Belyanas: Giant Volga River Boats

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by Earl Boebert, Jul 12, 2012.

  1. Earl Boebert
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    Earl Boebert Senior Member

  2. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    ======================
    Thanks , Earl- the boats were interesting,too. Never heard of them.. Now about those other pictures.........
     
  3. goodwilltoall
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    goodwilltoall Senior Member

    The Russians do many things that seem unconventional but, who's to say, they get the job done.
     
  4. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    My guess is they were built for one-way voyages; I can't imagine how they would've bucked the current to get back upstream.

    The same thing was done with flatboats on the American frontier: they were floated downstream with a cargo, then disassembled and the lumber sold. But of course they were on nothing like the same scale....
     
  5. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    Ingenious!
     
  6. Earl Boebert
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    Earl Boebert Senior Member

    You're right, I was looking at the wrong end of the boat :) From:

    The Caspian Sea Encylopedia
    Zonn, I.S.; Kosarev, A.N.; Glantz, M.; Kostianov, A.G.
    ISBN 987-3-642-11523-3

    Slick method of staying in the channel. No way you'd pole one of those beasts off the bank :)

    Cheers,

    Earl
     
  7. Milehog
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    Milehog Clever Quip

    Maybe they went downstream backwards? For the rudder to work it needs water flowing past it, no?
    The conventional anchors would stop the boat and the big chunk could slow it?
    Row boats to assist as needed?

    EDIT: Damnit, Jim. i was cooking and posting at the same time therefore i hit send after Earl posted his comment.
    Interesting boats and common sense design.
     
  8. Earl Boebert
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    Earl Boebert Senior Member

    Anybody know of any other riverine craft that used that trick of dragging a weight to stay in the channel?

    Cheers,

    Earl
     
  9. troy2000
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    I've never heard of any. I wonder if it would work as well on smaller, lighter craft. It seems to me a smaller weight wouldn't have nearly the tendency to stay in the channel, and a lighter boat couldn't pull a heavy one. As usual I'll defer to the professionals, if they care to venture an opinion....

    But I do wonder whether having 150 of those weights dragged along its bottom each year had any measurable effect on the Volga. And whether there was a noticeable effect on the water quality or local wildlife...
     
  10. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    I would suspect any ecological effect to be negligible.
     
  11. philSweet
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    philSweet Senior Member

    So the rudder wasn't really at the bow, it was just downstream. The ball thingy created drag. The boat went slower than the current. The ball could have been run to the steering pole and worked as a servo. So how did the 80 crew get upstream. Maybe crewed by undesirables? It sounds as if a few special parts might have been taken back upstream. Them balls, maybe? I think I'd get pretty fond of one that proved itself. I've always wanted to explore the Volga. If I could do one river over there, that would be it.
     
  12. hoytedow
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    hoytedow Carbon Based Life Form

    They probably hauled any balls or other necessary hardware back to the forest by wagons.
     
  13. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    By the second half of the 1800's, Russia had a fairly extensive railway system. So they may have shipped crews and hardware back on trains....
     
  14. Alik
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    Alik Senior Member


  15. troy2000
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    troy2000 Senior Member

    That painting by Repin is a powerful one. You notice the lighting focuses on the kid in the crew, the only one who doesn't look beaten down and resigned to his fate? I've always thought the artist was foreshadowing the coming revolution.... if he was, he lived to see it happen.
     
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