By Stan W Poyser

 Stan in 1950 with Rumpus 3 
 

Introduction.

In the early nineteen thirties my father, Harry ‘Pop’ Poyser was involved with a small group of model boating enthusiasts who would meet at Clapton Pond, Stamford Hill, North London on a Sunday morning to run steam driven model boats up and down the pond. This group of enthusiasts were not affiliated to any club or organisation, and met together with the permission of the London County Council to run their models between 10am and 2pm on Sundays. As speeds increased they resorted to using a tripod set in the pond to run the boats on a circular course. In those days 10-15mph. was considered good, always provided the three laps required were completed to record a time. It was my responsibility to look after the boats when they had finished running and father and company had adjourned to the Swan public house across from the pond for a well-earned pint.

What kind of introduction was this for a 6-7 year old to the world of modelling?

The Early Days.

Due to a house move in 1936 the boating activities had to take a back seat in favour of house renovation, and did not resume until 1941-2 when a work friend informed me that he had seen model boats going fast at Victoria Park, Hackney. Being a ‘know all’ 15 year old I said that I knew all about these and had one at home. Between us we resurrected Pop’s old boat and had a few runs on a small pond in Edmonton, North London.

This show of interest sparked Pop’s enthusiasm again, and as I had limited access to some machine tools we built between us a twin cylinder slide valve engine based on the Stuart Turner Sun-Star engines. This had a bore and stroke of ¾ inch and was driven by the 1931 Yarrow water tube boiler and blowlamp from the old boat. The plant was installed in a zinc hull with soft soldered joints and provided many hours of running on the pond at Broomfield Park, Palmers Green, North London.

During 1942-3 we embarked on the construction of a flash steam plant comprising a twin cylinder engine with slide valve steam admission, this plant was installed in a conventional hull and boilered by about 30ft. of solid drawn ¼ inch dia. 20swg mild steel tube fired with a pressurized torch type blowlamp. This engine is still in existence, and by today’s standards the construction is a crude fabrication of metal components, the bore and stroke of 7/8 inch, a water pump with 3/8 inch bore, twin oil pumps and generously proportioned components created a monster engine of interesting construction but totally unsuited for flash steam operation. It was the best we could manage at that time.

In 1943-4, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the Army and eventually came to rest in the REME stationed in Palestine. Here I made use of off duty time designing a twin cylinder poppet valve engine for flash steam, and attending every mechanical engineering course available, and was eventually released in 1948 with a reasonable academic knowledge and a fair degree of practical experience. No information was recorded of the above events, as we did not join the Victoria Park Club until 1949 having been forcibly ejected from the local ponds due to excessive noise from the models.

IC Interlude.

We became a bit disappointed with the lack of success with steam plants and purchased a McCoy 60 glow plug engine recently imported from USA, for the princely sum of £14 from H J Nichols of 308 Holloway Road, North London. This engine gave instant success and performed well in the 1950s-60s giving consistent speeds of 45-50mph. Gaining a number of first and second places at MPBA regattas, a later version of the McCoy 60 was also acquired which performed better than the first engine, the two were run in Rumpus series of boats for a number of years. During this period a 14cc ‘Sparky’ engine was built and performed reasonably well but not up to the standard of George Lines’ original motor.

In the late 60s due to a change of responsibility at work, which necessitated travelling the world looking for new plant and machinery for the confectionery industry, the modelling activities had to be curtailed somewhat. By this time however, I had acquired some reasonable workshop plant and was able to produce various bits and pieces without having to look over my shoulder at work to see if the boss was about. My eldest son Stephen, had started work as an apprentice toolmaker, and from a very early age had shown interest in model boating, building a 5cc engine at just 12 years of age, so the third generation of ‘Poyser hydroplaners’ was on the way.

Serious about Flash Steam.

In 1987-88 I was informed that 100mph had been achieved with a flash steam hydro. Now that the pressure of work had eased off I started to think about having another attempt at the mysteries of flash steam and extracted the notes of the previous years and saw immediately where I had been going wrong, and set about building an ‘A’ class engine based on the Bob Kirtley design. Ian Berne of the Victoria Club was most helpful at this stage as Bob had yet to publish his excellent articles in the ME.

 Continued next page....

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