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Non-railway turntables


eastworld
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On 18/05/2021 at 15:51, eastworld said:

I was aware that a boatyard in Victoria, BC, Canada had one of these, but is this the only example of a boat turntable in the UK?

 

https://en-gb.facebook.com/Birdham.Pool.Marina/videos/1412346292322346/

 

Stu

I suppose you could describe that as a railway turntable for boats. It looks like it may well have been converted from a railway turntable in an earlier life but it's not clear why you'd have such an unbalanced design. vessles of that size are not exactly light. We discussed quite extensive railway systems for moving boats in another thread relating to those used by various rowing clubs in Argentina . 

I've seen a lot of turntables (or should they be turning plates?)  for road vehicle in loading bays and private car parks in central London where space is almost invariably very tight.

Apart from the so called "turntable ferries"  where the whole deck revolved,  a lot of the earlier Scottish vehicle ferries which were side or stern only loading had  turntables on the deck as they were too small for vehicles to manouever easily.

Edited by Pacific231G
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I've tried Googling  and come up with nothing but wasn't there an Irish luggage van that was fitted with a turnable for carrying coffins?  I seem to remember that it was popular for carrying prams.

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On 19/05/2021 at 15:22, Ponthir28 said:

I am pretty sure there was a car turntable on the old Aust Chepstow car ferry. Before the seven bridge.

My mum used to talk about a Mr Palmer, former skipper of the ferry, who became Mayor of Monmouthshire.

 

The ferry had gone well before we moved to the area.  The jetty at Beachley on the Western bank was used by SARA, the inshore lifeboat which is independent of the RNLI.  The waters in the vicinity of the bridge are extremely fast and dangerous.

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On 20/05/2021 at 15:48, Pacific231G said:

I suppose you could describe that as a railway turntable for boats. It looks like it may well have been converted from a railway turntable in an earlier life but it's not clear why you'd have such an unbalanced design. vessles of that size are not exactly light. We discussed quite extensive railway systems for moving boats in another thread relating to those used by various rowing clubs in Argentina . 

I've seen a lot of turntables (or should they be turning plates?)  for road vehicle in loading bays and private car parks in central London where space is almost invariably very tight.

Apart from the so called "turntable ferries"  where the whole deck revolved,  a lot of the earlier Scottish vehicle ferries which were side or stern only loading had  turntables on the deck as they were too small for vehicles to manouever easily.

Some quite big ones had them too - in the early 80s (I think), we had a holiday in Scotland, one trip we did was to Skye, across on the Mallaig - Armadale ferry (back on the Kyle one). The ferry was quite big, many cars in the lower hull - 2 possibly 4 lanes. Drive on across the port side, rotate on a turntable, one of two, on a lift that lowered the car into the hull then reverse down the ship. Last vehicle on was a full sized coach which stayed parked on the lift athwartships. Debarking at Armadale was along a narrow jetty, the ship tied up with the lift and coach aligned with the end of the jetty, the coach drove off and then cars were raised one or two at a time to drive off, over the starboard side. Quite protracted compared with say the Belfast - Stranraer ferries.

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