Bob’s Fun Floats

For generations of visitors to York Beach, rows of bright yellow floats have been a familiar part of summer. Known locally as Bob’s Fun Floats, they were rented at both Long Sands and Short Sands beaches, along with umbrellas and beach chairs.

The tradition began in 1948, when Robert “Bob” Witham established Bob’s Summer Beach Rentals. Witham had served in the United States Navy during World War II and later worked for many years as a schoolteacher in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. During the summers, his rental business provided families with an easy way to enjoy a day beside the ocean without bringing all their own beach equipment.

The floats offered a wonderfully simple form of entertainment. Children and adults could carry the long yellow inflatables into the water, ride them through the waves, and return them at the end of the day. Over time, the rows of floats waiting on the sand became part of the familiar appearance of York Beach.

My memories of the floats come from Long Sands, where I rented them during childhood summers in York. When I returned to York Beach this summer, I saw them lined up for rent at Short Sands. Although I was standing on a different beach, the sight of those familiar yellow floats immediately connected me to the summers I had spent there as a child.

Bob Witham died in 2025 at the age of ninety-eight, but the summer business he began in 1948 continued. What started as a practical rental service became a small but enduring York Beach tradition, shared by generations of families at both town’s popular beaches.

The floats may not appear in conventional accounts of York’s history, yet they represent the ordinary experiences through which people develop lasting attachments to a place. Seeing them again reminded me that history does not survive only in old buildings, monuments, and museums. Sometimes it can be found in a row of yellow floats waiting on the sand, connecting one summer and one generation to another.