John Long's Waterfly was both a pleasure and a business. She was one of a small number of passenger steamers that carried holiday makers and locals on pleasure cruises on the inland waterways of the Norfolk Broads in the golden years before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
Built in Yarmouth by Fellows shipyard (see fellows ), she was launched with a bottle of milk broken across her bows and registered in Yarmouth as YH7 on 23 May 1894, with a Board of Trade number 104064. She was built of "120lb" steel, with a 25nhp (see nhp ) steam engine from Crabtree of Yarmouth and a boiler from Farrar of Newark (see farrar ). The engine had two vertical cylinders of 8inch diameter, with a stroke of 9 and 14 inches. Her gross weight was 48.79 tons, net 23 tons. Her overall length was 72 feet 5 inches, with a 14 feet 6 inches beam and 6 feet 3 inches of hold depth. The engine room was 18feet long.