Any perusal of results from past hydroplane regattas reveals the names of several competitors active over a considerable period of time, even extending to several decades. In some cases a whole family of boats and engines of the same series were used such as Arthur Cockman with Ifitts 1-9 and the Nobles with an equal number of Bullrushes. Others, a variety of boats under different names, but one of the most successful competitors used just one boat throughout his entire competitive career that lasted from 1936 until cut short by ill health in the early 50s. The boat was Faro, and this is a look at how, with continuous development to the engine and alterations to the hull, Ken Williams more than doubled its speed.

In 1935, Mr Ken Williams of the Bournville Club designed and built a hull and 30cc four-stroke engine to the ‘A’ Class hydroplane rules. He named the boat Faro, after a gamblers card game popular in Europe and the ‘Wild West’ during the 19thC. The hull is a conventional scow type with sides tapered at the bow and stern. The single front step has a planing angle of 1:33 as does the after plane, which is washed out for the last 4in of the hull to give no lift. Originally built for ‘moderate performance’, the hull was constructed very sturdily with solid mahogany transom and main formers, whilst the engine bearers and stringers were in American whitewood, bevelled between frames. All bulkheads used 1/16^th ply, framed again with whitewood with the front and rear frames being fretted out ‘aircraft style and the centre pair left solid to provide two watertight compartments. All joints were ‘halved’, then glued and screwed together. Hull sides are again of 1/16^th Birch ply, glued and nailed with all pins ‘clenched over’. Both front and rear bottom panels however were from 4mm Birch ply, glued and screwed with numerous brass-countersunk screws. The original deck was a single piece of 1/16^th Birch ply with a cut out for the engine and battery compartments. 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 power unit involved a great deal of design work and precise engineering. The 30cc OHV four stroke is essentially a scaled down motorcycle engine with bore and stroke equal at 1 5/16in. The crankcase was cast in Elektron, a magnesium alloy, with a twin flywheel crank running in ball races. The drive end of the shaft was fitted with a thin aluminium pulley for starting and a coupling to the 3/16^th drive shaft. The 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 was cast iron with an aluminium piston giving a compression ratio of 5:1. Delicate push rods operated the inclined valves in the cast iron cylinder head. The home built carburettor and float chamber used a 5/16^th choke and standard #1 spirit fuel was pressure fed from a cylindrical tank by an inflated football bladder. Oiling to the bearings and camshaft was by a single stroke hand pressure pump with the crankcase breathing through a pipe led overboard. Exhaust was a parallel pipe only at that stage, as silencers were not compulsory.

The first run for Faro was in June 1936 at Wickstead Park when it achieved 25 mph, satisfactory for a first attempt but not competitive. A new piston boosted the compression ratio to 6.5:1 and the carburettor choke was opened out to 11/32 raising the speed to about 31 mph. With a new automatic advance retard mechanism controlled by an oil filled dashpot Faro managed 32.8mph to come 3^rd in the 1000 yards race at the Grand Regatta in July, eliciting the comment that he had "put up a good show for a beginner with a new boat". In September Faro took first place at the North Staffs regatta at 28mph, beating none other than Gerry Buck in the process. These speeds were well below what Mr Williams was hoping for however, so during the winter of 36/37 a major development of the engine was undertaken.

For the 1937 season an aluminium head was intended to replace the cast iron original, but errors in the patterns caused this to be abandoned, so in order to get the engine running the iron head was pressed into service again. Yet another new piston was made, raising the compression ratio to 7:1 and gudgeon pin diameter was increased to 5/16^th. The carburettor choke was opened out still further to 3/8^th whilst to cure the valve float that was a constant problem; the very aggressive polydyne cam was abandoned in favour of a more conventional tulip design. With all these changes and a more efficient prop Faro was up to 35 mph. At the Grand Regatta this speed was sufficient for third places in both the International race and the Speed Championship. Further tinkering got the speed over 40mph and a top speed of 41.15mph was submitted for the 1937 ME Speedboat Competition which gained Ken Williams 1^st place and the first of many ME diplomas. Taken in context however, the Innocent Brother’s ‘Betty’ had taken the previous years contest at 47mph.

In a bid to match the speeds being returned by the Innocent brothers, Faro was again dismantled during the winter of 37/38 for yet more development work, however the 1938 season proved to be one of continuous problems and disasters for Ken Williams and Faro. The regatta reports for the year all note the difficulties being experienced. Continued carburation problems kept speeds down to around half of normal. What was very apparent, especially at higher speeds, was the inherent instability of the hull. With the Centre of Gravity some 4" behind the tether, the back end of the boat would prop walk outwards until the outer chine dug in and then the boat would capsize. Because of the two very large flywheels in the engine the subsequent hydraulic locks would do grievous damage to connecting rods and numerous gudgeon pins, and on one spectacular occasion at the Wicksteed regatta in June bursting the barrel below the top fin and blowing the cylinder head clean off.

To try and overcome this instability a new and wider skeg was made to give some ‘keel effect’. The new skeg incorporated a minute ball bearing thrust race with a square ball and socket coupling whilst the engine end of the shaft was fitted with a short cardan again incorporating a square drive. The changes improved the behaviour of the boat and raising the tether bracket further helped even more, but the problem was to dog Faro for the next ten years until the adoption of a two point bridle.

Luckily a spare barrel, intended for another engine, was available which enabled the damage from Wicksteed to be repaired within a week, and at the International Faro was one of just four boats to complete the course, but with the on-going carb problems only managed 3^rd place at a leisurely 25.98mph. At the opening meeting of the new West Midland venue the engine bearer broke and in the 1938 Grand another capsize ended a pretty disastrous season. The only real successes of the year were a first places at Altrincham where Faro beat D. Innes’ 30cc boat (possibly Satellite IV) by just 0.2mph, but at a lowly 33.3mph and at Farnborough where he won both the quickstart event (dead engine to 3 laps) in 32.7s and the Challenge cup at 33.2mph.

Faro was already starting to show her age. The engine bearers had broken and the rear plane had become oil and waterlogged delaminating the ply, adding to the instability problems. 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 for the 39 season so "the old tub" was laid up whilst he continued work on Faro’s replacement. This was to be an entirely new departure for him, still with a four-stroke engine, but no further details were given and no evidence exists that the boat was ever finished.

At some stage it was decided to abandon this new venture and so Faro came out of retirement for the first time and was put into running order for the new season. This may well have been a time consideration, as in August 38 Ken Williams had taken over the task of writing the Petrol Engines and Hydroplane Topics for the Marine Model Magazine, succeeding J.B. Innocent, co- builder of Betty. During the same period he also produced a detailed series of articles for Model Engineer describing the building of Faro and its engine.

For 1939 a new magnesium piston was fitted, but it was well into the season before the effect of this could be evaluated. At the Swindon Regatta in May the motor proved reluctant to start and then petered out ½ a lap short so no time was recorded. A trip to Victoria Park later in the month resulted in a capsize on the first run and, after drying the boat out, completed a very slow second run. A short journey to the ‘home’ Bournville Lake did not produce any better results, with no time being recorded, as the engine was missing badly. At the MPBA International in June Faro performed better with a run in the 5-lap race at 39.61mph for a silver medal. This was later corrected to 40.5 due to an error in measuring the line. After a capsize on the first run of the 3 lap event the second run produced an identical speed to the 5 lap event, good enough for a bronze medal. Finally, the West Midland MPBA regatta in July proved surprising for Ken, as he had come to the conclusion that the boat was "was worn out and running downhill fast".  Faro proved that "there was life in the old dog yet" by exceeding her previous best, setting a new pond record on the first run of 43.75mph, later upped to 43.8 on the second. With war just weeks away, Faro put in a run at 42mph to win first place at the Farnborough August regatta.

For all the work and hours of machining Faro finished 1939 just 2mph quicker than it had achieved in 1937. For some obscure reason known only to ETW, Faro did not qualify for the 1939 Speedboat Competition, although a ‘Special Certificate’ was awarded for a run at over 45mph that would have gained Ken Williams a second place in the A class.

The outbreak of war curtailed much of the racing activity, but Ken Williams persevered with Faro and made yet another new piston taking the compression ratio up to 10:1. This seemed to provide the extra urge that Ken was seeking and in Nov 1940 Faro finally beat the 47.47mph set by the Innocent Brothers and Betty in 1936, but only by the smallest margin. Faro was now the British Record Holder at 47.5mph.

With no official regattas taking place, Faro was run at Bournville each year to promote the ‘Brighter Birmingham Holidays At Home’ programme until in 1944 the crankcase suffered a fatigue fracture of one of the mounting lugs. Vibration from the engine had been a constant source of difficulty with at least three sets of mild steel engine mounts cracking, as well as the carburettor stub and body, exhausts and other ancillaries succumbing, but the destruction of the crankcase was the final straw and Faro was put into honourable retirement and Ken Williams used his time to produce a set of full sized detailed drawings of the engine which he completed in September 1944.

With the war nearing its end the Bournville Club held a regatta in 1945 where, without a boat, Ken Williams could only stand and watch. With a firm date set for another regatta at Whitsun 1946 he 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, beefed up, magnesium alloy crankcase. Another new piston with a 3/8^th gudgeon pin was made and a redesigned set of cam followers and tappet gear manufactured. Valve springs were replaced, as the originals were very tired by now. The boat was showing its age and was significantly slower, only managing 30.58mph in the 47 Speedboat Competition. Radical surgery was required. A third cylinder head was built with the inlet port opened out to 5/8in but the exhaust left at 9/16in. Compression ratio was still 10:1 but a petrol benzole fuel mix was used to overcome pre ignition problems. Finding suitable plugs in the appropriate size posed an on-going problem throughout the life of the boat and a variety of makes, sizes and heat ranges were tried, with varying degrees of success. A 3in dia X 6in pitch prop made the most of the power available, reckoned to be 3 bhp at 13,000 rpm.

In July 1948 the hull was fitted with the first of its two-point bridles with plates at the bow and stern and at last the instability problems were on the way to being overcome. In November 1948 Faro reached another landmark by setting a new ‘A’ class record of 51.1mph for the ¼ mile, the first homebuilt British boat and engine to exceed 50mph before going on to complete the mile at 48.7mph. This run was submitted for the 48 Speedboat Competition gaining Ken Williams first place in ’A’ class and yet another diploma. During the 1948 season Faro was run at 6 regattas, entered 7 races gaining 6 first places and 1 second place, an enviable record.

In May 1949 ‘In Search Of Speed’ was published in Model Engineer in which Ken Williams described in great detail the development of the boat and engine up to that stage. The 49 regatta season was equally successful and yet more detailed work on the hull and engine saw Faro running faster than ever. At Bournville in November, the boat set a new ‘A’ class record at 56.8mph, but lost the outright record to a 70mph run by George Stone with the Dooling powered Lady Babs 2. The 56.8mph was good enough for yet another first place diploma in the 49 Speedboat Competition, but with George Lines’ ‘B’ class boat Sparky taking that class at 58.7mph and Stone’s 70.1 in ‘C’ class, the outright record would not go to an ‘A’class boat again.

Ken Williams knew that the design of the boat was outdated and was being pushed beyond its limits. The planing angles were too steep and the boat would run clear of the water for 30ft at a time and was also far too heavy. He did consider building a three-pointer hull with a surface propellor and magneto ignition to mirror current practice, but by his own admission "all that was lacking was time" so Faro continued to be raced. Bridle attachment was changed to two wires with eyelets that were bolted to brackets on the front and rear frames of the hull and came out about 2/3^rd the way up the sides of the boat. This alteration necessitated a new deck, which can be identified through having two separate cut outs and the lettering reversed on the foredeck. Because of the attachment plates for the bridle, the deck now had a slight humped back appearance over the two frames. The original cylindrical fuel tank was abandoned for a smaller rectangular one with a wedge shaped sump mounted on the ‘inner side’ of the engine bay. A small oil tank with a lockable single stroke pump was also fitted around this time. A new coil from ZN Motors was taped to a wooden block and mounted, less than elegantly, with four large brass screws through the deck.

By 1950 Edgar Westbury was being pretty disparaging about the veteran boats and the competitors still running them, as they could not match the speed being reached by the more modern boats, but what they lacked in outright speed was often overcome with extreme reliability. Faro and Betty were still recording class wins and overall successes through ‘staying the course’ and in September Ken Williams took his boat to France to compete in the Paris International Regatta. Faro liked the foreign air, or was it the fuel, and set another new class record of 59.21mph, which remains the highest speed it ever attained. How it must have galled ETW to have to sign a diploma for this ‘veteran boat’, recognising another first place in ‘A’ class in the 1950 ME Speedboat Competition.

Ken Williams and Faro were very busy throughout 1951 travelling the length and breadth of Britain as well as another trip to France where he finished second at 57.7mph beating Gems Suzor in the process. The season did not start well with the boat being damaged in a smash at Wallasey and it was a while before Faro was back to full speed. 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 including at least twelve entries in the top three, as well as another ME diploma, but fourth place only this time. Gordon 2 took first place at 70.1mph showing just how Faro was struggling for outright speed.

The 52 season got under way at the Bournville Whitsun regatta ‘with a sudden stop’ when the connecting rod promptly broke as soon as the engine was started. A new rod and a rebuild soon had the boat back in action. Reliability came in to play at the International Regatta when very bad weather knocked out all but three boats, leaving Faro in third place at 43.1mph. At Wicksteed Park a 2nd place to John Benson was followed by another ‘A’ class award at the St Albans Hispano/Ford meeting on 26^th July with a 53.7mph run. The two veterans Faro and Betty, both now 17+ years old, recorded their highest speeds of the season at this regatta. This was to be the last occasion that Faro would be run, as Ken Williams’ name was missing from the Grand Regatta in August and all subsequent meetings. The racing record of Faro is comparable with that of Betty, which must make it one of the most successful boats ever. Luckily Betty has survived and can be seen in the Motor Boat Museum at Pitsea. Essex.

The work involved in creating the engine originally and then manufacturing new crankcases, several new heads and valve gear plus numerous pistons and ancillaries as well as the alterations to hull and running gear is quite staggering. It did help that Ken Williams ran a foundry, which allowed him to produce the castings he required, as well as providing sets for others to build similar engines. Competing at that level with that degree of success over nearly 20 years was an amazing commitment and one can only conjecture what the result might have been if Ken Williams had built a new boat and engine. Sadly, time was not on his side as he 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, quietly rotting away. Luckily, when Ken and his wife moved from Birmingham to Stourbridge Faro went with them, as did the stand, all the original parts that had been discarded, the spares, the documentation and the running accessories. In fact, the complete ‘Faro inventory’ made the move, yet nothing apparently was done to clean up or preserve the boat in any way.

Ken Williams suffered yet another heart attack and died in December 1965 aged 63, but the boat remained in Stourbridge until 1973 when his widow Ethel sold Faro and most of the spares to Gerry Colbeck and Stuart Robinson for the princely sum of £15. The intention was that the boat would be restored and run, like Betty, in demonstrations at regattas from the following year. Commitment to racing tethered hydroplanes overtook the good intentions however and Faro languished untouched for a further 30 years. In 2005 a chance conversation revealed that Stuart Robinson still had the boat and he made a very kind offer that Faro could be borrowed to measure the hull with a view to building a replica. Having collected the boat, it looked so sad that a reciprocal offer was made to restore it. Happily this was accepted and a new phase in the story of Faro began.

The oil, water and accumulated muck from 50 years of storage 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 of Faro 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.

©copyright Hugh Blowers. August 2006