From Art Deco houseboats to handcrafted canoes, the Thames is home to a flotilla of exotic vintage vessels. Emma Richards casts off...
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Breda
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Breda
Best war heroine
- Breda (Chertsey) 🏆
Renovating this beautiful little Dunkirk ship turned out to be a major, four-year labour of love for Belgian Alain Lemans. Four months in, he even had to sell his house.
“I’m not entirely sure why we chose a wreck and decided to do it up,” he admits.
Built in 1931, Breda was requisitioned as part of Churchill’s Operation Dynamo, which saw the evacuation of 338,000 Allied troops from France in 1940.
Witnessing untold horrors, she crossed the Channel three times in six days, and it was on her final trip that she rescued a group of soldiers hailing from Breda, the Netherlands town that bears her name. This year, she returned to Dunkirk for the 85th anniversary celebrations.
Breda has been reimagined for future generations by boat restorers Heather and Michael Dennett. Each berth is fit for a queen with luxury mattresses and Art Deco fan-shaped headboards of mahogany, maple and walnut.
Working with a designer entails compromises. Alain’s passion for the Deco aesthetic had to be tempered when, instead of building a cocktail bar, Heather insisted that Breda have a central aisle to enable access to the bows.
“Having recently taken her across the Channel in challenging weather, I’m glad I listened,” says Alain. “Luckily, though, I didn’t have to give up on the espresso bar or the ice-cube maker.”
Breda is available for private charters on bredacruises.co.uk
Lady Emma
Best for glamour
- Lady Emma (Marsh Lock and Henley) 🏆
Slim and graceful, this 1930s Canadian-style motorised canoe blends modern elegance with old-world glamour.
Her hull is planked in mahogany, with copper fastened to steam-bent oak frames, whilst her decks are fitted with mahogany and Alaskan Yellow Cedar – traditionally used to build totem poles. Even the cushions are designed with three different densities of foam for maximum comfort.
Cruising in a canoe is a truly immersive experience – you’re up close and personal with the swans, ducks and dragonflies. With her shallow draft (she only goes a few inches into the water), deft handling and silent 2kw motor, you can take to the river in Lady Emma and carve out pockets of serenity, says owner Simon McMurtie.
Owing to her size, Lady Emma also has the advantage of being able to slip smoothly along smaller tributaries like the Hennerton Backwater near Shiplake, in Oxfordshire – the magical mile-and-a-half of river which features in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat.
Messing about on the river in boats is quite simply “the most fantastic way to entertain family and friends’’, says Simon. And with a chilled glass of champagne in hand, I couldn’t agree more.
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Flamant Rose
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Flamant Rose
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Flamant Rose
Best romantic icon
- Flamant Rose (D’Oyly Carte Island, Weybridge) 🏆
Moored off a private Surrey island, this dreamy 100ft yacht (‘The Pink Flamingo’) was the setting for one of the world’s greatest love stories – the passionate affair between French singer Edith Piaf and boxer Marcel Cerdan.
In the late 1940s, the legendary love boat was a hideaway for the pair’s secret trysts on the Seine, until Marcel died tragically in a plane crash in 1949. Today’s owner, celebrity hypnotist Valerie Austin, has preserved its Art Deco magnificence, ensuring that Flamant Rose remains a time capsule for a bygone era imbued with Piaf’s spirit.
Downstairs, you’ll find a decadent double bed, silky golden drapes, smoky mirrors and a grand freestanding gold bath. Upstairs there’s an open-plan deck studded with multiple portholes, a small cocktail bar for soirées and a saloon where you can browse a collection of Piaf’s vinyls,an Espresso Martini in hand.
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The Oxford Barge
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The Oxford Barge
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The Oxford Barge
Best for character
- The Oxford Barge (D’Oyly Carte Island) 🏆
Oliver Couchman messages me early with a picture of a pink-hued sky: “There is one reason I love living here – sunrise from east in the morning,” he says.
He’s just bought one of only two remaining Oxford Barges in existence. Built in 1901 and affiliated with New College, it was designed to create a viewing platform for boat races on the Thames, back in the days before Oxford colleges began to build boathouses instead.
I imagine the excitement of up to 60 top-hatted enthusiasts jostling for position on the 3.25m-high red balustrade roof terrace.
This 80 x 17ft houseboat is full of exquisite period detail: each of the 27 glass panels is illuminated by an ornate stained glass Lancaster rose with yellow pollen centre, part of the emblem of New College Boat Club.
Step through a quirky 1940s Narnia wardrobe (the exact size of a doorway) and you enter what looks like an ornate captain’s cabin. In the living area, there’s a huge squishy sofa and a baby grand piano, which Ollie plays – to the enjoyment of his neighbours – on Friday evenings.
But what induced him to exchange dry land for the river in the first place?
“I simply bought a boat I couldn’t take my eyes off. It was serendipity in the making,” he says.
