Elephant puppet sees the Vintage Broadsman ⛴️
3The Vintage Broadsman (and the Cordon Rouge trip boat that we fitted out a year earlier) were a revolutionary new concept for Broads Tours in the late 1980s – replacing the traditional single decker boats of old with a more spacious double-decker experience to really entertain on.
The Vintage Broadsman was commissioned by the previous owners of Broads Tours, Len and Hazel Funnell, and designed and fitted from a steel hull by our engineers and boat builders in the winter of 1987/88. This was a challenging but exciting time at Broads Tours – which many of our long-standing members of staff remember fondly today.
From the outset taking delivery of the steel hull for the Vintage Broadsman in December 1987 was quite an adventure. “The hull of the Vintage Broadsman was delivered by lorry from Wakefield and craned in at the docks at Great Yarmouth because there was nowhere closer to Wroxham that was strong enough to take its weight at that time,” explained our Fleet Manager Pat Tubby.
“The boat was craned in on a Sunday and had to be left overnight on the visiting boat’s moorings. The problem was that the Port Authority wouldn’t allow visiting boats to be left unattended overnight on the moorings, so two of our staff had to sit in a van on the quay by the hull all night long,” he continued.
“The following morning the hull was towed up through Great Yarmouth Yacht Station by two tugboats to Acle Bridge. The hulls were then towed from Acle to to one of Broads Tours’ old premises on Church Road, in Wroxham on the Tuesday,” Pat explained.