Pingu

Make: Norman

Model: Norman 18.5

Engine: 8HP Outboard (Petrol)

After the near disaster that was Merlin I kept my eye out for a boat and came across another little Norman called Rokema, this one had a decent canopy working engine and a good bit of bssc left so the deal was done on a lovely bright sunny day. A week later we handed over cash and took ownership in the pi55ing rain, we had to move marina quick as there was a sales clause in the berthing terms and he hadn't told them he was selling...... We organised a mooring along the river at the Fish & Duck pub at popes corner so set off down the river to find out just what water leaks could be like, every window was peeing in, a temporary fix was to tape bit of old shower curtains over the windows till we could sort it, the trouble was Ali had cut neat lines out of penguin design shower curtains, as we were hanging over the roof taping them on a family came out of the pub and the kid looked and said "aww pingus!", that was it as good as renamed, after a good few beers Pingu became "Pingu the haddock slayer" (well penguins eat fish don't they). Over the winter I fitted a 25hp Johnson I'd picked up which turned out to be a pile of crap but had electric start unlike the 8hp Yamaha it came with. The following easter the river was finally opened to navigation after floods and foot and mouth disease had re-opened some of the bank footpaths and we had the task of bringing the boat back to St.Neots to the marina we had organised, on arrival to the first lock onto a tidal section we had just about run out of fuel due to the crappy old johnson outboard, luckily the lockie lent me his car to get to the garage to fuel up, he told us to keep to the right away from the picnic tables and the next lock was running a bit fast (how the hell can a lock run fast?) we found out when we got there as the river was a mile wide and running straight over the lock but we still had to go through the motions of going through the lock as there was no clear route around and the rails on top of the guilotine gates were above water, most annoying having to hang on for dear life as the water rushes through while you wait for the delay to equalise the levels (like that was going to happen FFS), next lock we eeked under the guilotine gate just to have the engine cut out just after in front of the weir, oh crap! Got it to fire eventually and gave it full throttle to get off the weir chain. All in all the trip was a major baptism of fire but we made it eventually., the little Norman proved to be a great starter boat as you could get it anywhere being so small, We bit the bullet and bought a new Mariner 9.9hp 4 stroke which made it a much better boat, we did a few weeks out on Pingu but that was long enough as very few showers along the Gt.Ouse. We finally sold it when we bought Genie, later to become Haddocks Revenge, then it got really silly.... DF.

Last edited 14th January 2021


Click images for full size

Pingu at the Fish & Duck

25hp Johnson

Outboard lock

Helm

Seat back cupboards

Seat back storage

Homemade drawer unit.

CD player

Bum perch

After cabin refit.

New engine