Boat jumbles nostalgia

zoidberg

zoidberg

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An article in The Telegraph re car boot sales had me reminiscing about the Beaulieu Boat Jumble, which was long a favourite event - like the winter pilgrimage to the Earls Court Boat Show and to the Guinness Stand.

Friends hunted each year for folding bicycles, others for ropey old ropes. Even the staff of Practical Boat Owner had the disease, flogging from their tent some of the many items sent to them for testing. I still have a pair of dusty Beaulieu Bosun Grid compasses I'll find a home for 'one day'.

What are your memories and favourite finds?
 
I knew the man who started the boat jumble at Beaulei he had a Aladdin’s cave type place in west Cowes when the pros moved in it lost a lot of its charm
 
Wansworth said:
. . . when the pros moved in it lost a lot of its charm
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Could apply to other fields of life! 😁

But the other side of it is the potential customers have changed, too. Boating, and boat owners, in general have decisively moved upmarket. The DIY & PBO spirit has very much waned. People are looking for very specific, typically high technology purchases, rather than making do and mending.

And they typically want to do it online in the comfort of their home or workspace, not spend part of their weekend wandering round a field.

I, too, miss such things, though.
 
I never went to the Beaulieu Boat Jumble. It always seemed to clash with getting the boat ready. I do remember hearing though, that when the jumble stopped thefts from boats dropped. Not to sure how true this actually, was but my boat was about a 40 minute drive away.

I tend to buy new, what I consider best value, and then repair when the item "breaks" many years later, so I keep my DIY / PBO bit going and gives me a valid excuse to complain !
 
In the late 1980's I got a phone call from a mate in the trade. "They are demolishing a hospital in Plymouth and they seem to be burning a lot of decent wood, they will give you an hour to get your ass up there to have a look before they burn any more"
Turns out to be hospital ward floor upon floor of Boer war age teak 4"' x 1" on bonfires bigger than a house.
I managed to grab the last bit of it 🥲🥲🥲 - just 8,000 feet of 20' long scrag ends. They must have started burning hundreds of thousands of feet of it!!!
Sold £6k's worth at Beaulieu in a weekend and kept a few thousand foot for myself - it, and other traditional stuff sold like hotcakes back then.
A couple of years later (early 90's) we sold nothing all weekend - but the bloke on the stand next to me was inundated with customers for his VHF's, early satnav's and whatever. That was the moment boating changed forever.
 
Blue Seas said:
In the late 1980's I got a phone call from a mate in the trade. "They are demolishing a hospital in Plymouth and they seem to be burning a lot of decent wood, they will give you an hour to get your ass up there to have a look before they burn any more"
Turns out to be hospital ward floor upon floor of Boer war age teak 4"' x 1" on bonfires bigger than a house.
I managed to grab the last bit of it 🥲🥲🥲 - just 8,000 feet of 20' long scrag ends. They must have started burning hundreds of thousands of feet of it!!!
Sold £6k's worth at Beaulieu in a weekend and kept a few thousand foot for myself - it, and other traditional stuff sold like hotcakes back then.
A couple of years later (early 90's) we sold nothing all weekend - but the bloke on the stand next to me was inundated with customers for his VHF's, early satnav's and whatever. That was the moment boating changed forever.
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Let’s hope demolition people are more wised up thesedays……I fitted outa 12 mar yacht with all secondhand timber in the late 1980s,work tops in Iroko,door fames etc from shops I mahogany
 
A science teacher friend rescued the lab worktops when his classroom was refurbed. 1.25" mahogany in 15ft lengths - I replaced the transom, hatch frames, runners & grab rails on an old 24 footer 30 years ago and still have some of it in the shed. Smells wonderfully spicy when you cut it!
 
Due to inclement weather, it was pishing down, the annual boat jumble at a well known Cornish Boatyard was cancelled this year.
 
zoidberg said:
An article in The Telegraph re car boot sales had me reminiscing about the Beaulieu Boat Jumble, which was long a favourite event - like the winter pilgrimage to the Earls Court Boat Show and to the Guinness Stand.

Friends hunted each year for folding bicycles, others for ropey old ropes. Even the staff of Practical Boat Owner had the disease, flogging from their tent some of the many items sent to them for testing. I still have a pair of dusty Beaulieu Bosun Grid compasses I'll find a home for 'one day'.

What are your memories and favourite finds?
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I found many items for sale at ridiculously low prices.

Perhaps that is why boat jumbles are few now?

Ebay reaching such an audience gains true value even with fees, perhaps?

Sign of the times?

I used to buy so much for peanuts at boat jumbles.

We’re people simply desperate to get rid of stuff?
 
What did we all do before the internet?

The first two Beaulieu ones were just extraordinary as there must have been 20 years worth of garage hoarding stuff that was put out on tarpaulins and tables by sailors, for sailors. And they were fun.
And you kept bumping into people literally 😄

Since then I dunno, just full of plastic and electronics is my impression apart from 2009/10 when after The Crash there were seemingly whole chandlery stocks doing the rounds. And a fair bit of slatted teak.
 
Fifty years ago I remember a friend from near Pwlheli buying a mahogany block floor from a Victorian school hall being demolished in South Wales. He did two trips in his 1500 Allegro with a trailer behind. The car never quite recovered..🙄
He was converting an old stone cow shed next to his cottage into a lounge and he made a fantastic job of it, including the wood block floor.
 
Alfie168 said:
Fifty years ago I remember a friend from near Pwlheli buying a mahogany block floor from a Victorian school hall being demolished in South Wales. He did two trips in his 1500 Allegro with a trailer behind. The car never quite recovered..🙄
He was converting an old stone cow shed next to his cottage into a lounge and he made a fantastic job of it, including the wood block floor.
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Similar story from an Lido being demolished in Kent.

All the cubicles had solid teak painted doors.

There are still some Boat Jumbles going. I went to Ipswich this year and had a few bargains.
 
My best finds were a large piece of a solid teak door, from which I made new boarding ladder steps and various other teak parts for my yacht. Next was a spare VDO wind instrument to match the ones then on the boat. Perhaps the most useful was a stand that sold clothing and had Regatta men's trousers with half a dozen zipped pockets. I still have the two pairs I bought.
 
We are going to Portsmouth with lots, mainly to clear the garage. Better to let stuff go for free, to folk who may want and savour them, than put it in the recycling bin. Mind you the hard dinghy and trailer has been difficult to persuade the local tip to accept them!
 
Muddy32 said:
We are going to Portsmouth with lots, mainly to clear the garage. Better to let stuff go for free, to folk who may want and savour them, than put it in the recycling bin. Mind you the hard dinghy and trailer has been difficult to persuade the local tip to accept them!
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The only decent thing to do is take unwanted stuff to a marina and place it just outside the skip.

Let us know when and where :)
 
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