All Weather River Cruiser

At home on the Norfolk Broads

The history remains cloudy. The little that is known of the origin of the name "Dawncraft 26" is explained on the page about the Company Name.

Much of what has been written about the Hampton Safari quotes either from the Shorebase site or the Boats of the Norfolk Broads database, but recent research indicates there are gaps and some misinformation in what they both report. It appears that Paul was only aware of boats built by Dawn‑Craft with the old mould tools, hence his "MkID" designation that Craig adopted in his database. Paul, it seems, was also only aware of boats fitted with twin berths in the aft cabin. In a reversal of Paul's experience, we are yet to find photographs showing any of the variants with twin berths, but there's been plenty of time since then for owners to have converted twin berths to doubles.

It has emerged that R & C Bondon built two boats with long side windows three years before Dawn‑Craft started building them, making the designation of "MkID" misleading, at least as far as Craig's use of it on his database, as it fails to indicate that some were built by Bondon and, it seems, many if not all those built by Dawn‑Craft, were based on MkII shells. That seems likely as the earliest example listed in Craig's database is B185 and that boat was built on a MkII shell and launched in 1975, three years after the MkII was announced.

Apart from recording the launch of the two Bondon built boats, Craig's database records that, from 1975, Dawn‑Craft (Wroxham) built two or three variant boats each year until 1978. All of them went to the Brinkcraft fleet in Wroxham. The Dawn‑Craft (Wroxham) yard closed in the early 1990s, before the Internet was popular, so research is not a simple matter, not least because of the confusion over the Company Name.

It is clear that there is more to learn and, probably, some corrections will be needed to what is written here.

Mk II Shell Examples

While it is clear that the two R & C Bondon boats, were based on MkI moulds. The only pictures, obtained so far by this site, of Dawn‑Craft built examples are based on MkII shells.

Below two examples of the marque are shown that both exhibit the standard features of MkII shells, the enlarged gas locker hatch and lipped dashboard with a gap featuring an angled area for the instrument panel. The photographs are used with the permission of the Hampton Safari Boat Club.

Alfresco

Maytime Safari

Common Features

Both these examples have clearly been significantly altered since launch, but there are some features in common that suggest they were part of the standard Dawn‑Craft fit-out. Internally, both include a saloon floor raised by some four inches, as shown in Hampton's Original Plans and a wiper motor mounted half way up the starboard side of the window ahead of the helmsman's seat.

Externally, both have a pulpit fitted and, judging by the photographs found on Craig's database, all examples of the marque have the same fitting. Both also lack an aft window, a feature that provides a convenient place to hang a life ring. Without seeing photographs of examples built in the final two years of production, it cannot be said whether this is a feature found on all examples or something that changed over time.

Pictures of the internal features of the Dawn-Craft variant would be welcome, especially if they show how storage along with twin berths are arranged. Please upload them to the Forum.