Talk:Cable ferry

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I'm a descendant of the person who invented the first underwater cable ferry.Yay! Helo254 20:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World list please

It would be nice to have a list of all chain ferries in the world.

There is a cable ferry at Reedham in Norfolk, UK. I was wondering if there are any others in the UK.

To answer the above, the (state-owned, AFAIK) Finnish Road Enterprise alone operates over 40 ferries in Finland, so the world list might be long. While the following text is unclear as to whether all of them are cable ferries, I am assuming at least most of them are. http://www.tieliikelaitos.fi/english/ferry_services.asp --jmerlin

All of the ferries mentioned in Murray River crossings are cable ferries. I think there are others on other rivers in Australia too, but I don't think I've seen any of them. --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I am aware of a few chain or cable ferries working in the UK; at least one at Dartmouth, one at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and one that used to work at Fowey and may still be there. It is mostly erroneous that the ferry pulls itself across on its chains, though. Mostly the ferry is self powered and the chains are to prevent powerful tides or currents from sweeping the ferry away, as has happened at least once to the one at Sandbanks when the chains broke several years ago. Britmax 21:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a list of chain ferries in the UK in this months Ships Monthly magazine. It explicitly only covers submerged chain ferries, and implicitly only those that carry cars (which might come to the same thing). There are probably a few passenger only ferries that are not covered, for example the one across the River Avon at Stratford-upon-Avon. The list is:

• Torpoint Ferry across the River Tamar
• King Harry Ferry across the River Fal
• Dartmouth Higher Ferry across the River Dart
• Sandbanks Ferry across the entrance to Poole Harbour
• Cowes Floating Bridge across the River Medina
• Reedham Ferry across the River Yare
• Windermere Ferry across Lake Windermere

Incidentally, the only one of these seven that does not use the chains for propulsion as well as guidance is the one at Dartmouth (which is guided by chains but propelled by diesel-electric paddle wheels!). So I think the general case is that chains are used for propulsion. -- Chris j wood 16:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First (underwater) cable ferry

This article claims that:

The first underwater cable ferry was invented by William Pitt and was installed on the Kennebecasis River near Saint John, New Brunswick in Canada in the early 1900s

The reference cited by this claim actually goes further and states it was the first cable ferry. That certainly isn't true, the first cable ferries probably date back to pre-history, and there are documented examples on the River Clyde in the 18th century.

Submerged chain ferries are also older than the early 1900s. Indeed WP has an article on an engineer (James Meadows Rendel) who was responsible for some of the breakthroughs in submerged chain ferry design in the 1830s, and who designed several such ferries including for the still existing service at Torpoint Ferry.

I guess it is possible that William Pitt was responsible for the first ferry that used submerged cables rather than chains, but I'm not totally convinced. I suspect the 'cable ferry'/'chain ferry' distinction is more a linguistic issue between North American English and UK English than a technological difference. Can anybody contribute to our knowledge here. -- Chris j wood 20:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparantly not. I shall therefore remove the claim until somebody can, as the current wording is patently misleading. -- Chris j wood 20:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)