Flotilla
Flying across the top of the Main Hall is our flotilla of small boats: boats powered by muscles, engines or by various shapes of sail; and our Regatta of prize-winning racing sailing boats.
The earliest boats were muscle-powered and we have everything from a primitive dugout canoe powered by paddles to an elegant Thames rowing boat for leisure and pleasure.
Alongside these, the engine-powered boats include the classic Merk - one of the earliest private Thames slipper launches; the world-record holding Venter or the sophisticated Albatross, plaything of the rich and famous in the post-war years.
Sails come in all shapes and sizes, designed to capture the wind as effectively as possible and to power boats up-wind and down-wind with ease. The sheer variety is eye-catching and we show some examples in traditional craft.
Our Regatta, contains the cream of the fleet: three of boats won Olympic gold medals; one of them actually winning two in different Games as Ben Ainslie used the same Finn in both the Athens and Beijing Olympics. Superdocious (for short) won gold at the 1968 Games in Mexico, skippered by Rodney Pattisson.
Thunder and Lighning was the first boat to use a trapeze competitively; and very successfully. Dart No 1 and Firefly No 1 and both representatives of classes that have become classics of our time.
Visible in the round, this fabulous collection of significant boats are accompanied by displays telling their histories and showing many of them in action.
