A long-dormant fishing boat is getting a new lease of life for future generations of a family who love spending time on the sea.
Knot III, built in 1972 for the late Gerald Bullard of Bullards Brewery in Norwich, has been restored by Stiffkey-based boatbuilders David Hewitt and Tom Gathercole at the request of Mr Bullard's grandson Harry.
She took to the water at Morston Quay near Holt for the first time on Saturday, complete with her new engine and pristine paint job after being coaxed off her trailer by Mr Hewitt and Mr Gathercole.
As she went afloat and her new engine chugged into life, Mr Bullard said: "It's amazing, it's stunning, talk about a work of art.
"I also feel a pang of pride seeing grandfather's boat back on the water."
Knot III had been laid up for two decades and her refit took 10 months.
Generations of the Bullard family turned out for the launch, with some on board another family craft called Knot and a gleaming wooden yacht called Auk.
Gerald Bullard had a love for the North Norfolk coast and its working boats.
In 1960, he commissioned a boat from Worfolk Brothers of King’s Lynn and named it Knot when it was completed in 1963.
He asked the builders to order timber for a second boat, and in 1972 they informed him that his new vessel - now Knot III - was ready.
After his death in 1989, the 1963 boat was recommissioned by the family in the 1990s with a new water-cooled engine.
The 1972 vessel was laid up until now. The Bullards' connection to working boats dates back to 1938 when Gerald commissioned his first Knot, a whelker built by RE Emery of Sheringham.
He used the boat for fishing before joining the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the Second World War.
He sold the boat to fisherman Diddy Cooper, because he believed it was wrong to leave a working vessel idle during wartime when it could be out catching food.
Wendy Pritchard, one of the founders of the Stiffkey-based charity Rescue Wooden Boats, was on the quayside to see the launch.
She said: "Anyone who sees her will be in awe of the quality of the work, which is a wonderful tribute to the skills David and Tom have and their untiring efforts to keep the historic wooden boats of North Norfolk as living and much enjoyed parts of the fishing heritage of the coast."
Mr Hewitt and his brother George have been building and restoring boats for 50 years.
"It doesn't matter how old I am," he said when the subject cropped up in quayside conversation.
"You'd have to cut a limb off and count the rings to find that out."
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