Category:Bowman Boats

~1931: Photo: "The start of the race". The figure with the pipe might be Geoffrey Bowman Jenkins [image info]

1930: Hobbies Yachts and Launches, Hobbies Weekly, showing "Peggy" and "Swallow" [image info]

1932: Hobbies-Bowman Boat Fortnight, prize scheme [image info]

1933: "SPEED SPEED SPEED", Bowman Boats [image info]

1933: Bowman Marine Engine Unit, available separately [image info]

Bowman Models (Geoffrey Bowman Jenkins) produced a range of boats for Hobbies Ltd. in the late 1920s and early 1930s, sometimes under the Hobbies name, and latterly under the name Hobbies-Bowman.

SPEED - SPEED - SPEED

Bowman boats, whether steam, clockwork or elastic-driven, are built to give you more pleasure, greater speeds, longer runs, better value for money than their rivals in any particular class. Boys! with a Bowman boat carrying your colours you'll soon be racing champion of your local pond.

A Most Enthralling Pastime – STEAM SPEED BOATS

SAILING BOATS have never ceased to hold the interest of boys, but it is the power-driven boats which appeal to the model engineer. There is a greater scope for his mechanical inclinations, and whether steam, clockwork, or other mechanical propulsion be used, he is able by greater thought and skill to gain the victory in that friendly rivalry which is always in evidence between boat owners.

All sorts of interesting competitions can be arranged, and it is perhaps this additional attraction which accounts for the keenness and enthusiasm of model boat owners. Competitions usually take the form of speed contests, which amounts to exciting neck and neck races; distance tests in which the winner gets the furthest from starting point; or steering contests when the winner steers nearest to a given target.

There is tremendous scope for the mechanical skill of the owner as well as for the design and efficiency of the boat. This is where the owner of a Hobbies-Bowman Steam Speedboat scores, as these boats embody all the experience and engineering skill which has made Bowman Model Steam Engines and Locos famous throughout the world, and are specially designed to give the greatest speed and longest run in their class.

The steam-driven boat is the climax of the model boat owner's ambitions. The manipulation of a real steam model which will run for a mile or even two miles on a filling, induces an intense interest which no mere winding of a key or turning of a switch can ever do. The new Hobbies-Bowman Steam Speedboats represent an enormous advance and we claim them to be unapproachable in their price range, for beauty of design, finish, speed, and length of run, whilst they are the only boats of their type which run reasonably well in a moderate breeze.

— , Bowman Models, , The Bowman Book of Steam Models, , ~1931

Steam-powered boats:

Miss America – Peggy – Peggy (superheated) – Pioneer – Swallow – Snipe – Eagle – Seahawk

Clockwork-powered boats:

Clockwork Boat – Clockwork Launch – Panther – Tiger – Comet – Ajax

Rubber band powered boats:

Whippet – Greyhound – Wasp – Firefly – Whirlwind – Aeroboat No.I – Aeroboat No.II – Aeroboat Junior

External links

• Toy boats (mikes-steam-engines.co.uk)