Steel Punt

The company also manufactured a steel punt suitable for use as a fishing boat, for netting fish or for weed cutting. A review of the punt was carried out in April 1908 by R. B. Marston in the Fishing Gazette. Two of Percy Wadham’s children, Walton and Ray, were placed in the boat for the publicity photographs and Marston comments that Wadham is teaching his children to punt at an early age but he insists that he would teach them to swim with their clothes on if he were the father. The boat was made from galvanised steel with the bottom being made of corrugated steel and the corrugations running the length of the boat so that it would move through the water better. The false bottom was of wood as were the gunwales and seats. Because the bottom was made from two pieces of steel it was a riveted and double seam. The sides were from a single sheet and joined the bottom on angle steel. The original boat was not painted but later in the catalogues, the boat was painted in two shades of green. In the 1927 catalogue, a smaller version was added to the range.
In 1908 Wadham said that he had first manufactured the boat in 1904 and on the Carisbrooke water there were two punts, one in wood and his steel punt. Fishermen always picked the steel punt when given the choice. The punts were last catalogued in 1938.