturday, a few of us went for an ‘Indian’ in the evening – this will be a ‘play it by ear’ arrangement on the night.

Travelodge Stonehouse

I know some members stayed here last year. It is near the motorway and about 10mins drive from the AGM venue. No breakfast option on-site!

£41.99 Room only (as of 14 November 2019)

Hope to see you in March ‘20 … Kevin Slater, Chairman

From now until 24th October work will be in progress on the online archive of editions of "Funnel".   Access to the archive will be curtailed while this work progresses.  Once the work is finished all editions of Funnel will be available to Members online.

If you are a Member and unaware of this online service, do log-in to discover a rich trove of steam boating history, folklore and knowledge.

The SBA Store is back online with an extended range of merchandise for SBA Members.  Members can get to the store with this link to the Store.  

Malcolm Duckett writes:

I have been requested by a Dutch member to cast him a crank, and while I am at it I guess it makes sense to see if anyone else is interested.

Cost is £150 plus shipping. The crank is to fit a Leak Compound, and will allow larger main-shafts of 1.25inch-diameter, and longer-than-drawn main-shafts to accommodate pump drives, and an outrigger bearing for the belt prop-shaft drive we use.

I might be persuaded to provide a finished item if anyone was interested.

The full story of making these is here:

https://sy-befur.co.uk/2019/01/31/steamboat-crankshafts-lessons-manufacture-pt1

https://sy-befur.co.uk/2019/02/19/steamboat-crankshafts-lessons-manufacture-pt2

Please contact Malcolm directly (his details are on the Members Directory page).

The SBA needs a couple of computer-savvy members to take on the job of keeping the content of the website up-to-date.  You will need a good Internet connection and skill with web browsers, directory organisation, text processing and uploading of files.

Once you are familiar with the site the work is only a few hours a month; the actual content will be provided by others, you don't have to actually write the content, too!

If you would like to help to keep the SBA's web present topical, please contact Roger Heise ( sbawebmaster@heise-data.de ) or Kevin Slater ( chairman@steamboatassociation.org.uk ).