Stationerystill

It looked great as I went through Martham this afternoon.

There are no petrol pumps on the Broads so I would chose a diesel for safety and economy. A Broom Skipper 30 ft. should go under the bridges and is well built with good handling.

Posted by me on Thorpe History Facebook page. Happy to see it reposted. I have more information in the Thorpe "Janet Smith Archive" the story is also online if you Google the name.

My father designed many wooden boats. He always said below the water line a 50/50 mix of white lead and putty. One goes hard under water and one goes soft so they even each other out. I am not sure if white lead is still available though due to health and safety rules.

They started building in Thorpe in the 1920's so I would think c.1923

The family have posted some information and pictures of Jack on The Thorpe History Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1613500998930684

I have a picture of my father at the helm of Baltimore in 1963. He also designed the timber superstructure on this and many other Griffin (Bourne) 35's. There were so many that I was roped in to help quite often and I almost lost my job as an architectural technician when the boss found me with a boat design on my drawing board at work.

The photo by Islander shows about 30 paddleboards all over the river. Do they know they should navigate on the right to allow traffic coming the other way?

The strange looking cottage behind Riverside Stores was the house of the owner Jim Cole senior.

Do my eyes deceive me. It looks like two of the boats have glass fibre Griffin 35(Bourne) hulls with timber superstructure. These boats were designed by my father in the early 60's.

Diesel is available at about 95p a litre from pumps on the Broads. It is more economical and much safer.

My dad once bought two expensive programmable hearing aids costing thousands. He did not get on with them and ended up using cheap ones bought from a mail order company for £20.

I have found my fathers calculations for a Bourne/Griffin 35 which was for the B.A. wash report. Lady Laurel boat no. 13 in the report, displacement 5.3 tons, wetted surface 360 sq ft. It says 16 x 10.5 at 1500 r.p.m. will give 9 m.p.h. There are various other sizes calculated and h.p. calculations. The wash report was a public document so it might be possible to look up all the calculations.

From a very hazy memory my father, who designed the Griffin/Bourne 35, put on 15" propellers with the 4108 but not sure of pitch. I will try and check this in a few days if I can find some old papers in my office. There is a website which will do the calculations for you https://www.vicprop.com/free-propeller-sizing-calculators or you could pay Andrew Wolstenhome to do the calculations.

It is not possible to check if no name or number is displayed on the boat. There are probably a lot of wrecks around which are not taxed or insured but cannot be checked. The old tax disc system was better as it had to be displayed on the bows so everyone could see if a boat was taxed.