How far we've come

Here's some pics of the old boat I had on my drive. I kept everything except the hull and the seat, both of which were truly decrepit. The second is a closeup of the home made engine that came with it. The whole getup was severely underpowered and could barely make headway against the mildest wind. And as the boiler was (is) of questionable condition, I never had the guts to run it above 15lbs of steam. In all it put out about 2 hp with everything wide open.

The new engine should put out about 10 hp and I'm hoping that the new boiler will be good to about 70lbs. I'll probably hydro it to 300lbs as that's as high as my largest gauge will go to and will give a nice safety margin.

For those waiting for new developments, I'm working on the steam system for the boat shed. I had to upgrade the old heating system as it didn't drain properly before a freeze and developed some serious cracks. I also added some fittings for the steam box and whistle and re-welded some seams on the boiler that developed some serious weeping under pressure. I'm usually a "safety last" kind of guy but something about high pressure steam makes me a lot more cautious.