It is perhaps not too surprising that as well as having a strong ‘Railway’ following, the Newton Abbot Society, by virtue of its close proximity to the sea, also includes among it's membership a couple of owners of Steam powered boats. These are both full size boats over 20 feet in length, and they are regularly steamed on the nearby river Dart. They are launched into it from their trailers at Totnes quay, and make the 20 mile round trip to Dartmouth and back before the ebbing tide would leave them high and dry on a mud bank.

A highlight of their year is the annual Dartmouth Royal Regatta at which they are usually joined by other steamboats from around the country, at a meeting of the Steamboat Association of Great Britain, which is part of the regatta.

The two boats demonstrate the diversity of design of current steam boats, in that one called "Al.Hadir" has a G.R.P. hull and a paraffin fired water tube boiler; while the other, "Lydia", is a hard chine plywood hull by Glyn Lancaster-Jones, fitted with a coal fired fire tube boiler.

Both have compound engines and are fully condensing which is of course necessary on the salt waters of the Dart estuary. Each can steam at its displacement speed of over six knots - a figure which is determined by the laws of hydrodynamics and is related to their waterline length. Greater speed would require much greater horsepower than the three or so which their engines develop.

A constant supply of boiling water for tea-making is provided by that essential feature of any steamboat, the Windermere Kettle ( a steam-heated urn ), while any locker below the waterline will keep other appropriate beverages suitably cool.

Running a steamboat has many similarities with driving a locomotive, but the variations in power demanded are less, because there are no banks to climb or descend. The power needed at any particular speed depends mainly on the load in the boat, although it is influenced by weather in the guise of wind and waves; these having little effect on a locomotive.

Hence with a well designed plant, it is possible to get everything set up for steady steaming for lengthy periods, and while keeping a good watch on pressure and water levels, to sit back and enjoy the scenery as one creeps up unawares on the wildlife of the river. The absence of noise enables all sorts of close encounters to be made with everything from seals to swans and salmon, a pleasure which is denied to the ‘angry hornet’ outboard motor driven craft.