Features / floating harbour
Celebrating 50 years of the Bristol Packet
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the team behind the Bristol Packet. As their 50th anniversary approaches, company director Luke Dunstan looks back on being an integral part of our city’s docks and looks forward to their plans for the future.
Luke’s favourite Bristol Packet tour is the Avon Gorge cruise. “There’s quite a lot involved with that one,” he says.
“You have the lock gates, swing bridges, the gorge, the bridge, then you go past the historic village of Pill, underneath the M5 motorway bridge, and out to the mouth of the river where you can see all the shipping at Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks as well as across to Wales and the possibility to see the two Severn crossings. And then fly back upstream with the tide. It’s got a lot going on!”
is needed now More than ever
Luke is reminiscing about five decades of the business which this month celebrates its 50th anniversary. And apart from a brief period in London working for AOL at the start of the dot-com boom and as a first mate on board super yachts in the Mediterranean, it has been central to all of Luke’s life since growing up in Banwell and now living overlooking the harbour.
Luke Dunstan has worked for the Bristol Packet almost all of his life – photo: Martin Booth
Boat rides and postcards for sale in thr 1970s – photo: Bristol Packet
“It’s quite an achievement keeping a boat going for 50 years, let alone a fleet of boats that are mostly well over 50 years old,” says Luke, sipping a cappuccino at the SS Great Britain cafe just a stone’s throw from where the Bristol Packet’s five boats are moored.
“Knowing the amount of effort that has gone in to keep those boats afloat over that 50-year period, it’s quite incredible as it is a tremendous amount of work.
“But it’s also testament to the skills we’ve got in-house within the business and the knowledge we have. And it’s amazing that passengers still want to go with us and we’re relevant half a century on!”
The Redshank’s first tour took place on May 16 1974, pictured here next to Castle Park – photo: Bristol Packet
When former canal boat Redshank undertook its first tour of the Floating Harbour in 1974, trip boats were a novel idea.
Until the 1960s when cheap flights to warmer climes began to become more enticing than an excursion to Swansea, White Funnel paddle steamers had used Bristol as an embarkation point (just take a look at what remains of the wooden jetties and piers on Hotwell Road close to the Suspension Bridge if you want a reminder of that time) but never before had the docks previously been explored. Why would they?
Bristol Packet founder Nick Gray pivoted from transporting coal to transporting passengers – photo: Bristol Packet
In the early 70s, there remained the last bit of industry including sand dredgers that had berths where the Thekla and housing at Poole’s Wharf are now.
Bristol Packet founder Nick Gray’s tours always included a commentary and one thing that has not changed from then until today is the story of the historic port of Bristol where Cabot sailed from, and which later became one of England’s busiest and most profitable harbours.
Redshank in the 1970s – photo: Bristol Packet
Luke’s earliest memories of growing up in the early 80s were of “a dilapidated landscape with buddleia bushes, piles of coal, little fires here and there, burnt out things, just a derelict wasteland. But some people seemed to be interested in it and they managed to keep the business going at that point somehow.”
Look around the dockside now and some of Bristol’s most expensive flats have been built where those buddleia bushes used to grow.
Bristol Packet’s office in the 1970s – photo: Bristol Packet
School trips continue to be as popular as ever but much has changed and the Bristol Packet has had to adapt with the times.
Jazz bands and cream teas have mostly been replaced by corporate tours, hen do’s, and for a while regular party sessions on the Tower Belle before things got slightly out of hand and the boat was given the nautical equivalent of an Asbo.
A wedding party on board the Tower Belle – photo: Bristol Packet
“We still sell historic city docks tours so in essence nothing has changed,” says Luke, although the boats have seen some serious modifications in 50 years, from a ‘bucket-and-chuck-it’ to working toilets; fully-stocked bars; and Hydrogenesis, the UK’s first hydrogen-powered passenger vessel, joining the Bristol Packet fleet in 2021.
And look out for the brilliantly named Baby Belle too, found at the bottom of the docks during the salvage of the Greenshank in 2021 and now remaining on dry land.
Tower Belle and the Flower of Bristol in front of Lloyds Amphitheatre – photo: Bristol Packet
Luke’s father, Keith, is currently hard at work behind the scenes to transition all of the other boats from diesel to electric power, an innovation so unique that he is helping the Maritime & Coastguard Agency write the industry guidelines for other vessels that will soon follow in the Bristol Packet’s wake.
But Luke adds that “essentially, people just want to get on the water, enjoy a boat trip, maybe have a drink, maybe listen to an informative commentary. Nothing has really changed apart from what you’re looking at. There’s nothing better than to be on the water.”
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Bristol Packet: a short history
Bristol Packet Boat Trips was established on May 16 1974 by Nick Gray with Redshank, a 72-foot town class narrow boat that just one year previously he had used to transport coal on the Grand Union Canal.
In 1977, Bristol Packet became a fleet when Redshank was joined by the Tower Belle, a historic passenger boat that used to work on the River Thames.
A school trip on the Tower Belle in 1977 – photo: Bristol Packet
The newly established Bristol Packet offered trips to Beese’s, Bath and through the Avon Gorge to the Bristol Channel. To the surprise of the business’ owners, one-hour tours of the harbour also proved extremely popular – at that time providing views of dereliction and abandoned buildings.
In 1980, Bristol Packet was acquired by the Thomson and Dunstan families and under their ownership the fleet has expanded to include five boats thanks to the addition of the Flower of Bristol, Bagheera and Hydrogenesis.
A floating cafe-bar created from Redshank’s old butty boat, Greenshank, was launched in 2017 with a sun terrace made from an adjoining barge; now both shipshape again after sinking in 2021.
Hydrogenesis, the UK’s first hydrogen powered passenger ferry, on the Floating Harbour in 2016 – photo: Bristol24/7
Luke Dunstan’s favourite Bristol Packet trip is the Avon Gorge tour – photo: Bristol Packet
This story was originally published in the May & June 2024 Bristol24/7 magazine
Main photo: Bristol Packet
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