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In 1953, Bernard Pilliner wrote a series of very detailed articles for Model Engineer. He subtitled these "A chronicle of experiments, trials and tribulations." No one that has ever had any connection with flash steam hydroplanes would dispute that they create all of these in equal measure, with a great deal of frustration and untold dedication and hard work thrown in. There also seems to be something in the psyche of the flash steam enthusiast that determines that once they are involved they are hooked for life and unlikely to give up the quest, whatever the difficulties they face. This was certainly true of Bernard, right from his first forays in 1936 through to his sad and untimely death in 1970.

Bernard Joseph Pilliner was born in Peckham, London on the 2^nd of December 1916 two years after his brother Eric. After the family moved to Harvey Road Guildford, he spent a few months at Charlotteville School before starting at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford in September 1928. Having passed his school certificate in 1933 he gained a four-year apprenticeship at Dennis Bros in Guildford. Dennis was a well-established commercial vehicle manufacturer, best known for their fire engines. Bernard’s apprenticeship started in the last week of November 1933, and from the outset it seems that he had a remarkable talent towards engineering, and design work in particular.

As a first attempt at a steamer, the boat was far from a failure, but it was the spur that would see Bernard at the forefront of experimentation and design into the 1950s.

In 1937, he passed on his thoughts on making cams via an article in the Model Engineer, the first of many articles he would publish over the years. A new boat and engine were soon on the drawing board as well, and ‘Frisky’ would be completed in 1939, but the outbreak of war would bring the visits to Stoke Park and other venues to a close as the MPBA ended any official boating activities.

The period after the end of the war saw rapid development in several aspects of tethered hydroplane design and it became obvious to Bernard that he would need to incorporate these as well as address the deficiencies that he had noted with ‘Frisky’.

It is obvious from his writings, that he looked very closely at very aspect of the flash steam plant and used his considerable design and engineering talents to overcome the problems one by one. All these changes were incorporated in another new boat ‘Ginger’, named after Mary, who had flaming red hair.

The main reason being that Bernard had abandoned the pressurised fuel tank system and was now using a fuel feed pump on the motor.

Not only did this mean a much smaller and lighter tank could be used, but fuel flow would be constant throughout a run and dependent on engine speed rather than diminishing air pressure.

He also came to the conclusion that the burners were the key to a successful flash steam plant and changed from two to four burners, but with a common vaporising coil within the boiler casing.

This would be overcome by a change in hull design brought about by a principle that would become universal, right through to the present day.

To the right is the very traditional hull shape with a wide single step and very shallow planing angle. The skeg at the rear is more than two inches under the boat so that the propeller is always completely submerged with the boat running on the front step and rear planing surface of the hull.

Probably the single most important development in tethered hydroplanes was the move to surface piercing props and hulls with sponsons or planing steps, creating the classic proprider. This reduced resistance significantly so increasing speed dramatically, but it was another series of variables to come to terms with.

‘Ginger’ became a proprider with the addition of two planning skids at the front and one at the stern and a 4" pitch surface prop. These changes upped the speed of the boat from a best of 41mph to just on 50mph, which gives some idea of the advantage of the new principles.

In this configuration he expected something like a 5mph gain in speed, but on its first run it accelerated to lap at 57, then 61, 65, 68 and finally around 71mph at which stage the boat took off doing comprehensive damage. Bernard considered this experiment a success, as it ‘is the only occasion on which a gain of more than 3 or 4 mph has been made immediately from an alteration.’

Frolic after the accident. In front of the boat is the aluminium front plane. This starts off as one wide plane and then becomes two narrower ones to lift the hull from the water. Rather than a true surface prop, Frolic had two narrow wooden planing surfaces underneath the transom to lift the rear of the boat.

During the course of all this experimentation Bernard had identified two design features that would become standard practice on the very fastest flash steam boats, but not until considerably later. The first was the concept of burners mounted on a spider with a common vaporising coil inside the boiler case. The second was the venturi flame tube, which unfortunately he dismissed, relying on separate parallel flame tubes around each burner nipple.

These two innovations would solve the problem of burner control right up to 120+ mph, are very simple and thrive on high-speed air.

The new hull was a radical departure being 42 inches long and instead of a rectangular box was all curves. The bottom was rounded in cross section with the sides curving up tightly to the deck line. As he suggested, Bernard set the engine further forward to allow a steeply inclined transom with a prop shaft exiting through a small rear planing step.

While virtually every other tethered hydroplane was now running with two large fixed sponsons at the front, Bernard continued with very shallow planes.

The ingenious part of the design was that these two planes were pivoted and connected to a lever controlled by the tension on the rear bridle and a third bridle itself attached to the middle of the rear bridle. With the boat at rest, the planes were down to give the hull lift on launching.

As the speed increased so the third bridle allowed the rear bridle to straighten out, working a system of levers and springs that raised the planes so that they were level with the bottom of the boat, so reducing the amount of lift from the hull.

Left: Boat at speed with sponsons raised fully

‘Eega Beeva’ had both burners and boiler fully enclosed in a casing with an air intake at the front and exhaust at the rear giving a lovely smooth and streamlined outline to the boat, but was possibly the Achilles heel of the system. The fastest run of the season at 53.83mph was sufficient to win Bernard the ‘A’ steam class in the 1953 ME Speedboat Competition, his first success.

He would also retain the Crebbin Cup for a second year for the best performance by a flash steamer at the Grand Regatta.

Left: Mary flicking prop to start the engine

Fine tuning carried on through the 54 season with the new boat gradually becoming faster and faster, finishing 2^nd in ‘A’ Class at the International Regatta where it was described as ‘a fearsome aquatic monster’.

The boat achieved its first outright success when it won the ‘A’ class at the Southampton Regatta with a speed of 59mph, beating all the IC engined boats in the process. ME commented "this was the best run by a flash steam boat for some time, and it was a wonderful spectacle.

Just a couple of weeks later at the Grand regatta at Victoria Park, ‘Eega Beeva’ and Bernard would create a ‘spectacle’ that would become an iconic image of tethered hydroplane racing. At just over 60mph the boat took off and Dennis Mattingley captured the exact moment that it was vertical to show the perfect underneath view of the hull and the three-legged bridle system.

Although the hull and steam plant survived the somersault, the ‘sponsons were deranged sufficiently to prevent another run being made.’ The 58.77mph run recorded previously would win Bernard the ‘A’ steam class in the Model Engineer Speedboat Competition for the second year running.

Bernard and ‘Eega Beeva’ won the Crebbin Cup again in 1955, but he was attending fewer and fewer regattas as plans were afoot for a much bigger project, not connected to models in any way. He had previously set-up in partnership with two others, Messrs Davies and Palmer as DPP doing engineering/design work. As daughter Loraine recalls, 'For donkeys years every fire appliance you could find had a DPP hosereel assembly on the back, another Pilliner design.'

Then, in 1957, Bernard and Mary set up their own company, Rational Automation, to develop and supply automated process machinery to the food production industry. Here he continued with his innovative ideas being awarded several more international patents specifically relating to the baking industry. Some years later they were joined by draughtsman Brian Partridge who would eventually become a partner in the company. In 1968 Bernard was awarded full membership of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

In 1970 Bernard decided to dust off ‘Eega Beeva’ and have another seasons racing. His old club, Southampton had largely gone over to radio control so he was put in touch with Jim Hampton and became a member of the Hampshire and South Coast Club  at the end of June, with the registration HS5. He hoped to have a few trial runs at the Ornamental Lake before travelling to other regattas, but the pole had been destroyed and removed making that impossible.

The twelve or so years absence seemed to have made no difference though, and at the Woburn lake he put in what were noted as ‘some very spectacular runs’.

At both the Grand and International Regattas Bernard finished 2^nd in the ‘A’ Class, in the process regaining the Crebbin trophy that he last held in 1955. Remarkably, his run was nearly 10mph faster than that in 1955. Bernard and the boat were still competitive, but sadly this was not to be a happy return to the sport.

Bernard was very seriously ill, and it is believed this is what prompted him to run his boat for a ‘last season’. Certainly he was unable to attend as many regattas as he had planned, but it was a great shock to the model power boat fraternity when they heard of his sudden death at the end of 1970.

Right: Bernard at the Grand in 1970. Daughter Loraine, seated, was promoted to prop flicking duties on this occasion.

In the obituary by Peter Lambert, Chairman of the MPBA, he wrote, "Bernard was a man who had the respect of us all, his personality and sense of humour at the pond side always added to any regatta he attended. He was the perfect sportsman at all times. The hydroplane world will be the poorer for the loss of such a fine, knowledgeable and experienced engineer."

In one of his last commentaries, Edgar Westbury wrote of Bernard and the other flash steam competitors at the 1970 International, "I do not think that there are any more difficult problems in model engineering to be overcome, than in making a flash steam hydroplane perform satisfactorily." Bernard had so nearly achieved this, but his thinking and design ideas would inspire others to continue the quest, culminating in the great flash steam renaissance of the 1980s and 90s.