Powles

I have recently read, with interest about the restoration of Star Supreme 1. I took over the position of Managing Director of Jack Powles & Co Ltd from my grandfather, Jack Powles in 1966. One of my first tasks was to expand our hire fleet's range of motor cruisers. Our largest boats at that time were The Foam Class which had six berths. I wanted to have some 8/10/12 berth motor cruisers. We had already ventured a little into glass fibre with fitting out two 35ft hulls designed by Rip Martins which we call Star Wonder. Rip Martins then designed a new hull that was 39ft 6inches long and we built the hull which was to be used as the plug for a new glassfibre mould. This mould and future hull mouldings were going to be made by Bourne Plastics of Nottingham. The wooden plug had to be constructed in a way that movement did not occur during transportation to Nottingham. so, it was built in an entirely new form of construction which entailed strip planking glued edge to edge. The timber was deal and NOT teak as has been mentioned in articles about the renovation. (sorry to disappoint the owner, but it was definitely deal - teak being a very oily wood would have been totally unsuitable for plug making. On completion of the mould-making, the hull returned to us which we fitted our as Star Supreme 1. This was the last wooden hull built by Jack Powles. We, initially, built six of these craft with a mahogany superstructure designed by me. We introduced a new building method by making pre-fabricated units to install. It was this, that led to the formation of Jack Powles International Marine Ltd which sold the sea-going, express cruisers all over the world. We were then manufacturing all our own glassfibre hulls etc. Interesting times! John Williams