Britannia

[Monty Stubble]

Just fabricated the wave deflectors on the detachable stern.

[Horsley-Anarak]

Looking good, what is the round bit for.

H-A

[Monty Stubble]

It's a hatch cover. Inside are 1100 ping pong balls, sewn into light canvas bags of 48 each. At least there will be when I've negotiated a decent price for ping pong balls. At the moment I've got around 250.I know ping pong ball weren't on the ration.

There's also lot's of room for kit (originally limpet mines and the like).

Chris

[Monty Stubble]

An interesting sideline. When I was rebuilding the engine on the weekend, I found on many of the castings, both aluminium and brass, a minute JAP logo stamped into the metal.

Britannia obviously bought in their castings from the North London firm. I don't know if that continued after WW2 when JAP was taken over by Villiers and before Britannia was taken over by Brockhouse and moved to Southport.

[RickUK]

I think JAP were so widespread in their activities in small engines - I have some Anzani Minors, which are the smallest Anzani outboards made (35cc's) - the initial assumption being that Anzani made virtually the complete engine. But in fact at least one of the crankcases has J A Prestwich cast on an external surface.
So I have to assume that JAP the whole power head - the crank assembly, cylinder and cylinder head etc. (why would you make things piecemeal)? Nice little crank setups - run in ball bearings with plain bronze bushes for crankcase seals.

[Oyster 49]

Came across this whilst i've been hunting the internet for wartime seagull info. Relevent to Monty's project.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

And this picture:

[Monty Stubble]

The still of the canoe is off a short movie. Is it a seagull? Can't imagine where you'd attach it to a canvas canoe?

[Monty Stubble]

Here's the engine in rebuild - just sorting the magneto now.

[Oyster 49]

Looking very good Monty. I'm quite interested in these twins, I'm keeping an eye open for one fit for restoration.

[Monty Stubble]

Just had first trials of the canoe today to check buoyancy, outriggers and general water-worthiness. Every thing is fine, no leaks and the vessel seems to be OK. next step is to try it with the engine in place.

She was launched with a bottle of finest Burton IPA.

Her name (after one of the originals) is "Geoff's Fabulous Uncle Archie" - yes really!

[Horsley-Anarak]

Just had first trials of the canoe today to check buoyancy, outriggers and general water-worthiness.

Looks great, are the outriggers part of the original design?

H-A

[Monty Stubble]

Yes they're original - outriggers are there for stability and can be pushed out when the canoe is sailing. There is a small lateen rig.

This is the original - under engine power.

[Monty Stubble]

Just been given a small cache of brand new spares either in boxes, waxed paper or grease. Lots of useful bits such as a piston, crankshaft and rotary valve as pictured here. loads of other stuff too such as bearings and piston rings.

Pretty soon I'll be able to open a shop.i need to buy a brown warehouse coat.

Just practising.

"No mate sorry ... you see stores is for storing, if they were for issuing they'd be called issues ... and they ain't".

[Oyster 49]

I fancy a Britannia, do you know of one? I like the one with the 102 style round tank

[Monty Stubble]

Finally ... it works. On the lake at Clumber Park.