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Jimmy, like so many other hydroplane enthusiasts, was a toolmaker and worked for BICC in Liverpool from around 1955. He started his involvement with tethered boats in 1937 with the first of the ‘Miss Fyre’ series, a 9cc two-stroke engine in a kipper box hull. In 1946 he wrote an article in the Model Engineer featuring ‘Miss Fyre II’ that had gained him first prize at a civil defence exhibition in Liverpool. The hull was the 24" ME design published in 1939 with a Kittiwake engine that he built himself in the early years of the war.

He thanked Edgar Westbury and the Model Engineer "For setting him on the way". Jimmy was a prolific builder with at least 4 ‘Miss Fyre’ hulls and engines, no less than 10 hulls in the Mambo series, Sea Jay with its engine built as a joint project with Tom Clements and others as well. Jimmy with his ‘trademark’ beret and his wife Ethel competed across the country from 1946, right through to the 80s, racing their stable of 10 and 15cc boats.

As well as building his own boats and engines, Jimmy was responsible for encouraging and helping numerous other competitors, including Tom Clement who was to become a life-long friend. He provided ‘enthusiastic guidance’ for the current A/S record holder Bob Kirtley to develop his highly successful flash steam hydros. Two of his colleagues at work, Frank Burns and apprentice Don Mason, also built boats under his guidance.

Jimmy lived in Maghull just to the north of Liverpool and was founder member of the Maghull Model Engineering society in the late 30s as well as forming the Maghull Boys Club in 1945. He was also prominent in the Crosby Model Boat club that raced at Crosby lakes just a stones throw from his house. When the Maghull MES folded around 1950 he moved to the Birkenhead Club acquiring the registration BD3.

The bright red ‘Wee Gareth’ first appeared in 1966 with Jimmy fulfilling a promise to name it after his grandson. During its competitive career two very different engines were installed and it is seen here with one of a pair of home built engines, with distinctive square fins on the cylinder and cylinder head.

These motors had originally been built in the 50s and one had powered an early ‘Mambo’, while his wife, Ethel, had used the other identical motor in her own 10cc boat.

In 1976 Gareth was loaned to the Heaton Model Boat Club where George Wade and his son Malcolm ran it for 3 seasons. Sadly, in 1979 at Birkenhead, the motor gave up the unequal struggle. George made a new crankshaft for the engine, but that was not the only damage the motor had sustained, as John Cherry discovered when he became involved with the boat.

When he stripped the motor down, he found that the port bridges in the liner had all been broken in the ‘blow up’. A colleague, Bob Fearnly, machined up a new liner which John then fitted, completely renovating the engine at the same time. He gave the boat a run at Jimmy’s home club in May 1987 but did not record a speed in either round.

Gareth returned home around 1990 with the engine complete but the boat generally showing signs of age. By now Jimmy was in his late 80s but he restored and repainted the boat. In 1992 he passed ‘Wee Gareth’ to Stuart Robinson, another very well known and successful competitor, who intended to race the boat in ‘vintage’ competitions. It was given an airing at Welwyn on 6^th June 1993, where it gained the MPBA badge seen on the foredeck.

The following weekend Jimmy Jones attended the Northern Area Championships at Hull, where Tom Clement ran ‘Mambo X’ for him, as he no longer felt himself to be safe in the water. It was to be his last hydroplane meeting as Jimmy died on the 28^th June, 6 months short of his 90^th birthday

In 2005 ‘Wee Gareth’ was passed to a member of the Retro Racing Club for preservation. The ‘knock off’ mechanism had been removed at some stage leaving two aluminium bushes in the sides of the hull that had been plugged with fluted dowels The long aluminium cowl used with the ‘Dooling’ type engine had been shortened to match the one originally used with the square fin motor, which would leave the up swept venturi open to the elements.

The rear half of the silencer was missing and a round head screw had been inserted into the end of the rear sponson bar for bungee launching that became standard practice. Otherwise ‘Gareth’ was just as it was built over 40 years ago. Apart from a clean and polish, nothing further has been done to the hull.

A new ‘knock off’ mechanism and cowl have been produced and fitted whilst the engine was stripped and checked over. The joint faces on the front and backplates just needed a very light skim to true them up and that was all that was required.

After giving it a thorough clean and making new gaskets, the motor was reassembled. The machining and fits in the engine are amazing as it spins so easily and smoothly, yet with the plug in there is oodles of compression. A new silencer was ‘reversed engineered’ using the remaining part and existing photos, with new internals added to give an appropriate level of ‘silencing’.

There are other examples of Jimmy’s boats still in existence, but ‘Wee Gareth’ stands as a testament to the skill and enthusiasm he displayed throughout his    58 year involvement with tethered hydroplanes.

In the years immediately following the second war, there was rapid development in the design of tethered hydroplane hulls. The scow or ‘kipper box’ was giving way to the three-point ‘prop riding’ hull. Numerous routes were followed including a narrow hull with the sponsons on outrigger bars, which is now universal, or the American ‘Ventnor’ trend with the sponsons or other running planes integral with a ‘boat shaped’ centre section.

Whichever design was used the aim was to get the boat riding on the sponsons and prop without getting so much air underneath the hull that it took off. Most of these designs led to very boxy and slab sided boats, easy to build but no so easy on the eye. One group of competitors, many of them from the Bournville club, eschewed this path and produced some beautifully streamlined and graceful designs. One of the most elegant was George Stones 5cc Lady Cynthia, but Tom Dalziel from Bournville produced Naiad 3, which was equally fascinating.

A wonderful film exists of Naiad III running at Victoria and pecking in on the far side of the lake. From out of the ball of spray came the entire engine unit that was retrieved from further down the lake. The shot concludes with Tom wading back to the bank with the boat in one hand and the engine in the other, and with a smile on his face.

When Tom Dalziel finished competing he passed the boat to a fellow club member,  who in turn passed the boat to Dave Scarnell,  and that is where it currently resides. In 1997 the boat made a ‘guest appearance’ at the St Albans International Regatta.

Update Nov 2007.

Almost as soon as this article was published, Stuart Robinson recalled seeing Tom running a twin hulled boat, but a search of all the records failed to produce a reference to this 'mystery' craft. In an amazing coincidence, just four days later, a collection of photos came to light, and in one of them, Tom Dalziel was holding the very boat in question.

A close look at the print shows that the15cc motor featured above had been fitted to this 'catamaran' style hull, probably in the early 70s. The fate of this experimental hull is not known, but the engine was obviously put back into Naiad 3.

George Stone achieved a great deal of success with this style of boat and several were built for various classes, but none matched the speed of George's

Having stripped down Naiad for the photos, Dave Scarnell made the decision to put the boat back into running order and rebridle it. It was first taken to Kingsbury, where Arthur Wall and Ron Hankins, seen here on the right, were co-opted into getting it running. The engine proved reluctant to pick up fuel, and after some more attention was taken to St Albans.

Here Dave was back in waders, but again the engine would run out a prime, but no more. Frustrated by this, Dave dug his A3 boat out, and came out of retirement. Naiad was returned to the shed, but has now been passed on, in the hope that the fuel problems can be ironed out so that it can be made to run reliably again.