The Lore of Punting

G.D. Leslie compares and contrasts the benefits of punting against rowing at some length in Our River. Punts are the simplest boat you can devise, capacious, agile and easy to push along, he points out.
They are slow, he concedes, but "the person who shoves a punt has many advantages over the rower; the extreme monotony of the work of rowing, after a long spell, becomes very tedious, the hands get blistered, and the body cramped; if you are sculling without a coxswain the constant twisting your neck around to look ahead proves irksome, and if you have a coxswain, it is ten to one that altercations will be continually arising as to errors of the steerer."
Err, I recognise a lot of that, especially about the often fractious relationship between cox and crew. But then Leslie goes on to discuss the finer points of punting in a deep and wide river like the Thames, and gets very interesting.
Rowers may have to twist their necks to see where they are going, but punters are totally blind to the surface that is essential to progress - the river bed. However, there are many hints at the water's edge for an experienced punter.
"When the bank is low and flat, and the edges fringed with sedges, mud is certain to be found, as is the case also where where floating persicaria or water-lilies are seen, whilst round rushes and steep cliff banks generally indicate that the bottom is gravelly and the stream swift," he writes.
When punting upstream it is best to hug the inside bank of a bend where the current is smallest, though Leslie warns of the danger of being dragged out of the punt by low branches, like Absalom from his chariot.
Another tip is that great big holes are often encountered near bridges, where material was dredged out to build the bridge and its approach roads.
Leslie also greatly enjoyed the ability to collect passing flotsam simply by leaning out of the punt and picking it up. He would collect firewood, bottles, old boots even, on one occasion, a 'No Trespassing' sign: "I kept it as a trophy, on account of the dislike I have to these eyesores on the river."
Hear, hear!

Sailing a punt

One of G.D. Leslie's eccentricities was sailing his punt. "I never saw any other punt but mine with a sail," he writes in Our River. I'm not surprised as it strikes me as a good way to get a soaking, but Leslie claims "by using the lee-board when the wind is across the river, a punt sails even better than a rowing boat."
A likely story. I am reminded of Philip Bolger's mystification when people said "that's a nice rowing boat, let's sail her", and that applies to punts with knobs on.
The rig is appealingly simple, however. A loose-footed lug sail with plenty of area high up, needed for water that is mostly sheltered by trees. Steering is done with the pole, and when the wind is abeam the passenger uses a floorboard as a makeshift leeboard.

Bee construction starts (again)

Construction of my Bee restarted this week with the assembly of the bottom and side boards the right way round (though I am still comparing them with the plans every five minutes or so, just to check).

I am learning more about epoxy all the time. The joints on the bottom plank had lots of air bubbles, the same problem that I had with Nessy, but this time Geoff the bosun, who is restoring Langstone Cutters' new arrival in the same shed, lent me a wonderful corrugated roller that squeezes the air bubbles out and creates a really good adhesion between the wood and the tape. I used it for the sides and it works a treat.

Next step: getting the bits together into a hull shape.

How to Punt

G.D. Leslie poled his punt all along the upper Thames, but was mainly based in the area from Maidenhead to Henley. Punts are rarely seen be seen below Oxford these days, and Leslie's poling style has practically vanished as a result.
In Oxford, punts are propelled by 'pricking'. The punter stands in the stern on the sloping part, lifts the pole and pushes in the right direction, correcting the course by moving the pole like a rudder between strokes. This method has the advantage that the punt can be filled with indolent passengers.
Leslie, however, 'ran' his punt in the old-fashioned way by walking forward to the middle of the boat and pushing the pole with his whole body until he reached the stern again, a much more powerful action that he claimed was less tiring than pricking because the legs provide most of the power rather than just the arms.
Leslie also advises practicing poling on both sides of the punt because it is often necessary to hug the bank to keep out of the main current, something Oxford punters don't have to worry about so much.
Leslie completely ignores the deviant practice of punting from the till (the flat area of decking) that one sees in Cambridge.
The picture shows his punt at St Patrick's Stream in Shiplake.

Punting

Punting is a great way of navigating a relatively shallow, slow-moving stream such as the Thames. The Victorian artist George Dunlop Leslie, a member of the St John's Wood Clique, was an avid punter and described the joys and vicissitudes of punting in his book Our River, published in 1881.
The book is again available by the miracle of modern technology, both as a free download and as a print-on-demand volume from the British Library. I came across this lovely book by chance - I was researching Leslie as a previous owner of my grandfather's house, Riverside in Wallingford.
The picture shows G.D. Leslie in his own punt, built in Maidenhead where, Leslie claimed, the best punts came from. The book is a treasure-trove of punting technique, river lore, boating advice and rants on the steamboat menace. More over the next few days.

Gig Rowing on the Telly

Caroline Quentin, who used to be quite funny, has been reduced to making tourist videos for Cornwall, where she claims to have family roots. Most of her programme Caroline Quentin in Cornwall was a canter through the usual vineyards, tea rooms and so on, but one section made it worth recording and skimming through to get it without all the fluff. It followed Devoran Gig Club as they prepare for a race in drag with worryingly professional-looking makeup. They were clearly there for the beer, a very laudable attitude I say.

Boat Construction Starts

Construction of my new Bee started on Sunday. I epoxied the bottom planks together.
Today I examined the joints to find that the epoxy had set perfectly. But the planks were the wrong way round.
I sawed them apart.
Construction restarts when I calm down a bit.