THAMES TRADITIONS

“Back in June 1997 I turned my hobby into a business and since then I’ve never looked back,” says Tony Woollard, owner of Otter Marine based at Platts Eyot, Hampton on the river Thames. Access to this leafy island location is either by steel footbridge or by boat.

In 1868 John Isaac Thornycroft set up the Hampton Launch Works here building cruisers and speedboats and later manufacturing wartime Coastal Forces craft. One of his yards is thought to have