Biggles Wiki
Register
Advertisement

In the short story The Case of the Amateur Yachtsmen, the Scamperer was a yacht owned by Trelawny and Pennington, a pair of city gentlemen who helped a gang of gold robbers transport a stolen consignment of gold from France to England.

Early in the story, Ginger spotted the Scamperer making a mid-Channel rendezvous with a powered boat from France. Finding this suspicious, he followed the yacht which then made for Bull Head, lowered some lobster pots and then put into the nearby Cornish village of Poltruan.

The gold was eventually recovered by the police and the Scamperer confiscated.

The Scamperer was described as a Dutch barge. These are flat-bottomed shallow draught craft ranging in size from 15m to 40m. Mostly built with strong timber frames, the barges were generally sail powered but some had motors fitted as well. Originally built to carry cargo in the Netherlands, many were later converted into yachts and pleasure craft because of their seaworthy qualities. The Scamperer was described as a small barge, which would make it nearer to the 15m end of the scale.

Dutch barge

A typical Dutch barge. The Scamperer would probably have been smaller than this.

Advertisement