Any of these still around

[Dav and Pen]

I have been scanning old slides and this is our first boat. A 19ft Dolphin cruiser with unusually a inboard engine a 2 cylinder 2stroke made in Stratford on Avon. Think it was called a Seafarer and it went for ever on a gallon of fuel. We brought it in 1963.

[TheBiscuits]

There are a couple up on the L&L near Adlington that always draw admiring glances when they go past.

[Dav and Pen]

They must be well looked after we had to scarf pieces into the Transom even back then. The plywood they used must have been a lot better than the stuff around today.

i believe Brooklands did build some in GRP towards the end.

[mrsmelly]

Love the mooring method 

[Sea Dog]

23 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Love the mooring method 

It would be even less popular now that bit of towpath is an open air linear velodrome! 

 

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

It would be even less popular now that bit of towpath is an open air linear velodrome! 

 

Cycle-hurdling!

[Movin' on]

We had a 24 centre cockpit with a wooden hull later ones were fibreglass - we do still see some of those about but probably only one a year

[zenataomm]

I had a twenty foot the same as OP's except it was blue with the white stripe.

Motive power was a very early Yamaha two stroke, air cooled petrol/paraffin outboard.

The engine was like a cat, you didn't own it .... it lived with you and decided its own behaviour.  There was a tap on the float chamber which you used to drain out the paraffin/oil mixture from the last time it ran.  That of course just drained away onto the moorhens.

You then turned to the dual fuel tank which held something like 1/2 gallon of petrol and 4 1/2 gallons of paraffin. You pumped the bulb and turned the tap to petrol for starting.

Even if you were on your own you needed to talk in a loud voice commenting that you wanted to stay moored where you were and really didn't want to go cruising today.

Then of course after one last squeeze of the bulb and a mere 5 minutes of solidly yanking your arm out of its socket there would be a massive backfire as this luxurious example of Japanese technology revved its nuts off almost to the point of self destruction.

Due to paraffin having a much lower flash point than petroleolioleum the cylinder had to attain a high temperature to combust it.  So you adopted delaying tactics like making a cup of tea, singing the unexpurgated version of Bohemian Rhapsody, that sort of thing, to give it a chance to get hot.  You then pretended to look one way while whacking the tap over to paraffin at the same time.

Normally this would result in a rattling cough and the engine would die pathetically, which is why one never untied before you were on paraffin, that way madness lay you could spend all day doing this. It was not unknown to moor up and cast off at least twenty times in a day without travelling a hundred yards.

I wonder why they never caught on?

 

 

[dccruiser]

My first boat was a plywood dolphin 21 with a 25hp evinrude speed twin fitted i bought secondhand from Derek Davidson at Sawley Marina, used to fly up the Trent as i found out when i got pulled for speeding by a boat copper hiding behind an island ! couldnt believe it when i heard a horn behind me to see a police launch complete with blue flashing light! i couldnt believe it i thought it was candid camera or beadles about!...

used to sleep in it with one hand dangling so if your fingers got wet you knew it had sprung another leak and it was time to start baling! .... was a regular thing to "cill" it in a lock to repair leaks ... but i loved it to bits! ... in the not so distant past i remember seeing fibreglass versions advertised but i am not sure they were built by brooklands like the early ones.

Rick 

 

[Derek R.]

On 05/03/2018 at 23:42, zenataomm said:

(A bit of snipping)

Motive power was a very early Yamaha two stroke, air cooled petrol/paraffin outboard.

Due to paraffin having a much lower flash point than petroleolioleum the cylinder had to attain a high temperature to combust it. 

I wonder why they never caught on?

Probably surprising to the 'Western World', it did catch on:

http://www.marineenginedigest.com/specialreports/kerosene-outboards.htm

But seemingly in the previous 17yrs since that website was published (or so they say). Yet on the same website, another page mentions their first outboard was made in 1960. It caught on! But no mention of it being a petrol/paraffin - not to say that it wasn't though.

I think the flash point of petroleum spirit is considerably lower than that of paraffin though.

Yamaha outboards - how about a rack of 350hp V8 stuck on the back of a Town 'class': https://yamahaoutboards.com/en-us/home/outboards/350-150-hp/v8-5-3l-350-hp

Might do some needed dredging?

 

[Peter X]

On 05/03/2018 at 23:42, zenataomm said:

...

Due to paraffin having a much lower flash point than petroleolioleum the cylinder had to attain a high temperature to combust it.  So you adopted delaying tactics like making a cup of tea, singing the unexpurgated version of Bohemian Rhapsody, that sort of thing, to give it a chance to get hot.  You then pretended to look one way while whacking the tap over to paraffin at the same time.

...

 

 

So at least one of these boats was still around at the end of 1975. Did you have enough people aboard to sing all the harmonies? That little boat would have been crowded.

And did Mike Myers steal your idea for Wayne's World, or were you singing after that having stolen his idea?

[Bee]

Yamaha V8? Bah, rubbish, if it had a chain maybe but its got a cam belt.

[dccruiser]

7 hours ago, Peter X said:

So at least one of these boats was still around at the end of 1975. Did you have enough people aboard to sing all the harmonies? That little boat would have been crowded.

And did Mike Myers steal your idea for Wayne's World, or were you singing after that having stolen his idea?

didnt get mine until 1980 ... was still at school in 1975! 

Rick