Margoletta and Cachalot

Introduction

These are the two motor cruisers that feature most prominently in Arthur Ransome's Norfolk Broads novels. 

Description

The Margoletta makes a negative impression in Coot Club. Although this impression is really the fault of her hirers, it does affect the Margoletta's very character: having seen her barging around the rivers, and hearing the "jumble of noise" from her two cabins, Tom "could not think of a thing like that as 'she' " (Coot Club, Chapter 4).

The boat herself (or itself) had two main cabins, fore and aft, with an open cockpit between them. She had a single shaft and propeller and Ransome makes it clear she had more than enough power to "barge around" the narrow rivers of the Broards.

The Cachalot was an altogether smaller vessel. Unlike the Margoletta, she is privately-owned and registered on the River Waveney. She is no ordinary cruiser, but one specially built for fishing, with rests for rods on the cabin top. She has a stern cockpit equipped with more rod rests and an enormous bait-can. Internally, the Cachalot's cabin was equipped with a single bunk, a settee and a stove.

Whilst the Margoletta makes a negative impression, the Cachalot plays an altogether more positive role, helping the Death and Glories on more than one occasion.   

Ownership

The Margoletta belonged to the fictional Rodley's of Wroxham. 

Ransome does not reveal the Cachalot's owner's name. He is simply identified as a friendly fisherman.

Margoletta and Cachalot appear in

Coot Club (Margoletta), The Big Six (Cachalot).

Factual Inspiration

There are no known specific models for either the Margoletta or the Cachalot. However, both are clearly identifiable as typical Broads cruisers from the early 1930s.

Motor-powered hire cruisers were a relatively new development when Ransome wrote Coot Club. Accoding to M George (The Land Use, Ecology and Conservation of Broadland, 1992) there were about 165 hire craft in 1920, of which only 4 were motor cruisers. Their numbers would have increased rapidly during the '20s and '30s, but they would still have been relatively scarce compared to today.

These early cruisers would whave been built of wood, probably to very high standards of craftsmanship. As an example, the 43' cruiser Monarch, laid down by Banham's of Horning in 1938 and completed after the war, had a hull of Burmese teak on oak frames, topsides built of teak, iroko and mahogany, and an interior crafted from mahogany and oak.

What Happened to the "Real" Margoletta and Cachalot?

Many of these pre-war hire cruisers would have suffered from being used as anti-invasion obstacles during the Second World War, when they were moored out on the Broads for years at a time. Even those that survived were soon heavily outnumbered by the growth in numbers of newer designs in the 1960s and 70s. These latter designs were increasingly made of fibreglass, with broad, flat-bottomed hulls that maximised living space compared to more traditional designs. Their hull designs also tended to produce severe wash, thus helping to increase erosion of the river banks. Increasingly equipped with stereos and televisions, the hey day of the Margoletta's "descendants" came around 1979, when there were 2,150 motor cruisers available for hire.

Today, the numbers of hire cruisers has declined somewhat. Meanwhile, thought is being put into the development of sustainable, environmental designs, that consider the overall impact of a boat from manufacture, to use and eventual disposal. 

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