What is a Deben 4 tonner?

[Tranona]

That's a great account Mr T, and very good work. I do wish today's manufacturers would show their new kit with such clear and detailed diagrams. Personally, I love the monochrome.

I won't deny...I'm starting to think I'd like one!

Just need a boat to match...

If you look at the colour ads of the same period they have a complete engine just hanging in space looking very much like the pose in your pic. That was done by hanging it up on a piece of fishing line in the studio and taking a series of pics as it swung around! long before digital photography, airbrushing and photoshopping.

Happy days.

 

[Wansworth]

What was the name of the artist who. Produced the seagull drawings of sailor carrying a seagull etc?

 

[Capt Popeye]

What was the name of the artist who. Produced the seagull drawings of sailor carrying a seagull etc?

Humm yes, carrying a Seagull and a Bag if I recall; he was walking away in the picture, humm memories eh ?

Was there a line about ............ perfectly simple its a Seagull ........... ?

 

[ianc1200]

David Cobb.

http://www.saving-old-seagulls.co.uk/nostalgia/nostalgia.htm

 

[ianc1200]

Useless without a photo, but passed a pretty small yacht in Landermere Creek (Walton Backwaters) on Sunday, later as we anchored at Honey Island it sailed past & the lady owner told me the boat was a Deben 4 tonner.

 

[Kukri]

A Deben Four Tonner was a boat designed by William Maxwell Blake as a stock design for Claud Whisstock. One was exhibited at the Festival of Britain. The Deben Six Tonner was an enlarged version drawn by Claud Whisstock as Blake had died in 1939.

 

[ianc1200]

This one has a cabin like the one we saw on Sunday,although that one was bermudan.

http://www.oga.org.uk/boat/janty

 

[lukedh]

Re Debden 4 tonner.

Have you seen this on George Whisstock's web site?

http://www.whisstock.com/page_02.ph...53&PHPSESSID=53c5c4063b05b25368a0aeec1455531d

He has done 4½ and 5 tonners, on the site as well.

Plans available FOC if registering on the site.

 

[dancrane]

Beautiful boat. Great photo - doesn't look nearly eighty years old.

 

[Wansworth]

Nicely balanced with the tiller not up round his ears!

 

[ianc1200]

From December 1929 Yachting Monthly.

 

[dancrane]

Beautiful boat, and quite a generous sail area.

I love the note about the auxiliary..."7-10hp engine should add about £10 to the total".

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Beautiful boat, and quite a generous sail area.

I love the note about the auxiliary..."7-10hp engine should add about £10 to the total".

The Bank of England's inflation calculator makes the engine £582 in today's money, and the boat itself £11,659. For a new boat, that's amazingly good value! It suggests that boat building has suffered a much higher rate of inflation than most things; I doubt you could get an engine for much less than £5,000 and the boat itself would certainly be WELL over £100,000!

 

[Tranona]

The Bank of England's inflation calculator makes the engine £582 in today's money, and the boat itself £11,659. For a new boat, that's amazingly good value! It suggests that boat building has suffered a much higher rate of inflation than most things; I doubt you could get an engine for much less than £5,000 and the boat itself would certainly be WELL over £100,000!

More importantly, wood cost next to nothing and skilled labour £5 a week, working flat out 10 hours a day in an unheated shed with an earth floor, no business rates, no H&S, no management except the owner of the business, no intermediaries between the builder and the buyer, no VAT etc etc

 

[AntarcticPilot]

More importantly, wood cost next to nothing and skilled labour £5 a week, working flat out 10 hours a day in an unheated shed with an earth floor, no business rates, no H&S, no management except the owner of the business, no intermediaries between the builder and the buyer, no VAT etc etc

As you say, a different world. Labour was also often "tied" in ways that would be totally illegal these days; my father told stories of growing up in a mining village where the mine owner controlled the community to the extent that the son of a miner who did not wish to go into the mines would find it very difficult to get any other employment.

 

[debenriver]

View attachment 66756

From December 1929 Yachting Monthly.

That's not a Deben 4-tonner however. The Deben was commissioned by my father and designed in 1936.

It could be a Ranzo - A V Robertson built those – I don't know how many – information about them is pretty sparse.

Cheers -- George

 

[debenriver]

More importantly, wood cost next to nothing and skilled labour £5 a week, working flat out 10 hours a day in an unheated shed with an earth floor, no business rates, no H&S, no management except the owner of the business, no intermediaries between the builder and the buyer, no VAT etc etc

Not quite as bad as that sounds - working hours in the 30's at Whisstocks were 7:30 to 10:00 - tea break - 10:10 to 12:30 – lunch hour - 13:30 to 15:00 - tea break - 15:05 to 17:30. That's 9 hours less 15 minutes for two (free) tea breaks – not so horrible! The shop had a wooden floor and was heated with wood-burning stove.

And my father generally worked alongside the rest of the workforce - same hours - same work - same conditions.

Cheers -- George

 

[Wansworth]

I worked for David Hillyards for one year and found the work in general very relaxed and at slow speed measured by the pace of a steady walk or slow evolution of a boat from a pile of wood.My worst memory is holding the dolly for holding on when it was beyond ice cold in March...the quickest movement was Friday afternoon at five,knocking off time for the week!

 

[ianc1200]

From YM December 1936, built by Whisstocks, designed by WM Blake - hopefully these are Deben 4 tonners!

 

[ianc1200]

As it was on the next page of December 1936 YM, when cross checking with LLoyds, this boat Scotia was also built by Whisstocks, and is designed by WM Blake - so perhaps a Deben 6 tonner.