Gramps And The Lads Back In October

[Gramps]

After a few months of uncertainty and now getting the all clear we are back on the Broads for our "usual" October break. I have just booked Ultimate Gem 2  from Richardsons has anyone hired this vessel if so what do you think of it?

Ron

[Gracie]

Hi Gramps

Sorry no one has replied, we hired Finesse a long time ago now, she is very similar to Ultimate, plenty of cabins and lots space for a bunch of lads to make a mess, I'm sure lol. I don't know if this class has been refurbished like most of the classics in Richardsons fleet, it wouldn't matter to me, she's a boat and she floats and will be more than adequate for a bunch of lads in my opinion

Have a lovely time (I've got some pink sparkly Stetsons if you want to borrow them )

Grace

[Gramps]

Thanks Gracie I have had replies by PMs but nice to hear from someone who has been on that Class of boat. We saw Finesse last October whilst we were moored at Beccles, there were Six anglers on board and they said there was plenty of space for them and all the fishing gear so we looked for that boat first.

Ultimate does not appear to have had a makeover but like you we don't mind that. I have asked the lads about the Stetsons, from the parts of the reply that are printable on here I gather they will make their own arrangements but thank you for the offer anyway

Ron

[Vaughan]

I happen to know this boat well as I was involved in her building, in 1975. I also sat on Ultimate Gem 1 for 2 weeks on Blakes stand at the London Boat Show.

Superstructure was a yellow/orange colour, and originally built with a 6 cylinder diesel. I have just looked at the brochure photos and it looks to me as though the woodwork is original, although obviously in excellent condition. The galley has been completely re-fitted however.

It looks to me as though this boat has been maintained to the highest standards and I am sure you will enjoy your holiday on board.

[Wussername]

7 hours ago, Vaughan said:

I happen to know this boat well as I was involved in her building, in 1975. I also sat on Ultimate Gem 1 for 2 weeks on Blakes stand at the London Boat Show.

Superstructure was a yellow/orange colour, and originally built with a 6 cylinder diesel. I have just looked at the brochure photos and it looks to me as though the woodwork is original, although obviously in excellent condition. The galley has been completely re-fitted however.

It looks to me as though this boat has been maintained to the highest standards and I am sure you will enjoy your holiday on board.

Once upon a time. During a different life. I joined a number of guy's from Richardson's, one lunch time, on a journey to Sutton Staithe. One rascal took the governor's off Ultimate 1. We were not able to get it up on the plane, but very nearly. The wash from the boat was amazing. 

It was very irresponsible. 

Andrew

[Gramps]

On 09/07/2016 at 11:54 AM, Vaughan said:

I happen to know this boat well as I was involved in her building, in 1975. I also sat on Ultimate Gem 1 for 2 weeks on Blakes stand at the London Boat Show.

Superstructure was a yellow/orange colour, and originally built with a 6 cylinder diesel. I have just looked at the brochure photos and it looks to me as though the woodwork is original, although obviously in excellent condition. The galley has been completely re-fitted however.

It looks to me as though this boat has been maintained to the highest standards and I am sure you will enjoy your holiday on board.

Thanks for the feedback Vaughan, much appreciated, we will be on Ultimate Gem 2. The images on the website contradict the floor plan. They seem to show a engine housing inboard but floor plan refutes this!. Was this class built with an engine mounted aft with an hydraulic drive?.

[Vaughan]

Hello Gramps, no, the boat was built with an engine in the galley on a shaft drive and being a 6 cylinder, it made a spacious galley worktop area which you can see in the photos. I believe the boat now has a 4 cylinder engine.

This was at a time when aft engine boats still had a hydraulic drive which was not very reliable for hire work and a lot of yards started reverting to centre engines on new boats and even converting old ones. Nowadays it has gone back to rear engines, as the Peachment hydraulic drive is totally reliable and maintenance free. You just have to change the oil filter every 2 years. It also takes the jerk out of gear changing, so you don't keep wearing out the flywheel thrust plate. Once fitted, you can use it for other things such as bow thruster, mud weight winch, 220v generator and even to run a fridge compressor. Personally I would not build a hire boat nowadays except with hydraulic drive.

I know this doesn't affect your holiday, but as this is the hire boat section, I thought I'd mention it!

[Broads01]

Vaughan, it's fascinating to have on the forum someone with your depth of knowledge of hire boats. Were you involved in the building of other Bountys?

[BroadScot]

5 hours ago, Broads01 said:

Were you involved in the building of other Bountys?

Steady on Simon, Vaughan is a tad more than fifty, but I don't think he built Captain Bligh's, Bounty! 

Iain

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, BroadScot said:

Steady on Simon, Vaughan is a tad more than fifty, but I don't think he built Captain Bligh's, Bounty! 

Iain

Shiver me timbers!!

My family can trace its history back to when they were knocking knot-holes out of pieces of wood, to make a***holes for rocking horses!

Sorry Simon, that's the best I can do for tonight. I'll give you a more serious reply in the morning!

[Vaughan]

Here we are in the morning and sorry Iain, I couldn't resist that one!

Simon, you were asking about Bounty Boats.

The name Bounty 37 has become synonymous with them, just as if you want to clean your carpet, you say you are going to "Hoover" it. In fact the design was called the Solar 37 and one of the designers was John Clabburn, twin brother of Jimmy Clabburn, who founded the first Broads forum. They have a screw-on ventilation panel on the aft cabin side, which Bounty moulded with a large B. Boats not built by them had the same panel, but with a large S, for "Solar".

You have to remember that the early 70s were the boom years on the Broads and we couldn't build hire boats fast enough. I don't know whether Bounty ever had their own hire fleet, but not in my memory. Their success in business was that they could build a hire boat more cheaply for a small yard, than if the yard had built one of its own. A lot of people used to knock Bounty for their quality, but you get what you pay for. They were asked to build for the cheapest price and so that is what they did. They were actually very good builders, as can be seen by the boats they built for private owners. The hire boats were fitted out with a lot of flat pack furniture, especially in the galley. This was fine at first, until you remember that chip-board and water don't mix!

They had another "feature" in their building. Normally you build the bulkheads into a boat (down to the keel)  and then lay floors (a Dutch boatbuilding word) between them, onto which you lay floorboards, which are removable for access. In Bounty's case they just laid sheets of 8X4 shuttering ply right through the boat and then put the bulkheads on top of them. This means no access to the bilge unless you are wielding a jig-saw, but it also gives them an incredible lateral strength at the waterline. They don't often get crushed in a side on collision. This also means you can strip out one or two complete cabins for more space, without affecting the structure of the boat. Thus they are very popular as private houseboats.

When I left the Army I worked for Richardsons, when it was owned by the Rank Organisation, during the time when they built 100 new boats in one winter, bringing their fleet up from 200 to 300 in one go. About 60 were hired out on a Thursday and all the rest went out on Saturday. I was there for a year and a half before a little yard in Womack water came up for sale and I "took the plunge". In the short time I was with them I learned pretty well all I know about the logistical organisation of a big hire fleet and I have used their methods ever since.

So yes, I have been involved in the building of a lot of "Bounty's"!

[BroadScot]

40 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Here we are in the morning and sorry Iain, I couldn't resist that one!

No problem, Vaughan, I knew you would have a more than worthwhile reply!  Very interesting, I remember hiring a flat pack Bounty. Sharon from Alan Johnson. Hired it twice, oh how the sun bleached the "wood" on it severely in two years!

Iain

[Broads01]

Thanks for such a detailed reply Vaughan, fascinating once again. It's testament to how well the Bountys were built that so many survive in the hire fleets and privately. Richardsons have been better than anyone in my view in updating them to modern standards. I've had particularly good experiences where I've hired Bountys that have been gutted out completely and redone, being Salerno a few years back and Concerto last year but the many boats with partial refits are tidy and excellent value for money.

There was a Bounty Boats hire operation at Brundall until the 1980s, I assume it was part of the same company.

Dan Horner had written his own guide to the Bounty history and the various models http://www.dhorner.horning.org.uk/page44.html

[Gramps]

Slightly off topic but Vaughn might be able to make sense of this neglected photo circa 1976, I am as certain as my grey matter will allow that we hired this boat from a boatyard in Brundall. It has what seems to me to be a Hearts name plate and I think it was Broadheart. I am probably mistaken but I think we hired it from Bounty Boats, they had several similar vessels but they were dark blue in colour atop in contrast to the light blue of this one

[Vaughan]

Yes, that is a Broadheart from Hearts. Can't remember the name of the mould design for now, but I seem to remember Tony Thrower built them with a centre engine?

Incidentally the boat moored behind is the King of Hearts, now beautifully preserved. In all my career she has always been my favourite boat, and also the easiest to handle.

[Gramps]

The two lads on the stern feeding the swans are my sons, the are both in their mid 40s now and still loving the Broads.

[Gramps]

Again off topic but off the same roll of film, we covered some ground on that holiday

[BB37]

On 09/07/2016 at 7:16 PM, Wussername said:

We were not able to get it up on the plane, but very nearly. The wash from the boat was amazing. 

Is it that it was not powerful enough, or was the design unable to plane?

[Wussername]

I am no expert on these matters. It seemed to have lots of grunt as but I suspect the latter, it was never going to plane.

[Gramps]

Thanks BB37 and Wussername for nudging this thread, I feel it is only right to provide our comments on this boat having completed our holiday. It was my intention to write up a holiday tale but changed my mind because there were a few holiday tales running.

Ultimate Gem 2 is a very fine budget boat stated to sleep 10 it was ideal for our party of 6, we all had our own space plus plenty of room for the excess of luggage we seem to have taken with us. The Galley was probably the best we have had on a boat, a virtually brand new cooker and a modern fridge, a microwave also made life easier even though we did not use it much. There was every conceivable item of cutlery crockery glassware and cookware on board, only drawback was there was enough crockery and cutlery for 11 people, not a good idea for a party of 6 fella's The galley slaves were kept busy.

On takeover we were told no engine checks would be necessary because the boat had a new engine. The boat started very easily, was quiet when running, and very economical on diesel, we received £103 back out of a fuel deposit of £150. The trim of the boat was excellent it was easy to steer in a straight line both in forward and reverse directions. The exterior of the boat was well worn and a little battered, but all in all it was good value for money.

We were a little disappointed with the check in at reception, being asked for a £50 per person cash deposit, something we had not been asked for before for the same party (same sex party). I had previously asked Richardsons if our family group would have to pay this excess and was told not. I stood my ground and common sense prevailed they waived the charge, but it did leave a sour taste at the start of our holiday

[BB37]

Do you know what engine Ultimate Gem now has?

[Vaughan]

I knew you would have a comfortable holiday on that boat and I am glad it went well!

She is just over 40 years old now and is the proof that, in hiring, it is not the boat that wears out, but the design. So long as they stay popular, we can keep them going. They only get sold if they go out of fashion.

She was built in the days when the Broads was on a boom, and we just couldn't build them fast enough. They were mostly big boats too, of 6 - 10 berth. A big hire boat doesn't really cost a lot more to build than a small one - they both have the same kit of parts - wheelhouse, canopy, engine, stern gear, cooker, fridge, toilets, calorifier, fuel and water tanks; they are all the same on both, so if you can cram 10 people in it, you can get a much better return on capital. That was the thinking, in those days.

The Ultimate Gem, however, is the only 10 berth hire boat I have seen, which can genuinely sit 10 people around the dining table. This done by a clever folding partition between the saloon and the front cabin, which separates them at night but opens up the whole space in daytime. So for 6 people, you must have been nice and comfortable.

Nowadays this has turned round and we are building big boats, for 4 or maybe only 2 people. Although very comfortable, I question the economics, myself. But then I am of the old school!

[BB37]

Ultimate gem is a Bounty 44, but was it fitted out by them or Richardsons?

[Vaughan]

30 minutes ago, BB37 said:

Ultimate gem is a Bounty 44, but was it fitted out by them or Richardsons?

Richardsons.  By the way, the design is called a Solar 44, moulded by Aquafibre.

The Bounty built boats had a big B moulded into the engine vent on the aft cabin side, but others had an S, for Solar.

Richardons had very good boat builders in those days (I'm sure they still do now) and two were real masters of the use of Formica. 

[BB37]

So they where not moulded in Brundall? Do you know where the other Bounty models where moulded. What percentage of Bountys were fitted out by themselves?