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Pushboat / Tug Boat

Owned by Wout Bijlsma

These type of boats are little pushboats from the north of the Netherlands the where build in the 20`s until somewhere in the 40`saround 1900 there ware a lot of freight sailing ships in the small canals of the north and the al had one problem, when there was no wind the couldn't sail and made no money, so the made a large rope on top of the mast an then pull it further but it wasn't going fast.

In the beginning of the 20`s you saw more engines, but there was a problem (and that was not only money) when you built in a small engine you can carry less freight and that was a problem, so they built these type of boats putting a engine in it and let them push the sailing ship when there was no wind. In those days there was not a lot of money made and my boat was build by a wharf but some boats were build by the owner of the ship during wintertime when they couldn't sail because of the ice.
 

Quite a few are still going and are restored by their (proud) owners, you can see all kinds of engines in them, most Dutch engines like Samofa, Brons, Kromhout, but also a lot of Listers and some abc (belgium).
if you would like to see more of them, you can go to the site of the club.

The length of my boat is 5.80m the width is 1.80m the dept is 0.80m its build in 1938 the engine is a Bolinder W7M15. Its a 1-cilinder hot bulb build somewhere in 45 with 800rpm and 25hp, at this moment I am giving the engine a overhaul because the bigend white metal has wornout (to hot and no oil) I am also putting some new needles in the piston bearing, the rest is running OK.
 

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