First of all, what is Badger?
Badger is a beautiful wooden dinghy. She is built from overlapped Mahogany planks which are copper rivetted onto Oak bent frames. There are clear signs of iron rowlocks having been removed from her gunwales, indicating that she was intended to be rowed by two people. I have replaced these with brass rowlock sockets for emergency rowing purposes.
The hull is also provided with Davit fittings which would suggest she has been used as a Tender to a much larger craft. This has been confirmed by a casual meeting with a former owner who stated that the transom had been sign written "Tender to Misty" "Southampton" under several layers of paint when he re-painted the hull. If anyone out there can confirm this, I would love to here from you. Especially the gentleman concerned as, in the exitement of the day, I failed to ask who he was or how I could contact him. The craft could, I think, be positively identified as she has a faint serial number (16423) embossed in her transom stern post possibly punched there by the boatyard that originally built her?
Badger appears to have been converted from a rowing dinghy to a motor dinghy in or after 1964. She is powered by a Stuart 1.5hp type 40R water cooled two stroke engine, reversing gearbox and propeller shaft, all supplied new to Wright & Co. in 1964. I have not been able to trace Wright & Co. as Stuarts ledgers give no more information so if any reader knows where this boatyard was I would be very grateful for an email.
This engine runs on a 50:1 mix of 95 Octane unleaded petrol and self mixing two stroke oil. When cruising it produces no noticeable visible smoke and will run all day on a gallon of petroil mix. These engines were made by Stuarts at Henley-on-Thames for many years and I believe came as 1.5hp single cylinder and 4hp twin cylinder engine with or without a reversing gearbox. Apart from the suserration of the air intake the engine is virtually silent in use and at normal speeds and work loads is vibration free. If you lean over the transom the exhaust just gently purrs to you.
