In 1939 with WW2 imminent  gov.uk surveyed the population to try to locate every person in the realm in time and space.  Enumerators went to Church Street in Market Harborough where No.75 was recorded in beautiful hand writing by the enumerator as follows... 1.Murkitt Frederick, 2.Murkitt Geoffrey, 3.Murkitt Dorothy, 4.Smith Hubert.  Somewhere along the paths of time the record was annotated to identify people in more detail.  Dorothy's surname was lined over and Aitken entered above it.  Subsequently, Aitken is scratched out and replaced in neat capitals by SPRINGER. 

In other columns of the 1939 Survey we are given birthdays and occupations. It transpires that Dorothy had been a Dec'18 baby and now aged 21 was a comptometer operator in 1939  These records were accessed to unearth and flesh out the life and times of one Sam Springer who will eventually become the focus of this book.  For a moment we shall pay attention to the woman Sam married in 1954 and who must have played a large part in his success.  This young lady had considerable skills and worked before WW2 in a substantial company where she came to the romantic attention of a young male employee.  She married him in the autumn of  1939 and a baby girl was delivered in the Spring of 1940  at which time her husband was being called up to be subsequently  'killed in action'   In January 1942 he left a 24yo widow in Market Harborough to rear a little girl on her own.  Twelve years later Dorothy would marry a dashing 33yo with prospects.  That man was Sam Springer

" t is therefore possible and probable that Dorothy married and had a daughter before she married Sam.  "Dorothy married James Aitken late in 1939 and I am digging deeper.  Mr.C.  confirms Dorothy married James Aitken Q4 1939 and he was killed in action Jan 42 aged 26 " Work suspended Mon. 11Sep1235

 Sam Springer.  Boatbuilder.  Innovator. Legend.

 In 2010, I was told Springers were built with a "5mm" steel hull and in some cases in "3mm".  Springers were NEVER built in metric.  Not ever!   As of Friday 13th Jan 2012, I am obliged to Ray Smith at the [now defunct] "Just Canals Forum" for: 

  "Early Springers ... were 3/16" [plate]   
Some were done in 1/8th 
("cruiser" style, V-hull without a foredeck). 
​​I had one of these new in 1975." 

Cruiser Style  infers a boat looking like a typical trailerable cruiser of the 70s with an outboard petrol motor and a front designed to prevent the sea coming in.  All leisure boats were towed to a slipway on a purpose built trailer.  Sam cashed in on this by adhering to the 1960s Road Traffic Act with his "waterbugs" and indeed there are hundreds of these on canals all over England to this day.  ​By definition the only way to cruise the canal system was to have the boat let in via a slipway and take the boat out in the winter when it was unused anyway.   ​Right throughout the canal system, slipways were to be found at still-existent but greatly underused boatyards and Sam Springer engineered his solution for affordable entry.  Greed and [profit were less prevalent and  even where you did have to pay to be slipped it was not much.  In 1966 an enterprising businessman who ran Harborough Marine in Leicester Road decided to emulate the well-established Norfolk Broads hire boat business.

On canals. 

He would build steel narrowboats sized between 40' and 50' and ship them to various locations around the country to be finished and then hired out to all takers from sites near Penkridge, Chorley, Gailey, Trevor, Whaley Bridge and of course at Harborough Marine.  The completion of the first such boat was Press released on 8th February 1968 in the Harborough Advertiser, which also reported that a number of steel hulls was being laid down for the hire scheme and for private purchase.  The Advertiser article described the firm as 'one of only two constructing narrowboats on a large scale in the country'. 

The craftily worded release was careful not to reveal that the other firm was just down the road in Mill Hill Road.  Sam had been producing narrowboats on a small scale for some time.  Some/most were for Harborough Marine and its offshoot Anglo-Welsh.  ​Among the more amazing projects initiated and completed by Sam Springer, the Water-Bug ranks high in my estimation.  Sam produced a steel boat of monocoque construction, driven by an outboard,  which could be used like a "cruiser" on canals.  It could winch onto a trailer and be street legal.  It could be  launched and retrieved from slipways and it could be used as a day boat or licensed for the Summer and wintered ashore.  It was the first ever such all-steel canal boat.  Sam changed everything  in a stroke by designing and executing a steel "cruiser" for leisure living on canals.  He was a formidable innovator and must have been very familiar with the UK Road Traffic Act 1960. 
Dimensions
If the towing vehicle has a permissible gross weight in excess of 3.5 tonnes the maximum width and length of the trailer are 2.55 meters and 12 meters respectively. If however the gross weight of the towing vehicle is 3.5 tonnes or less then the maximum permissible width and length are 2.3 meters and 7 meters respectively. In both cases the overall length of the towing vehicle and trailer must not exceed either 18m or 18.75m depending on the type of towing vehicle.
​​That was the theory but when owners were finished stuffing their boat with 'essentials' the kerb-weight could top 3ton. Or more!  To keep the weight down Sam used 1/8" imperial steel plate, perfectly ok at a time when galvanic corrosion was not fully appreciated. 1/8" imperial is  3.175mm [which is] thicker than the smaller dutchies floating on UK waters with 3mm skins to this day!  ​Sam always erred on the safe side. 

His babies were known as Water-Bugs and to this day, scores (if not hundreds) are in regular use all over the realm.  It is a credit to the quality of steel used by Sam that so many bugs are still afloat on inland waterways.  I  have seen at least one which has NEVER EVER been over-plated.  ​The very brilliance of the Water-Bug design meant it was widely 'copied' back in the day and the copies were uniformly shoddy crap put together by 'fabricators' whom I would not allow to construct a cardboard shoebox.  

It is fair to mention here the modern and 22/23' aluminum "Sea Otters",  developed from Sam's original concepts but with internal engines, have been well thought out and executed using displacement hull design.  ​Designing a boat is serious science and engineering and experience

A "cruiser stern" is a large rear cockpit enclosed by taff-rails which concept I believe was invented by Sam for his larger Springers in the mid 70s and was widely copied later as were many of his innovations.  There are also "trad" and "semi-trad" sterns found on Springers.  Each and every Springer is bespoke and elsewhere I will explain this!

With temperatures so cold that even the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C for weeks.  it was colder than the winter of 1947 and the coldest since 1740.  1963 marked the end of viable commercial canal boating.  Boatmen abandoned their boats to find work, any work that might keep their families from starving.  In 1964, hundreds of craft had been abandoned and their owners never returned.  Soon, adventurous  chappies were snapping up abandoned hulks, tarting them up, putting a tent over for 'wild' holidays afloat. Some boats were "cut and shut" adaptations of retired barges and (more by coincidence than design) Market Harborough in Leicestershire was a centre of such activity.  

back to black. ​

Ten years before Pentargon came to me, the then owners were advised to have a '20-year'survey' whatever that is, based on advice that the boat was a late'70s build.  (It was actually built in 1973).  They were advised the wetted hull was 'iffy', and should be  'bottomed'.  This tid-bit, gleaned during early enquiries when I first became interested in Pentargon, became a major factor in my decision to proceed with a full survey*

This article will eventually contain hotlinks to give extra information or explain phrases.  This article is in beta, as we try to pull together eight years of research on a man who revolutionized narrowboat building.  Beware stories such as the one posted in Canal and River Trust's "Waterfront" in 2016.  Condescending horseshit of this kind of fake news that drove us to research ... SAM SPRINGER ... UNSUNG GENIUS OF THE CUT 

Pentargon has a cruiser stern and just enough fore-deck to be able to exit the escape hatch.  3/16" imperial plate right up to the gunnels and above that 1/8"imperial!  I lifted the sole plates (landlubbers say floorboards!) during 2013 to remove a metric tonne of ballast and later I had some random ultrasound testing done from INSIDE.  All the returns were 4.75mm.   The yard where the steel-work was undertaken in 2002 was deemed to have a 'reliable' reputation and if I was ready for libel it would now be named.  What they did was 'shoddy' 'slipshod' 'opportunistic' and it would be reasonable to describe the principals as 'downright rogues'.  My lips are forever sealed as to who buggered up a simple job in the most stupid way possible.

 In 1973, Sam Springer was said to have been topping his 36' boats in wood.  He was NOT and he never did.  If he actually PUT a top on at all it would have been steel.  Irrefutable information presented to the Springer Group in 2018 gives the lie.  Sam used mass-production methodology for his hulls and each Springer was 'bespoke'.  All completed hulls leaving Sam's shop while Sam was in charge were monocoque and of exceptional robustness.   The evidence to hand, filed early in 1974, was dug up in a house clearance in 2016 and passed to the Springer Group of which I am a moderator.  The original 1974 prospectus was sent out by Sam himself to a potential customer, who did not actually buy due to 'changing circumstances' but filed the prospectus away safely enough for it to remain hidden for 42 years.  This was before Sam handed control to others in the late 70s. 

It seems that "Samsons" (after Sam's time) may have been dispatched as roofless hulls to be finished off elsewhere and the boats may have not been monocoque.  However, I did establish that Sam himself was using the term "Samson" before his death in 1984.

Sam's finished boats in 1973 were steel.  Best quality British Steel from Corby and local steelholders.   The steel did not come from dismantled gas-holders.  But never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  Let's hear from any Springer owner who has ever tried to drill a hole through a Springer panel.  Sam only ever used timber inside the hull.  And!  He used only the best marine ply for bulkheads and pine planking for floors.  Each and every Springer produced by Sam (til 1984) was bespoke and personally supervised!  His genius as a steel fabricator was in mass-producing fronts, rears and "middles" which were then made up to the individual customer's specification.  Many Springers went out as floating or drive-away shells  to be finished as far away as Saul Junction.  Quite a few were bought thus by Anglo Welsh when there own manufacturing facility could not cope with their needs. 

But a Sam Springer build was unique. WIP

From 1979 the farming-out process was continued by 'PJ. Smith trading as Springer Engineering'  after Sam had retired and handed over the reins to his former manager.  

All boats from an early date were sold as "Samsons" and the evidence for this comes from canal magazines held by the British Library.  Many 'Samsons' left the factory as roofless drive-away hulls, some during Sam's tenure and Anglo Welsh was a substantial customer.  Current research suggests that most or all of these hybrids had radiussed sterns but the search is on-going.  Hence the great variation of tops in fibreglass, wood and steel and the widely held and erroneous belief that Springers were built at different places around the country.  ​Among stuff Sam invented was a form of accommodation which was the precursor of the container flats so common nowadays.  WIP 15/10/23

One confusing element in identifying a Springer is the stern.  There are two options, a radiused one  (which usually? comes with a trad or semi-trad rear deck)  and an angled one which commonly comes with a cruiser deck such as mine has.  There are various lengths, configurations and types of Springers  but basically if it has a petrol outboard it is a "Waterbug" and will be under 23' nose to tail.  If it has a diesel engine and is under 30' it may also have a seriously V bottom, but from 28' up it should have  7º dihedral  which casual observers do not even notice.  Any "Springer" with a flat bottom is NOT a Springer.  Or a Samson.  It is a copy and poorly executed.  I have seen a few in my  time on  England's waterways.  I have also anaged to see a couple out if the water when I was at Stansted Abbotts boatyard in 2022. One look was enough.  These are the junk which gave Springers a bad name. 

The radiused stern has a story of its own and leads back to how Sam began to build narrowboats (and occasional widebeams!)  from his Market Harborough shop.  It was all down to greed and stupidity and an [innocent] wood-forming business.  But, it is a story for another day  (Ware Library 14thAug18).  An entrepreneur based in Market Harborough, was the first to actually produce narrowboats for leisure only.  Over a period of time in the very early 60s he was cutting and shutting conventional and traditional narrowboats.  Wooden ones were sterned by using the services of an active business in MH which formed and radiused planks with steam to match the standard 6'10" width.

When it came to converting  steel  tubs, Sam was approached to produce the ends and used tried and tested methods ... including 'mass-production'.  He set up his rollers and jigs to run off a large number of  components which were then stored til needed to weld together a stern.  However, the cut'n'shut company did the dirty and enticed away most, if not all, of Sam's welders  ... Sam was more than a little peeved. 

So he designed the first ever all-steel narrowboat for leisure use and went into production ... Sam was not one to copy someone else's stupidity.  He used ship-building techniques learned in London's Dockyards.  I have spoken with old men in Woolwich and Greenwich who worked in those yards and they all had the knowledge. 

I was told that Pentargon was re-topped in steel possibly at some point in the 90s and that the existing windows were cut in and older windows shut up! Looked like a steel top from a longer Springer was dropped on an older hull.  Hence the unique lines and the tiny forward deck.  Or so the story went.  But ten years of ownership and much forensic examination failed to show that the boat had ever been modified thus.  The evidence is that the top was put on early in the life of the boat and dropped straight onto a new hull.  I have never ever seen a Springer like it.  It is actually a sea-going ship and has been used by me in sea waters including the Thames Estuary and the Bristol Channel.  Pentargon was subjected to heel and roll tests before these voyages and had the freeboard raised by Jamie Ferguson at Gailey to comply with "Class C inland waters" so it would be legal on themost dangerous estuary in Europe. 
 
During an onboard archaeological dig in 2013  (to remove almost a ton of superfluous ballast from the bilges), I was unable to unearth any evidence that the original boat had EVER been tampered with.  For the moment it looks as though Sam worked his magic and produced the ultimate Springer: a narrowboat that could go to sea in safety.  On 13th August 2017, that presumption was put to the ultimate test when Pentargon dropped out of Sharpness Dock into the Bristol Channel and, having over-nighted outside Portishead marina, took the morning tide up the Avon Gorge and into Bristol. 

... on-going WIP ...

©MMXXII
[email protected]