Fine & Dandy GRP Boats!

[@davidf2703]

Another very well researched and easy-to-listen-to video, thank you. I have an interest in the Dawncraft Dandy in particular and I love the story of the Wilson family designing it while all lying on the living room floor. 😊

[@BramleyProductions]

Many thanks for your very kind comments its such a shame we lost so many of these firms. I suppose that's progress and it would I feel be so hard today just to rent a bit of land by a canal and set up a business like this today I can just hear the planners say you can't do that!! Thanks, Kev.

[@paulbrough3483]

Thank you so much for research on Dawncraft. I have happy memories of these boats.In mid 70s my Dad bought of a 22 ft with 7.5 Honda out board. Up to Llangollen was my 1st trip. Super boat with flying cockpit cover for rainy days. My dad sold it and brought a Springer hull and we fitted it out our selves. Paul B.

[@ukpaul9221]

I was gobsmacked. you shown the interior of the dandy and I'm sure it was once our boat as no-one adds extra fittings exactly the same and I recognise the ply and dowel fittings I made for her. they made a lot of difference with extra work space and shelving. How I wish we had still got her. We named her 'Pega'.

[@redjohn20001]

As a boy I remember Ladyline and seem to recall they had a showroom at Market Drayton where they displayed a number of boats. As well as outboard powered boats, I remember boats with an inboard/outboard configuration using a small petrol engine. The name Watermoto springs to mind for this set up. As for Dawncraft, I still see them occasionally on the canals from time to time and always liked the hidden outboard with boxed in rear with hinged lid, possibly a deterent to theft of the motor. Many thanks for the video.

[@BramleyProductions]

Thanks for your kind comment. Yep, Freeman Boats used the Ford Watermots Seawolf 1100cc Crossflow petrol engine in the later-built narrow bean Freeman 22! It was the Ford Escort engine that had been marinized by Watermoto of Newton Abbot in Devon And Ladyline sold those F22 Narrow beam boats. Also I think there were a few Norman 20s built with the same Watermota engine there were even a few Dawncrafts that used this engine with an Enfield outdrive unit as well. I once read that clever tunnel system helped steerage on Dawncarfts but having never owned one I could not really comment on that all outboard cruisers were very easy to handle and you could even travel astern for long distances very easily with an outboard motor. No paddle wheel effect like on an inboard with a prop on a shaft. thanks, Happy days thinking back to Ladyline for me I knew Ken Yates well who managed the Braunston Ladyline outlet well. Thanks, Kev.

[@redjohn20001]

@@BramleyProductions Ken Yates, now that rings a bell, I think my father new him. Did he have some connection with a narrow boat carrying company? My father fell in love with the canals and boating in the 60s and from then on owned a boat for the rest of his days. Wonderful times but being a youth at the time I did not appreciate it. Regards John.

[@BramleyProductions]

@@redjohn20001 Thanks, I don't think Ken Yates as far as I know had any connections with any Narrowbaot carrying concerns! But he may have done. He managed the Braunston Ladyline outlet for a number of years from the 1970s to its demise in the 1980s and was renowned for putting packages together to get people on the water on such boats as Norman Dawncraft, Nauticus, Shetland etc. After Ladyline closed he came very close to home and took over the boat sales and small boat yard here near to me at Billing Aquadrome where he traded on his own as Ken Yates Marine Sales taking over from Marine Secol. He traded there for many more years until he retired and where I got to know him better at that time I brought a Freeman 22 from the river Gt Ouse. Ken went and picked it up for me on his trailer and amazingly as this was a Narrow beam later built Freeman 22 he remembered the name as he had sold this boat new in 1973 to a Daventry hardware shopkeeper who had the boat named! This was when he was at Ladyline! At one point in time, he was selling one to two new narrowboats each week from the Billing site and had a good turnaround in older GRP cruisers always very honest and a pleasure to do business with and to chat with him re his vast knowledge on inland boats of all makes a size. Yep, when we are young we often just take life for granted don't we later on maybe wish we had taken more in for sure. I know what you mean there. Thanks, Kev.