Lifeboat conversions a cautionary tale
- Thread starter Wansworth
- Start date
justanothersailboat
Active member
Is that a forecastle with one normal berth and one very long one, or one normal berth and one very short one? Is the saloon armchair tiny or are the pillows huge? Are the heads extremely wide? That plan raises more questions than it answers...
RunAgroundHard
Well-known member
What does this mean, “hood ends started”? Never heard of the term so curious to understand, thanks.
justanothersailboat
Active member
Isn't "the hood ends" where the planks fit into the stempost or sternpost? sounds like a disastrous place to go wrong...
Wansworth
Well-known member
Hood end are the ends of the planks were they are fastened to the rabbit on the stem or stern or were the planks land on a transom
Wansworth
Well-known member
Great,classic basic interior of a convertedlifeboat and how many yachts were fitted out
dgadee
Well-known member
dgadee
Well-known member
justanothersailboat
Active member
Thanks for the pages, interesting. The tiny berth is for a child after all - makes sense now.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Odd way to build a through lounge, but a great talking piece at partiesI changed the rig to Gaff Rig and added outside ballast, a length of RSJ bolted to the keel..it worked
dgadee
Well-known member
Just looked at Lennox Kerr. Book on eBay at £8. Seems he was a children's author. Got his publisher to give him £25 to buy a boat and write a book. Saw Clyde unemployed converting boats for not much money and decided to do same. Not much money around.
Reminds me of an old boy I knew who liked a pint. He said, yes a pint was only sixpence but you had to get the sixpence first.
Reminds me of an old boy I knew who liked a pint. He said, yes a pint was only sixpence but you had to get the sixpence first.
Neeves
Well-known member
For light relief what would the forum be like without Wansforth.
I have wondered if he is fictional - here to make us smile, there but for the grace of God
Jonathan
I have wondered if he is fictional - here to make us smile, there but for the grace of God
Jonathan
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
My dad's first yacht was a converted lifeboat, and when looking round boatyards they were very common in the late 50s or early 60s.
Daydream believer
Well-known member
Yes Dads were very common at one time. They tend to do a runner these days & go into hiding a lot
oldgit
Well-known member
and not just yachts.
Dads converted and "alleged" ex Queen Mary lifeboat .
Late 1950s or very early 1960s.
A family day out, my old Grandad and OG are in there somewhere.
Ford 4D powered and almost certainly boasted the luxury of a bucket of some description.
The sun always shone as well , looking at the weather protection.
Fenders... what fenders
The anchor would have been a " fisherman"
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dgadee
Well-known member
A friend, now gone to a pub in the afterlife, had an old naval boat which someone had turned into a "sailing yacht". He got me to teach him how to sail. Frightening! Lurching towards rocks on Strangford Lough it would not respond to the helm. I advised him to view it as a motor boat.
He loved the turf stove and hanging out at the Portaferry classic boat weekend where most of the village was pissed.
When the tall ships were in Belfast he was in the US and he got me to take his family and friends out. Everything went ok till the ships and the other boats had gone. We couldn't get into gear. Towed to Bangor by the lifeboat. No oil in the gearbox.
He sold it (most sensible thing he did) but the buyer took him to the small claims court (and lost).
He loved the turf stove and hanging out at the Portaferry classic boat weekend where most of the village was pissed.
When the tall ships were in Belfast he was in the US and he got me to take his family and friends out. Everything went ok till the ships and the other boats had gone. We couldn't get into gear. Towed to Bangor by the lifeboat. No oil in the gearbox.
He sold it (most sensible thing he did) but the buyer took him to the small claims court (and lost).
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Wansworth
Well-known member
Wonderful photoand not just yachts.
Dads converted and "alleged" ex Queen Mary lifeboat .
Late 1950s or very early 1960s.
A family day out, my old Grandad and OG are in there somewhere.
Ford 4D powered and almost certainly boasted the luxury of a bucket of some description.
The sun always shone as well , looking at the weather protection.
Fenders... what fenders
The anchor would have been a " fisherman"
LittleSister
Well-known member
Back in the day a friend and his girlfriend lived reasonably comfortably, though very basically, on an old converted wooden lifeboat he'd bought. I think he may have at least once taken it out for a spin, but concluded that the hull was past its best, and safest left sitting in its mud berth at the side of a muddy creek (albeit one very close to rail stations, bus route, and basic shops).
Toilet facilities were of the bucket and chuck-it variety. One of his other friends had a girlfriend at the time who was rather more glam than the rest of us. She refused to use said facilities, and whenever they visited they would have to depart again as soon as she needed a pee.
My friend tried to persuade me to solve my then persistent housing problems (= lack of money) by buying a bare steel lifeboat hull he knew of, at that time lying out on the marshes nearby and available for a very small sum. He suggested I could 'camp' in it under a tarpaulin while I converted it to habitable accommodation. Mindful of the fact it was winter, the modest insulating properties of sheet steel, and that I am a delicate flower with negligible practical skills, I declined the invitation.
My friend's live-aboard lifeboat was accessible by gangplank from the muddy path next to the creek, but not for some time either side of high tide when the height/distance of the boat's bow from solid ground was too great. Water had to be carried along the path to the boat by jerrycan. I recall on one occasion we ran out of water aboard while we were detached from the shore during such a high tide period, and so I collected snow from the cabin roof etc. in saucepans so we could melt it and have a cup of tea. I discovered that it takes a very remarkable amount of snow to produce a large teapot's worth of water, and also that the resulting tea doesn't taste very nice.
On one occasion a small group of us had gathered together at the boat for some celebration or other, and went to a nearby Indian restaurant very early in the evening. It was, winter, a high spring tide, and the boat would be inaccessible for a long period starting later in the evening. We sat and drank and chatted merrily in the restaurant, but at some point it dawned on us that the food had been a very long time coming, despite us being the only people in the restaurant. Eventually we started to get a bit nervous about the passing time. We politely enquired about the food's progress, and were reassured it would arrive very soon. More time passed, though, without its arrival, and eventually we said we would have to leave if it didn't come imminently. (We tried to explain about the tide/access issue, but the staff clearly didn't understand.) The food did then soon arrive, but the staff had clearly taken umbrage at our ultimatum, their demeanour changed from the usual Indian restaurant unctuousness to downright curt, and our plates were slapped loudly down on the table in front of us. We wolfed down our food as fast as the spices allowed, paid our bill, and made it back to the boat in the nick of time.
Toilet facilities were of the bucket and chuck-it variety. One of his other friends had a girlfriend at the time who was rather more glam than the rest of us. She refused to use said facilities, and whenever they visited they would have to depart again as soon as she needed a pee.
My friend tried to persuade me to solve my then persistent housing problems (= lack of money) by buying a bare steel lifeboat hull he knew of, at that time lying out on the marshes nearby and available for a very small sum. He suggested I could 'camp' in it under a tarpaulin while I converted it to habitable accommodation. Mindful of the fact it was winter, the modest insulating properties of sheet steel, and that I am a delicate flower with negligible practical skills, I declined the invitation.
My friend's live-aboard lifeboat was accessible by gangplank from the muddy path next to the creek, but not for some time either side of high tide when the height/distance of the boat's bow from solid ground was too great. Water had to be carried along the path to the boat by jerrycan. I recall on one occasion we ran out of water aboard while we were detached from the shore during such a high tide period, and so I collected snow from the cabin roof etc. in saucepans so we could melt it and have a cup of tea. I discovered that it takes a very remarkable amount of snow to produce a large teapot's worth of water, and also that the resulting tea doesn't taste very nice.
On one occasion a small group of us had gathered together at the boat for some celebration or other, and went to a nearby Indian restaurant very early in the evening. It was, winter, a high spring tide, and the boat would be inaccessible for a long period starting later in the evening. We sat and drank and chatted merrily in the restaurant, but at some point it dawned on us that the food had been a very long time coming, despite us being the only people in the restaurant. Eventually we started to get a bit nervous about the passing time. We politely enquired about the food's progress, and were reassured it would arrive very soon. More time passed, though, without its arrival, and eventually we said we would have to leave if it didn't come imminently. (We tried to explain about the tide/access issue, but the staff clearly didn't understand.) The food did then soon arrive, but the staff had clearly taken umbrage at our ultimatum, their demeanour changed from the usual Indian restaurant unctuousness to downright curt, and our plates were slapped loudly down on the table in front of us. We wolfed down our food as fast as the spices allowed, paid our bill, and made it back to the boat in the nick of time.
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Wansworth
Well-known member
rotrax
Well-known member
Read Sir Alec Rose's "My lively Lady"
He tells how he purchased an ex liberty boat lifeboat, converted it and started his sailing career in it.
Got some drawings and pics too, IIRC.
He tells how he purchased an ex liberty boat lifeboat, converted it and started his sailing career in it.
Got some drawings and pics too, IIRC.