Little Ship Of Dunkirk
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Over the past week I've been privileged to be involved in the transport of one of the hero's of ww2. Left to rot in the mud on the banks of the river Medway in Kent, Alusia has been given a lifeline by an enthusiast who is determined to bring her back to life . After loading her in Kent I took her to Liverpool Marina were she was transhipped onto a 45' flat trl which she will stay on for the duration of her makeover up in Duns, Berwickshire. Here's a bit of histiry. The nineteen thirties were a time when the well-to-do English middle classes developed elegant leisure pursuits. Mrs. Louisa Alexander had a most comfortable 45-foot motor yacht built and named after her by Rampart Boat Builders, in Southampton in 1938. Alusia only enjoyed a single season fulfilling the role for which she was built: cruising in French waters as an ideal pleasure boat. Soon after the outbreak of war she was called up for more serious duties as a patrol boat (some members of the Royal Navy must have blessed the day!). Then, at the end of May 1940, under the command of Gunner A.J. Northcott RN, with a civilian crew, she assisted in the evacuation of Dunkirk. After the war her original owners, the Alexander family, bought her back from the Admiralty. On her way http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0007.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0002.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0004.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0010.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0041.jpg Few interior shots http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0119.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0118.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0126.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0128.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0113.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0115.jpg On the 45' flat http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0016.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0018.jpg If anyone is up in the Berwick area the owner would be more than willing to show anyone round the boat (PM me for details), he's hoping to have it ready for the 70th anniversary celerbrations next year. He's also bought another Dunkirk veteran boat named Anne witch I will be delivrering next week. http://www.adls.org.uk/t1/node/545 |
I've just learnt that Boboil does work for a boat transport company - he's an internationally renowned boat thief. He hides behind his easy going and enchanting personality, but in reality all he wants to do is steal your boat in his truck and sell them on ebay. Be warned. Here's the proof, this is his personal boat!
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Here's another Dunkirk veteran on its way to Scotland for restoration, this one built in 1928 is the Southsea Belle formally known as the Folkestone Belle a 50' motor launch with a 12'6" beam.
History here http://www.adls.org.uk/t1/node/634 http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0065.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0066.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0067.jpg http://i827.photobucket.com/albums/z...k/DSC_0070.jpg |
Got one of my pics in Decembers classic boat magazine of ALusia & Anne
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Here Phil http://www.adls.org.uk/t1/boats
I'm hoping to get on the trip across to Dunkirk on Anne next year when I take her back down South for the re- enactment cruise. |
Really interesting read. Missed this post before. Love old boats especially ones with some sort of history. There is a boat not far from me, sitting in East Float Docks on the Wirral that was a landing craft that took part in the D-Day landings. Apparently she carried 10 tanks to the shore at Normandy with only 1 being hit.
She did spend some time as a club in the docks in Liverpool at some point but no idea what her future is. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ndingcraft.jpg |
Salvor
Another Dunkirk veteran rescued & taken for restoration. The former Moelfre lifeboat Charles and Eliza Laura earned awards for gallantry before the men of Dunkirk were ever born. A 12-oar, 15-man pulling-and-sailing vessel, she saved her first lives on her delivery trip in 1910, after she left the river Mersey, when she was called to the yacht Drake sinking with two people on board. Rigged with a standing lug foresail, mizzen and jib, she proved her sailing qualities during her most dramatic rescue in 1927, when the ketch Excel, bound from Birkenhead to Ireland with a cargo of coal, started shipping water and was soon out of control in a heavy south-westerly gale. Second coxswain William Roberts commanded the lifeboat. The Excel had been in tow of a German tanker, when the tow-rope parted. There was little time left to rescue the three men aboard her. Heavy seas made it impossible to go alongside, so the coxswain took the desperate measure of driving his ship over the crest of a big wave on top of the Excel where they stayed long enough to take off her crew before her stern dropped and they slipped off again. The gale was now approaching hurricane force and the Charles and Eliza Laura was holed in five places, but they went on with rescuers and rescued holding on desperately, sailing through the sea more than on it. They brought the boat home safely after seventeen and a half hours on the storm-swept ocean. Her coxswain and one other, received the RNLI Gold Medal, the rest of the crew got the bronze. One died from his injuries. In 18 years, the ship went out on 35 similar occasions and saved the lives of 84 people and a dog. Then, on 11th February 1929, she broke from her moorings in heavy seas and was damaged too badly to be considered for repair to lifeboat standard. She was therefore sold out of service. Douglas Kirkaldy, famous coxswain of the Ramsgate lifeboat at the time, bought her and sailed her home from Anglesey in 1940. That is when her name was changed to Salvor, but she continued much as before, first in the Trinity House Lightship service and then as a stand-by lifeboat. At this time, she was commandeered by the Navy and became HMS Salvor. A naval crew took her to Dunkirk and she was returned after the war to Douglas Kirkaldy who stipulated that she should be burned at his death - a request no-one was prepared to obey. Eventually, she was found rotting at her moorings at Richborough Kent, by Reg Cornwell, a timber preservation specialist who "could not let this grand old servant of the sea die". He pulled her out and spent a year restoring her. He then took her back to Ramsgate harbour where a warm welcome awaited her. Since then she has been neglected but has been thrown another lifeline & is to be restored to her former glory http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2736/...47f76b3245.jpg http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/...80f6bd5aae.jpg http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4059/...b564646783.jpg http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/...c8b2b2480f.jpg |
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Clubship Landfall ....Lister;~) |
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