Osbourne Kingswift - Fast Monarch - info/pictures please.

[Haynesy]

Hi,
new to this forum. Need some help please.
I bought a boat off of Ebay a few years ago. No idea what make or history until tonight when by chance i happened upon a post on Youtube featuring an Osbourne Kingswift. At last i now know what this sorry bare hull is now.
Could anyone give me some history & pictures of this boat please?

 

[Wansworth]

All Ican add is I Worked at David Hillyard at Littlehampton and the adjacent yard was Osborne’s building lifeboats and probably your motor boat.

 

[ianc1200]

Grabbed from the William Osborne Facebook Group. There is some infomation about the Kingswift, about an "OC 25" being it's forerunner.

 

[ianc1200]

All Ican add is I Worked at David Hillyard at Littlehampton and the adjacent yard was Osborne’s building lifeboats and probably your motor boat.

Wandsworth, when was this? A friend was trying to remember who ran the yard about thirty years ago (when he kept his non Hillyard moored there). Do you remember Peter Davies who ran the chandlery?

 

[Wansworth]

Wandsworth, when was this? A friend was trying to remember who ran the yard about thirty years ago (when he kept his non Hillyard moored there). Do you remember Peter Davies who ran the chandlery?

I fitted out a boatin Littlehampton Muchof later and I recall and bought stufffrom Davies littlechandlery about1988 to 1990.By then Osborne’s and Hillyards had ceased trading

 

[KevinV]

View attachment 201011View attachment 201012

Grabbed from the William Osborne Facebook Group. There is some infomation about the Kingswift, about an "OC 25" being it's forerunner.

That's a really nice looking boat - I love these old designs with big windows

 

[ianc1200]

I fitted out a boatin Littlehampton Muchof later and I recall and bought stufffrom Davies littlechandlery about1988 to 1990.By then Osborne’s and Hillyards had ceased trading

My interest was in the yard on the town side of the river, ie River Road, ARC Marine Ltd. I have an "Everyman", one of their estuary cruisers built from 1947 - 1956, with about 40 being built. Peter Davies told me he worked there three periods in his career, and it was bigger than Hillyards & Osbornes combined at one point, starting initially making oars for RN lifeboats in WW2, and having railway lines run into their yard. Peter lent me a suitcase of his photo's of the yard, which I scanned and sent to fellow Everyman owners over the years.

Some of Peter's photo's; (first is an Everyman prior to being planked)

 

[Wansworth]

Those pictures are probably from the early London boat show.whilst working at Hillyards I came across models of some of their boats that had been atan early London boat show.I worked for a few years in a yard on the old ACS site in fact I think ACS was part of the company name .Itwas after production had finished on the sea wolf glassfibre yachts part of the wharf was filled with the mounds,later I helped build a pontoon ,mini marina were we lived on our boat.