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Bowman Aeroboat 2 The Aeroboat 2 was made by Bowman in Dereham Norfolk UK in the 1930s, one of many of Bowman-Jenkins ideas for toys. Mine came out of a skip about 10 years ago. The hull is 30 inches long and is almost all original. The major replacements are the rudder, and the rubber! The hull has been repainted and revarnished. On a full winding the boat will run for about 7 minutes, enough to cross our local pond with time to spare, but as the hull is flat bottomed and shallow the boat is very prone to drifting with the wind. Attempts to get a longer run by extra winding results in lots of small bits of rubber! The winding gear is interesting, the motor is wound by a shoelace wrapped round the drum and worked in the same way as starting an IC engine. The larger gear is locked by the slide just aft of it and its shaft carries the drum. The strands of rubber pull this shaft forward to drive the gear but it can slide back to wind up the 'motor'. The prop shaft has a smaller gear (approx 7:1 ratio) and the prop is about 1 3/8 inch diameter and quite coarse, it also looks non original. Release the slide to start the motor. The motor cover and painted forward deck are thin aluminum, another small modification is the addition of a small brass strip which can hold a line thrown across the bows to rescue the boat when the motor has run down. A quadrupled 1/4"by 1/16th rubber motor provides the power.
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