A boat for shallow water
A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a shallow draft and, in its best-known form, a squared-off bow and stern. The word covers a family of craft in different places and periods rather than a single design, but the common thread is shallow water. Because the bottom is flat and the sides low, the punt can float in a few inches of water and carry people or loads across rivers, marshes and ponds. Its shape also makes it stable when standing, which is why it is moved by a pole as well as a paddle or oar.
The word is generally traced to the Latin ponto, a flat-bottomed boat, which is also the root of pontoon. The punts covered here are the small river and marsh boats of Britain and nearby regions. Sail-carrying gunning punts are discussed separately, so only a brief mention is needed here.
Working punts
Long before punting was a pastime, flat-bottomed boats of this general kind did hard and ordinary work. They were used for fishing, for reed and hay gathering, for ferrying across rivers, and for maintenance work around weirs, bridges and moorings. They also served in marshland and fenland areas, where the water was shallow, and a flat bottom meant that the boat could be dragged across the mud or through reeds.
Fishing from a punt remained common into the 19th century. In the Thames valley, angling punts became a notable type, with a platform or seating arrangement suited to a person sitting still for hours, and they were moored by long poles driven into the river bed. These were built for stability and comfort, and they supported a popular sport among Victorian anglers.
Wildfowlers also used punts. Specialised gunning punts were low, narrow boats in which the hunter lay concealed and approached birds quietly on the water, and the larger versions carried a heavy gun fixed on the bow. Some commentators, including the 19th-century sportsman Peter Hawker, wrote about this activity. These boats are a distinct subject, and the details of the sport belong to a different kind of history.
The Victorian river craze
During the second half of the 19th century, the English river became a place of leisure. Railways brought day visitors from London to the upper Thames, and boating, rowing and sailing clubs sprang up along the river. Punts were part of this scene, with their gentle character and their suitability for picnics and afternoons on the water. The comic novel Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, includes scenes on the Thames that capture the spirit of the period, including a humorous account of the difficulties of using a pole.
The rise of the leisure punt overlapped with the growth of rowing as a sport, and the same riverside towns that held regattas also hired out punts for pleasure. Oxford and Cambridge became closely associated with punting on the Cherwell and the Cam, where students and visitors still use the boats today. The Cambridge and Oxford styles differ in details, notably in which end the punter stands, a point that is the subject of friendly argument.
The pole
The punting pole is what gives the boat its distinctive style of propulsion. The punter stands at the stern, or on a small platform, and pushes a long pole against the river bed to move the boat forward. The pole is let slide through the hand as the boat moves, then recovered and pushed again. Poles were traditionally wooden, and many modern ones are made from lighter materials. At the end there might be a foot or shoe to stop it sinking into soft mud.
Punting depends on shallow, firm-bottomed water, and the method has obvious limits: in deep water the pole is useless, and in very soft mud it can stick. For this reason punts are used on rivers with a stable and fairly shallow bed. In this respect the technique resembles the ways in which shallow river craft such as keelboats and flatboats were moved, but the punt is much smaller and lighter.
Construction and change
Traditional punts were built of timber, with carvel or clinker planking depending on the maker and region. The Thames punt, as built for leisure, came to be a long and elegant craft, with a flat bottom and a slightly raised end, often with a shaped deck at one or both ends. Modern punts are often built in wood, fibreglass or other materials, but the lines remain close to the Victorian forms.
A punt shares features with other small boats built for rivers, including the tender dinghy in harbours and the traditional river skiff, but it differs in being specialised for the flat-bottomed, pole-driven approach.
Legacy
The punt has largely passed from working life into leisure, though flat-bottomed boats continue to be used for working purposes in some places. The pleasure punt has become a symbol of the quiet English river and of university towns. Its history shows a boat type adapted to quite different uses, held together by its simple, shallow hull.