Centaur is one of three sailing barges owned and operated by the Thames Sailing Barge Trust. Launched in February 1895 at John and Herbert Cann’s Bathside yard in Harwich, Centaur was built as a coasting barge – able to trade all around the British coast and to the near continent.
In the most recent restoration of the historic barge, filmmaker Simon North shot a documentary of the process, ‘The Restoration of Centaur‘. Here is a short video that highlights the traditional, but certainly new to me, use of horse dung and coal tar in replanking the barge. Thanks to David Rye for passing it along.
Horse manure was at one time recomended by Henry Ford as a way to stop radiator leaks on the Model T. This was presuming you had an original radiator with the round tubes. Todays radiators use mich finer tubes and to put a handful of horse manure in would surely plug up everything.