Hi fellow Birchwoodeers. What a great find your site is. Nice to see pics of Birchwoods without for sale signs on them. I own a Birchwood 25 Excecutive moored on the Lancaster Canal in Catforth near Preston, Lancashire. She is called Rosina and is powered by a BMC 1.8 Deisel(smokey but economical and reliable).
I will post some pics and hopefully get to know you guys in the near future.

Welcome, Clarke!

Yes, it would be great to see some piccies of Rosina.  We tend to put a 'formal' one in the "Birchwood pics" section and then any others interesting ones in the main bit.

Oh, and don't hesitate to join in on any of the argumentdiscussions in any of the forums here!  All opinions / advice / tales / etc. are welcome!

Welcome aboard!

A BMC 1.8 diesel! Very rare in a Birchwood. There are not very many diesel powered Birchwood 25s, but yours is the first I have heard of with a BMC engine fitted.

Could you submit a pic of the engine installation too?

Welcome indeed and you are helping this Association reach all parts of the country! We also have a diesel Birchwood - converted by the owners before last and am I right to suppose that all present day diesel 25s are later conversion? - ours is the slightly more common Ford 1600cc engine (well we have found at least one other so that might make it common!).

Hope you enjoy the forum

Shaft driven Birchwood 25s were pretty much all built with the Watamota Sea Tiger (1600cc Ford petrol engine).

Ours shows the details of the original Sea Tiger on the dataplate, but was later re-engined with a Watamota Sea Panther diesel.

The Sea Panther is the easiest engine to fit as it is the same size and shape as the Sea Tiger, and fits the J-type gearbox. The J-type gearbox cannot deal with higher power than about 60hp.

Outdrive boats have a wider choice of replacement engine. We know of at least one boat that used to have a Sea Tiger and now has a new Nanni diesel.

As far as i know the engine is original. A good freind of mine, who does most of the work on my engine, used to work for a preston company called AMC. They specialise in marine BMC engines. He tells me that some Birchwood 25s were fitted with the smokey and noisy but reliable BMC 1.8 or the quieter and cleaner 1.5 which is probably more suited to canals.I will look into this a bit further and get back to you. The anorak hood is going up!

All good info!

I always make a point of telling the fuel guy at the marina I want Diesel as otherwise he goes to the petrol pump!  

You have a 'fuel guy'?  

Ooh, how posh!

   

What else would you expect on the Royal River?