page_title: Punt (boat)
section_title: Punting in Cambridge
hierarchical_section_title: Punt (boat) / Punting in England / Punting in Cambridge
caption_attribution_description: English: Punts on the Cam in Summer
context_page_description: A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. Punting is boating in a punt. The punter generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole. A punt should not be confused with a gondola, a shallow draft vessel that is structurally different, and which is propelled by an oar rather than a pole.
  Punts were originally built as cargo boats or platforms for fowling and angling, but in modern times their use is almost exclusively confined to pleasure trips with passengers.
  The term "punt" has also been used to indicate a smaller version of a regional type of long shore working boat, for example the Deal Galley Punt. This derives from the wide usage in coastal communities of the name "punt" for any small clinker-built open-stem general purpose boat.
  In Canada, the term punt can also refer to any small flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, regardless of purpose, building material, or propulsion source.
  In Australia, cable ferries are commonly referred to as punts.
context_section_description: Traditional Thames pleasure punts were not introduced to Cambridge until about 1902–1904, but they rapidly became the most popular craft on the river, and today there are probably more punts on the Cam than on any other river in England.  This is partly because the river is shallow and gravelly (at least along The Backs) which makes it ideal for punting, but mainly because the Cam goes through the heart of Cambridge and passes close to many attractive college buildings.  The popularity of punting beside the old colleges in Cambridge can produce significant congestion on this relatively narrow stretch of the river during the peak tourist season, leading to frequent collisions between inexperienced punters. These collisions are mostly harmless, but visitors to the city may prefer the calmer experience offered on the river above the weir. Further upstream, the river enters some particularly beautiful and tranquil countryside as it approaches the village of Grantchester. 
   A popular summer pastime for Cambridge students is to punt to Grantchester and back, stopping for lunch in a pleasant Grantchester pub. The Cam, on its upper reaches, is known as the River Granta. During tourist season, students have been known to steal the poles of tourist punts as they pass below the College bridges.
  There are several companies on the Cam operating tours and hiring punts to visitors and, while most of the colleges along the river keep punts for the exclusive use of their students, at Trinity College the punts are also available for hire to the public. 
  The tradition in Cambridge is to punt from the till (locally known as the "deck") at the back of the punt. There are some advantages to this: punters are less likely to drip on their passengers and can steer more easily by swinging the pole behind them, but it is not how Thames punts were traditionally propelled. Nor was the till originally designed for standing on; Cambridge-built punts are made with extra strong decks, and sometimes with a deck at both ends.  Photographs of punting on the Backs in 1910 show that the practice was well established by then;  according to an old Cambridge boat man, Don Strange interviewed in the 1970s, the practice was started by women from Girton anxious to show off their ankles.
   
  From late in the 19th century until at least 1989, an undergraduate social club called the Damper Club, (or Dampers Club after 1958) took a loose responsibility for the interests of punting on the Cam.  Membership was open to "all those who have unwillingly entered the Cam fully clothed".  The future Python Graham Chapman was president in 1961–62. The Dampers Club has been succeeded by the Cambridge University Punting Society ("the Granta Rats"), an undergraduate student society in the University of Cambridge, founded in 2010.
caption: Punting in summer on the Cam
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