Oak incorporates a number of innovations.   She was one of eight boats, all named after a species of tree, built to a design of the Severn and Canal Carrying Company’s traffic department.  The boats had plating, knees and other metalwork, in Noah Hingley’s Netherton-iron, known at the time for its special non-corrosive qualities.  A loaded draft of 3 ft 9 ins. on the otherwise normal narrow boat dimensions gave Oak a massive carrying capacity of 33 tons, providing the company with a very economical operating unit. The engine is at the stern instead of being in front of the cabin.  As this means there is no propeller shaft underneath the cabin, the floor is lower than usual, giving more headroom for the crew.  The unusual escape hatch in the cabin roof was provided in case of a fire in the engine room when the cargo hold was full.  The cowl ventilators on the cabin are believed to derive from the builder’s familiarity with larger ships.  The stove pipe, engine exhaust and opening port lights also derive from seagoing vessels. More technical, but hidden innovations were water ballast tanks under the cabin floor to assist with empty or light working.  In place of the ten usual upright fuel tanks, the service tanks were situated under the engine room floor, with the main diesel tank built into the counter stern. Despite these innovations, she was not popular with her crew.  The cabin in front of the engine room was difficult to get in and out of and the engine was unsatisfactory.  Although designed to work as a ‘single motor’ unit, the 10 horsepower engine was not powerful enough to push the loaded boats up and down the River Severn and, often, a tug would be used to tow her.  Not only that – the steering position was noisy, being almost on top of the engine, and the steerer was very close to the exhaust chimney and separated from the accommodation. The Severn and Canal Carrying Company mainly operated services between the Bristol Channel ports and the Birmingham and Wolverhampton areas, via the Severn and connecting waterways.  In the Gloucester area narrow boats were generally called long boats and, in the boatmen’s terms, S&CCC’s deeper than usual narrow boats such as Oak were nicknamed ‘Severners’. Oak spent much of her life carrying cargo between Gloucester and Birmingham; typical loads being sugar and cocoa beans (to Cadbury’s Bourneville factory), timber, wheat, canned goods and metals. In 1948, just prior to the nationalisation of the canals, Oak was sold to the British Transport Commission for £400 and reregistered at Gloucester in 1949. Oak finished her working days as a maintenance boat, initially as a crane barge on the Trent and Mersey Canal, and finally, for the British Waterways fleet in the Northwich area. By 1979, Oak had been abandoned and had sunk in Hayhurst Depot, Northwich.  She must have been raised and sold off as she was seen again, in private ownership, again sunk, under the Clock Warehouse at Shardlow in 1986.  However, by 1988, she had been restored as a National Waterways Museum exhibit by Warwickshire Fly Boat Co., at Stockton.  - as far as possible to the condition when delivered from Bristol, except that the elm bottom planks were replaced by steel plates. Work on the engine has been hampered by the lack of any original spare parts. photo