SAMUEL JOHN SPRINGER

Late 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 update information with details..
Dorothy's surname was lined over and Aitken was entered above it.
At a later point, 'Aitken' was scratched out to be replaced, in neat capitals, by ... SPRINGER.

That 1939 Survey also gave birthdays and occupations. It transpires that Dorothy Murkitt, then aged 21, was a comptometer operator. Dorothy's younger self had amassed considerable skills. She held down a very responsible job in a substantial company where she came to the romantic attention of a young male employee, James Aitken. She married him in the autumn of 1939 and a baby girl was born (in the Spring of 1940) at which time her young husband was called up. James Aitken would be 'killed in action' in January 1942 leaving a 24yo widow in Market Harborough to rear a little girl on her own.

Twelve years later, aged 36, that widow would marry a dashing 33yo with prospects.

These records release surprising facts and flesh out the life and times of residents of Market Harborough and shine a light on one Sam Springer who will eventually become the focus of this book. For a moment I want to pay attention to the mature woman who, in 1954, married Springer and must have played a large part in his subsequent success. A comptometer was to the untrained a kind of fancy abacus which could add numbers by pressing keys. Yes! And a trumpet is a sort of bugle with four keys which can blow a note you can hear a mile away. But in the hands of a skilled operator the comptometer could also subtract, divide, multiply and record detailed accounts of big business. Any firm employing its own comptometer operator was likely to be ahead of the game.

It is quite likely that in 1954, Dorothy would have been a very respected lady in the town and it must be surmised that if she decided to give her hand to a dashing 33yo with prospects that she knew what she was doing
[Sams attitude to accounts]
[Sams platinum reputatation as a gentleman]
[Sams approach to dressing up]

Mr.C. confirms Dorothy married James Aitken Q4 1939 and he was killed in action Jan 42 aged 26 " Research 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."

After Ray Smith's report I looked to the retail steel industry where modernization comes slowly. Tools and machines are only upgraded or replaced when they are worn out and in 1973 and for many years later, steel was rolled imperial and stocked by wire gauge. Plate had standard gauges and if a ship-builder needed to repair to a hull he could cut out one sheet and bent and fit another. In the 70s Sam would have got his steel from Corby and from local steel holders

CANAL CRUISERS
By definition, the only way to cruise the fragmented canal system in the 63s was to let the boat in via a slipway and take it out for the winter when it was unused anyway. And of course that questioned where you parked it when it was ashore and how you moved it Right throughout the system, slipways were to be found at still-existent but greatly under-used boatyards so Sam 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. All leisure boats in those days were towed to a slipway on a purpose built trailer. Sam cashed in by adhering to the 1960s Road Traffic Act with his "waterbugs" and there are hundreds on canals all over England to this day.

"Cruiser Style" infers a boat looking like a typical trailerable cruiser of the 70s with an outboard engine and a front designed to prevent the sea coming in.

In 1966 an enterprising businessman who ran Harborough Marine off 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', 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. By an amazing coincidence all these locations had slipways

The completion of the first such boat was Press Released 8th Feb. 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 described Harborough Marine 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 at Mill Hill where Sam had already been producing narrowboats for some time. The oldest Springer I have ever seen is provisionally dated 1966 and 30' Most of Sam's early boats though were for Harborough Marine and its offshoot Anglo-Welsh. It would seem that sam experimented with shapes at that time and that the experience led him to avoid the flat bottom method in favour of a much more rigid dihedral hull of 7deg. which is almost but not quite flat if you scroll up to the picture near the top you can see this. The photo below shows Pentargon sitting happily on shale near Brentford while I waited for a tide to get me in through Thameslock

The waterbugs do not follow this design but pretty much copied the shape of grp and wooden cruisers of the day

Stripped of all the whys and wherefores ... The Road Traffic Act decreed that the maximum length of 'tow-car' and trailer should be 18m. The trailer with its load should fit inside a footprint of 12m x 2.3m and wheelbase or how many wheels were under it did not figure in 1960 or later. Sam worked within those numbers and decided on 23' for his bugs. He produced some smaller units. The smallest I have seen was 18' and knowing how Sam worked it would have been a one-off for a customer with a short drive! There was a max all up weight also and I myself have had rigs pulled over in the '70s and put on the scales.

Sam would save weight every which way he could but when owners were finished stuffing their waterbugs 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 appreciated. 1/8" imperial is 3.175mm [which is] thicker than Dutchies with 3mm skins! Sam could always play the game but always erred on the safe side.

Hundreds of waterbugs are in regular use all over the realm. It is a credit to the quality of steel used by Sam that so many are still afloat on inland waterways. I have seen at least one which has NEVER EVER been plated or patched. The 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 shoe-box.

Modern 22/23' aluminum "Sea Otters", were conceived from Sam's original concepts but with internal engines and a totally different final product. They have been well thought out and executed using displacement hull design and is serious engineering and experience to get it right.

A "cruiser stern" is a large rear cockpit enclosed by taff-rails which concept 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 to be found on Springers and that is a story in itself. Each and every Springer is bespoke and elsewhere I will explain this!

"With temperatures so cold that even the sea froze in places, 1963 was one of the coldest winters on record bringing blizzards, snow-drifts, ice, and temperatures below -20 °C for weeks in some parts of the realm. It was colder than the winter of 1947 and the coldest since 1740. So, what had a cold winter to do with the story of a boat builder in Market Harborough? Much as it transpired but the effects did not show for a few years.

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. I should mention that the IWA presence in Market Harborough had attracted publicity over the previous ten years and of course Rolt, Aitken and especially Hugh Malet had written widely read books on the concept of boating for leisure. After the thaw, adventurous chappies were snapping up abandoned hulks around the country, 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.

NEW TOPIC 111
The Next Generation
Ten years before Pentargon came to me, about 2001, 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). The then owners were advised that 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.
A fool and his money are soon parted and that includes decent but unskilled boaters who listen to "qualified bullshitters" In 2025 there are scores of bullshitters on Facebook and a few of them are qualified

This article contains hotlinks to give extra information or explain phrases. It is in beta, as we pull together ten ears of research on a man who invented and revolutionized narrowboat building. Be wary stories such as the one posted in Canal and River Trust's "Waterfront" magazine 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. Bow is sealed against water ingress and this makes it usable in turbulent waters such as the Thames below Battersea. 3/16" imperial plate is used right up to the gunnels and above that 1/8"imperial! I lifted the sole plates (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 which converts to 5/16" imperial plate. If only I had known I could have saved £4000 at the very beginning

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. They. plated it with 4mm mild steel and it was this which caused it to fail my survey in 2011 and lead to my buying it for a song and then spending money undoing the bullshit

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 ...

SAM's the MAN