My brother-in-law is doing research for a book. He wanted to know my ideas on a fairly obscure topic of boats and river travel of the early 1800s. He can find lots of material on how flat bottom boats were built and sailed down the rivers. But no material on how water was kept out of the boats. He suspected that some sort of pump may have been used or were they bailed by hand (probably almost continuously). If they were pumped how was the pump constructed in the wilderness? Leather was probably used for the piston end, so did people have enough metal on hand for the pump body, or was a branch hollowed out and used? If not pumping then were the boats eventually made water tight enough so that only occasional builging was required? Were assuming that wood buckets were used to bail water out of the boats.
Can someone provide some details on the or point us somewhere that would?
Thanks.
Are you thinking about something like the Thames barge or Norfolk wherry, which are gaff-rigged sailing vessels, or a canal barge that might be pushed by a tugboat or pulled by animal (or human) muscle? The first two have a bit of camber to the hull, and aren't always flat-bottomed, but the basic principle you have is correct -- most of those larger boats or barges would have some sort of bilge pump, either a chain or a suction pump. A chain pump would usually have been constructed out of metal, while a suction pump would have had some leather components where parts would otherwise rub together. The National Park Service here in the US recently restored an example of a pump -- that page has some diagrams of types of pumps used. If you can narrow down the type of boat, I can see what I can find in terms of plans.
This would be in the US -- river travel/cargo on the Ohio & Mississippi rivers mainly. Thanks for the link. I'll send it on to him.
A huge percentage of farmers built flatboats yearly, floated them to Natchez or New Orleans, sold their crops, and then walked home via the Natchez Trace, until steam boats came on the scene (1811). The boats would be disassembled and sold as lumber…or broken up for firewood. After steamboats, the flatboats would be loaded with firewood (for the steamboat) and towed back upstream.
Thanks