In a 1994 edition of ‘Hydro Topics’ Peter Hill described Faro in some detail and then went on to highlight its racing career. With the reappearance of the boat in 2005 it was felt that it would be a suitable subject for the full ‘Historic Hydros’ treatment. However with R.T. Pole now engaged on more esoteric activities his enthusiastic apprentice R.T. Bend has undertaken the task of unravelling the story of this famous boat. What follows is a suitably abridged version of the ‘Faro story’. For the full text version please click here.

Many of those involved in racing tethered hydroplanes were active over a considerable period of time using a series of different boats and engines, but one of the most successful competitors used just one boat throughout his entire competitive career. The boat was Faro.

In 1935, Ken Williams of the Bournville Club built a hull and 30cc four-stroke engine to the ‘A’ Class rules. He named the boat Faro, after a 19^th century card game. The hull is a scow type with sides tapered at the bow and stern and was constructed solidly with mahogany transom and formers, whilst the engine bearers and stringers were in American whitewood. Bulkheads, hull sides and deck were 1/16^th Birch ply while the bottom panels were 4mm Birch ply. The sturdiness of the boat can be judged by the all up weight, which just crept in under the class limit at 15 3/4lbs

The 30cc OHV four stroke power unit is essentially a scaled down motorcycle engine with a crankcase of magnesium alloy and a twin flywheel crank. The drive end of the crank was fitted with a thin aluminium pulley for starting, coupled to a 3/16^th drive shaft. A high camshaft was gear driven from the front end of the engine with the contact breaker for the coil ignition running off the idler gear. Barrel and cylinder head were cast iron with an aluminium piston giving a compression ratio of 5:1. The home built carburettor and float chamber used #1 spirit fuel, pressure fed from a cylindrical tank by an inflated football bladder. Oiling to the bearings and camshaft was ‘total loss’ by a single stroke pump.

The first run for Faro was in June 1936 when it achieved 25 mph, satisfactory for a first attempt but not competitive. A new piston, changes to the carburettor and a new automatic advance retard mechanism raised the speed to 32.8mph at the Grand Regatta, eliciting the comment that he had "put up a good show for a beginner with a new boat". In September at the North Staffs regatta, Faro recorded its first win, beating Gerry Buck in the process. These speeds were well below what Mr Williams was hoping for, so during the winter of 36/37 a major development of the engine was undertaken.

For the 1937 season another new piston was made, the carburettor choke was opened out still further and a new camshaft installed. With all these changes and a more efficient prop Faro was up to 35 mph, sufficient for third places in both the International race and the Speed Championship at the Grand Regatta. Further tinkering produced a run of 41.15mph for 1^st place in the 1937 ME Speedboat Competition, still short of the 47mph from the Innocent Brother’s and ‘Betty’ the previous year. More development work took place during the winter of 37/38, but the 1938 season was to prove one of continuous problems and disasters.

The damage from Wicksteed was repaired within a week, and at the International Faro managed a leisurely 3^rd place. An engine bearer broke at the next regatta and in the Grand another capsize ended a pretty disastrous season. The only successes of the year were first places at Altrincham and Farnborough.

Faro was showing her age with the engine bearers broken and the rear plane delaminating. No time had been available during the season for proper repairs so plastic wood was much in evidence. It was Ken Williams’ intention to run an entirely new 30cc boat in 1939 so "the old tub" was laid up whilst he continued work on the replacement.

At some stage the new venture was abandoned and Faro was put back into running order for the new season. At the Swindon Regatta in May no time was recorded whilst a trip to Victoria Park later in the month resulted in another capsize on the first run and a very slow second run. A short journey to the ‘home’ Bournville Lake did not produce any better results, with no time being recorded there either.

With the war nearing its end it seemed likely that organised hydroplane regattas would be restarting and Ken Williams decided that there might still be life left in Faro. A lot of work was required to get the boat on the water including casting and machining a new crankcase, as well as another new piston and redesigned valve gear. For all this the boat was significantly slower so a third cylinder head was built and a petrol benzole fuel mix introduced and soon Faro had exceeded her previous top speed.

In July 1948 the hull was fitted with a two-point bridle and the instability problems were on the way to being overcome. November 1948 saw Faro reach another landmark by setting a new ‘A’ class record of 51.1mph, the first homebuilt British boat and engine to exceed 50mph. During the 1948 season Faro was run at 6 regattas, entered 7 races gaining 6 first places 1 second place, and first place in the 48 Speedboat Competition, an enviable record.

By 1950 Edgar Westbury was being disparaging about the veteran boats still running, as they could not match the speed being reached by the more modern boats, but what they lacked in speed was often overcome by reliability. Faro and Betty were still recording wins through ‘staying the course’ and in September Ken Williams took his boat to France for the Paris International Regatta where it set another new class record of 59.21mph, which remains the highest speed the boat ever attained.

Ken Williams was very busy throughout 1951 travelling extensively in Britain as well as another trip to France where he finished second, beating Gems Suzor. Consistent runs in the mid to high 50s led to numerous duels with Betty and Ernie Clarke’s Gordon 2 with top three placings being swapped regularly. The high points were runs of 58.1mph at St Albans and 58.77 at Derby which confirmed that although Faro really had reached its peak for speed, reliability kept the awards coming in with twelve top three finishes, and another ME ‘A’ class diploma, although Gordon 2 took first place at 70.1mph showing just how Faro was struggling for outright speed.

The racing record of Faro is comparable with Betty, which must make it one of the most successful boats ever, but this was the last time Faro was to be seen as Ken Williams unfortunately suffered a heart attack after the Hispano Suiza regatta at St Albans on 26^th July 1952, and Faro was consigned to a shed with fuel, oil and the battery still in place, and there it was to remain. Ken and his wife later moved to Stourbridge taking Faro, and all the spares with them, yet nothing apparently was done to clean up or preserve the boat.

Ken Williams died in December 1965 aged 63, and in 1973 his widow Ethel sold Faro and most of the spares for the princely sum of £15 with the intention that the boat would be restored and run in demonstrations from the following year. Faro however languished untouched for yet another 30 years until a chance conversation in November 2005 revealed its whereabouts. 50 years of storage had left Faro in a ‘sorry state’, so an offer was made to restore the boat.

The oil, water and accumulated muck from did not make for a good first impression, especially as the damage from the leaking battery was so evident. A day spent scrubbing with a toothbrush and detergent revealed the true picture that was even more depressing. The rear hull skin was rotted through, delaminated and beyond saving. The front planing step had been replaced with a very thick piece of standard ply put on cross-grained so it would bend to the hull shape. The ply sides were starting to crack and delaminate and worst of all was that there had been a fire in the engine compartment at some stage, so there was no telling what state the wood was in. There was some good news in that the deck was still in excellent condition with the boat name, union flag and gold Bournville lettering still sound. Whilst there is no question that this was Faro, the boat was a bit like the 'crossing keepers broom', with nothing much of the original engine left, new oiling systems, new fuel tank, new exhaust system, new skeg and various alterations to the hull. This begged the question of whether to restore it to original, difficult given the hull changes, or to renovate it to the condition it was last raced. After discussion, this was the route chosen.

A decision was made that the bottom would have to have new skins, so all existing panels had to come off. The varnish was carefully scraped out of each screw slot and seemingly hundreds of screws removed. The glue holding the skins on was very brittle so split off easily with no damage at all. The stringers showed the number of times the skins had been replaced, as there were screw holes almost every 1/4in. With just the side skins in place, it could be seen where the engine bearers had broken and been patched all those years ago, also one of the bulkheads was snapped. There was still the problem of the fire damage to overcome and here Ken Williams unwittingly provided the answer, although 60 years on. During the last rebuild he had applied numerous thick coats of orange shellac to the inside of the hull and it was this shellac that was burned, not the wood. Some three weeks were spent with dentist’s chisels removing the burnt varnish to reveal the original timber in perfect condition. Shellac is also soluble in meths so the caked on varnish could be removed from the side panels as well. The project was now looking more hopeful and reconstruction could begin.

As thinner panels had been fitted to the bottom of the boat at some stage and alterations made to accommodate the smaller size it was not going to be possible to use the 4mm ply originally specified. New panels were cut from well weathered 1/16^th birch ply, jig drilled and varnished. All joints were reglued, screw holes plugged and the collection of ‘bodging pieces’ added over the years glued back in place. With all the stringers scraped clean of glue the new skins were attached with Cascamite and original screws. Trimming was a bit nerve wracking as it was all done with a small chisel so as not to damage the original patina of the existing wood. Four coats of varnish finished the new skins and it was on to cleaning the tanks and fittings.

The skeg was very rusty but a brass suede brush cleaned it up without damage to the surface and after a long soak in hot detergent the oil in the oil tank gave up the struggle and could be drained out. The advance retard dashpot responded to similar treatment, and was soon stripped and cleaned.

With the aluminium engine mounts degreased everything was ready for reassembly. The later additions to the boat were of very poor quality and it seems that little thought had been given to how they were installed, but back they went with the aluminium nuts and bolts as they had been originally. Amazingly, the football bladder used to feed fuel from the tank to the carburettor was not perished and would still hold pressure. The only change or addition was to add a paxolin base to the battery box so that the battery no longer rested directly on the hull bottom.

The last element was the deck and here again a bit of luck came into play. When the deck had been renewed it had been finished with a yacht varnish rather than shellac so it could be rubbed down gently and then revarnished without damage to the lettering, flag or original surface. More screws and the job was almost done, just a single coat of varnish on the side panels to stabilise the ply and the restoration was complete

On the 26^th March 2006 the hull was returned to the owner and the engine that last ran in 1952 was installed, complete with the aluminium exhaust system, so completing a task that was started in 1973.

I must express my grateful thanks to two people who have made this article possible. Peter Hill for the loan of all the original documentation and his detailed research on the racing career of the boat and Stuart Robinson for the loan of Faro and the related spares.

Update:- Amongst the accumulated spares that were obtained with the boat were several original components that had been replaced along the way, and a complete bottom half of an engine. A plan was devised to build a replica hull and incorporate all the existing items, although this was dependant on being able to put an engine together from the assortment of bits. At this stage the project stalled as the person who had agreed to rebuild the motor kept putting it on the back burner as it was, in all honesty, a major undertaking and would have been exceedingly expensive.

This is not the end of the story however, as another strange coincidence will attest to. Early in 2011 a four-stroke motor described as a 'Grayson' appeared on ebay. Clearly it was not one of these, and equally obviously, was a more or less exact replica of a Ken Williams derived Faro motor. There is always a dilemma in these situations, sit on the knowledge and hope to get a bargain or allow the instincts to kick in and let the vendor know exactly what they have.

The engine offered for sale was virtually complete mechanically, lacking only a pair of pushrods. The ignition, fuel and lubrication systems were not evident, and it seems that these were never completed. Although intended for use in a hydroplane, that is as far as Brian got with the project. This may well have been because the 30cc four-stroke was almost at the end of its life as a power plant and with a lot of work still to do, Brian's interests turned to other avenues. What is interesting about Brian's engine is the aluminium cylinder head. Ken relates how he was experimenting with this material, yet the only example to hand is very different to the one on this motor. This one look much more suited to the job. Happily, all the drawings and constructional details still exist, so it would not require too much work to have another complete and working motor, built by a fellow Bournville club member of Ken Williams. Unfortunately Brian is none too well, and his memories of his time at the club are limited, but it is wonderful to find this direct connection.

Ken Williams was the manager of a foundry and it was known that he supplied sets of castings to other club members and interested parties. This is the first engine other than his own that can be connected directly with him. There is now one complete engine in Bob Thomas' Enid down in Surrey, the one in Faro plus two other crankcases, the one built by Bill Morris that came via Norman Lara, and now Brian's. Are there any more out there?

Bob Thomas' Enid	Heavily reinforced part finished crankcase

We are extremely grateful to Andrew Jones for all the help and information he has provided for this update.

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