Am I alone in feeling tempted?

Thanks, it's very pleasing to see these conversions from lifeboats to living sailing boats.

I may not be the man to face what it would take to do as much for the Amity, but I hope someone will.
 
Bajansailor said:
Dan, have a look at Swn Y Mor's website - she is a gaff ketch rigged former Watson class lifeboat.

Swn Y Mor ~ The Sound of the Sea

She was put up for sale last year (2019), but has now been sold.

GL Watson 46 ft Gaff Ketch Motor Sailer 1936

View attachment 106143
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I think I saw her in Tarbert, Loch Fyne a couple of years ago. She had a plaque on her rigging telling her history, which included a world circumnavigation!

Think I'd rather go round the world on a Delos though - spend more time sightseeing and sailing, less time doing maintenance.
 
There used be to be a lifebo
scruff said:
I think I saw her in Tarbert, Loch Fyne a couple of years ago. She had a plaque on her rigging telling her history, which included a world circumnavigation!

Think I'd rather go round the world on a Delos though - spend more time sightseeing and sailing, less time doing maintenance.
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Looks lovely, Gardners will sip fuel, we had a 6lxb and for 6 hrs a day would use about 5 gallons ... we had a Watson Class at Selsey, Canadian Paciffic in fact 2 by that name I think, I can remember watching her launching as a small lad, I remember going on the Charles Henry on Lifeboat days, she was an Oakley Class then served about 8 yrs on the City of London the first Tyne class in the country.
I think I would pass on buying a Watson though, as my old mate Seajet always says about wooden boats, "Lovely for us to look at but for someone else to own"

Good on you if you do choose to take her on though.
 
dancrane said:
It hadn't occurred to me that the design's redoubtable capacity to survive almost any conditions, carries with it a motion that mightn't be acceptable if one were not escaping deadly peril, or helping others to do so.

:unsure: Maybe a low-aspect downwind gaff schooner rig would help her maintain a few degrees of heel, one way or another. Sorry! I'll go.
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Just get a decent pair of oars, did all right for young Grace.
 
38mess said:
It's not the wood so much as the fabric between the layers, probably original, once that starts to deteriorate it will let water in.
A member of our club had a 1938 version, he had to replace the copper nails, 30 thousand at £2 each
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The lifeboat in question was built 1962. I would think likely by then to have been built using a cold moulded glue technique rather that clenched with oiled cloth.

But yes, double diag can be a bit complex to repair.
 
38mess said:
That's a bold statement ?
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I have helped restore a 50's Admiral's Pinnace, and an Air-Sea Rescue Launch fron the early 40's. (British Powerboat Company).
This form of construction was not specified or built with any consideration for long term maintenance. The thin mahogany planks helped in making wooden vessels with complex curves, eg exagerated negative curves on the ASL's flared forward topsides, and rotundity and propellor tunnels on lifeboats.
Plywood was expensive and exotic, but the DD or even triple diagonal construction was aiming in that direction, a thin skin resisting loads in any direction. Like a monocoque sort of thing. This intention relied totally on tight fastenings (copper clenches, 1000's of them) and no play or movement between the layers.
Natural fibre canvas/calico sheet, plus tar, was placed between the layers to slow the inherent leakiness of this form of construction. (Leaky compared to carvel or even clinker).
Once the tarred canvas deteriorates, a plank gets broken (mahogany is brittle) or some rivets get slack, the hull starts moving and working, you can kiss her goodbye, except as a houseboat or museum piece.
Many ASR launches, harbour launches and of course MTB's were DD.. but they were not expected or required to survive hostilities..
Also, why put a sailing rig on an old lifeboat..a vessel which is designed to roll like a sow in a mudbath?
Just my tuppence worth. Happy New Year to our double diagonal martyrs :)
 
Gary Fox said:
I have helped restore a 50's Admiral's Pinnace, and an Air-Sea Rescue Launch fron the early 40's. (British Powerboat Company).
This form of construction was not specified or built with any consideration for long term maintenance. The thin mahogany planks helped in making wooden vessels with complex curves, eg exagerated negative curves on the ASL's flared forward topsides, and rotundity and shaft tunnels on lifeboats.
Plywood was expensive and exotic, but the DD or even triple diagonal construction was aiming in that direction, a thin skin resisting loads in any direction. Like a monocoque sort of thing. This intention relied totally on tight fastenings (copper clenches, 1000's of them) and no play or movement between the layers.
Natural fibre canvas/calico sheet, plus tar, was placed between the layers to slow the inherent leakiness of this form of construction. (Leaky compared to carvel or even clinker).
Once the tarred canvas deteriorates, a plank gets broken (mahogany is brittle) or some rivets get slack, the hull starts moving and working, you can kiss her goodbye, except as a houseboat or museum piece.
Many ASR launches, harbour launches and of course MTB's were DD.. but they were not expected or required to survive hostilities..
Also, why put a sailing rig on an old lifeboat..a vessel which is designed to roll like a sow in a mudbath?
Just my tuppence worth. Happy New Year to our double diagonal martyrs :)
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Yes Gary, you are right.
About ten years ago me and a friend were going into business and we needed an old lifeboat (long story) we looked at quite a few, the oldest and best in my opinion was an 1899 rowing lifeboat, but she had been fibreglassed over, so a no no. Like you say most had nail rot and they were trying to be unloaded by their owners.

Another source of rot is in the weed hatch, it's so difficult to get at so they are very rarely maintained and such they rot and it's a very costly repair as the decks need to come up to do a proper job.

Another one we looked at was on a mooring so the owner rowed us out and as soon as we got to the boat he put some loud music on to try and disguise the automatic bilge pump which was kicking in almost constantly. Pity as she was a pretty craft but her bilge was as rotten as a banana. We went plastic in the end
 
There's a resident shipwright at Titchmarsh Marina Walton on the Naze who lives on one. He's had it for years, been cruising around Scotland in her, had her on the hard for a couple of years, she's back in the water now. She too is double diagonal. He explained there was an issue with the aluminium ducts coming through the hull midships causing a lot of rot problems which he took a long time in repairing. There's another one at the marina, a Dunkirk Little Ship, who the same shipwright repaired after she hit a buoy & caused extensive damage. They repaired her inner and outer planks, but then epoxied/filled/epoxied again over a long period of time. There's yet another, been in the backyard/graveyard for years, can't believe anybody would take her on.
 
Romeo said:
Do you have to go through the engine room to get to the forward accommodation? It strikes me that this may be a purchase for single man. Either one who is single, or one who has ambitions to become single.
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"All a man needs is room to sit and smoke and room to lay and sleep"

Points if you can remind me which nautical book I read that in, google just returns lots of sites about the dangers of passive smoking
 
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