Degsy Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 Last in the 'Boats that Built Britain' series, this one covers WW11 landing craft. Repeated 2.30am Thursday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 Watched the ones on the Matthew and HMS Pickle. Good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spood Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 Missed it ............. on here :-( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveo578 Posted May 19, 2010 Share Posted May 19, 2010 you can always watch it on the I Player, but it was fairly light weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Degsy Posted May 19, 2010 Author Share Posted May 19, 2010 you can always watch it on the I Player, but it was fairly light weight. Or stay up 'til 2.30am for the repeat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted May 20, 2010 Share Posted May 20, 2010 They do brush over Higgin's history. He was quite a guy. Irish american descent he started out making boats for the Prohibition Rum Runners, pionnering the use of Liberty Aero engines. His boats were so fast the US Authorities couldn't catch them. So then he started making boats for the US Coastgaurd. Then he designed Eureka, and the original Higgin's Boat Landing craft and sold it to the US Goverment. The design was built from Honduran Mahogony. Guess who had bought the entire output of Honduran Mahgony for the previous three seasons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haybaggerman Posted May 20, 2010 Share Posted May 20, 2010 Apparently his workforce went from 50 in 1937 to 20,000 in 1943. Mind you he didn't have to offer everyone a stakeholder pension in those days, or a contract of employment etc etc etc ................ oh no, thats got me started again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormin Posted May 20, 2010 Share Posted May 20, 2010 Hard to believe there's only Five left of twenty thousand built! I suppose it's use outside the military is fairly limited but sure it would've made a good ferry for small river crossings. That Detroit engine sounded fantastic. 250bhp would be welcome in my Ward LaFrance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steveo578 Posted May 20, 2010 Share Posted May 20, 2010 I'm sure quite a few where used for small ferrys and others were used in forestry work in the American North West in particular, but they don't last forever. There was a good programme made around 2004 which included quite a bit of good detail about Higgins, unfortuneatly a 24 minute programme is a bit short, however things not mentioned -the US Navy showed classified photos of a Japanese Daihastsu 14 landing craft to Higgins and the Eureka craft was modified with a ramp to the prototype of LCVP, further the Navy designed the 38ft tank lighter of the 1939 -looked like a smaller version of a LCM 3 and was used in the Flex 5 exercise in which 5 Eurekas were first trialed, it was discontinued as the Marines wanted a craft capable of lifting a M2A3-4 light tank. The Navy then asked Higgins to modify his 45ft inshore craft as a replacement for the Navy 38ft lighter- and in that annoying habit the military have they again changed the requirements -to carry a Sherman and Higgins had to design a 50 craft that became the LCM Of course the first effective ramp landing craft was the British bettle of 1915 -used at Galipoli. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lwt Big Cheese Posted May 25, 2010 Share Posted May 25, 2010 It didn't say much about the design. I'm not into boats at all, but would like to have seen more about the bottom and the way it is able to beach (and reverse) without damage. As said above, it was all a bit light weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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