Associated Cruisers Wolverhampton , NB Victoria

[Toe Rag]

I have a Harborough Marine narrowboat, 60ft GRP cabin, The Victoria.

When I showed a photo to Dennis Fellowes, aka Dennis the Blacksmith , he immediately said that she was originally a hire boat operated by Selwyn Jordan, Associated Cruisers based at the top of the Wolverhampton 21.

I can’t seem to find out anything about the boat or the company. Any info and photos would be of great interest to me.

Over to you guys.... 

[magpie patrick]

I remember them, I was just about old enough to hire and was intrigued by the idea of boating on the BCN, but went to Chas Harden instead.

 

I'm sure somewhere in my stack of early Waterways World magazines there will be an advert for them. If I find it, I'll post it

[David Mack]

I do remember Selwyn Jordan who I bumped into a few times around the BCN in the mid 70s. I seem to recall he was associated with the Walsall based HF Truman community boat before Associated Cruisers.

[ANDREW P]

I spent two weeks at Harborough Marine, April 76. I am sure Victoria was there at the time and would have been about a year old, it was not a hire boat then in fact the opposite, built to a higher standard and powered by a BMC 1.5 instead of the usual Lister. From memory the original gel coat colour of the  the cabin sides was a light green.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Did that end up at Ron Lloyd's Boatyard at the bottom of the 21 (now Oxley Marine)? They certainly had a Victoria - we hired it once to do the BCN Challenge. It made it about 500 yards into the Wyrley & Essington and gave up. The eponymous Ron said "if I'd known you were going that way I wouldn't have let you hire the boat", which struck me as an interesting attitude for a hire base in that location.

[Toe Rag]

Interesting.... Victoria does have the 1.5 BMC and a PRM hydraulic box with it’s own coolant pump belt driven off the engine and skin tank on the swim. The engine skin tank is under the engine. 
The story I was told was that she was built for a bigwig at Rolls Royce.

Dennis also reckoned that she was based at cut end for a time.

Thanks for the information so far!