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Description: | An icebreaker boat on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal. It would have had a round bottom (most canal boats had flat bottoms), and a special reinforced, sharply pointed bow to cut through the canals that regularly iced up in winter (the bow can be seen in the image). The boat would have been rocked by the men in it, causing a shock wave from the bow that rippled through the ice. If the ice was too thick to break, the boat would be pulled out and across the ice by horses. However, if the ice was thicker than 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm), all canal boats would cease working until it thawed. The exact location on the canal of the boat is unknown. (Courtesy of the T. W. King collection held at Dudley Archives & Local History Service). | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/ | Publisher: | Dudley Archives | Rights holder: | Mrs. R. Collins | Subjects: | Canals | Temporal: | [Mid 20th cent] | Source: | Black Country History | Identifier: | http://www.blackcountryhistory.org/colle... | Go to resource |
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