It is a Montagu Whaler : <http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/902804>
>From the 1890's until the 1960's the 27 ft Montagu Whaler was used by the >Royal Navy as a general purpose sea boat. It was named after Admiral Montagu, >who was responsible for its original development. They are excellent sea boats >and, as lifeboats, have made voyages of thousands of miles. They were raced, under sail or oars, in various competitions during their period of service. I believe that some preserved examples are still raced under oars. Together with the Naval 14ft dingy, they were made available to Naval Cadet Forces (i.e. within the CCF) when they became redundant but were less popular because of their weight (i.e difficulty in getting them out of the water). I have fond memories of them and, fortunately, a few have been preserved. HTH, John --- In [email protected], Chris Deuchar <deuch...@...> wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Matt Beamish <mattbeam...@...> > Date: 2009/3/21 > Subject: FW: Sunken boat > > Here are some pictures of a very sorry 27' clinker built > whaleboat/lifeboat in a back water of the Soar at Thurmaston, known as > the "Whaler". It is of around 6' beam. > > http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/2boats/whaleboat/whaleboatbow.jpg > http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/2boats/whaleboat/whaleboatstern.jpg > http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/2boats/whaleboat/whaleboatsm.jpg > > The boat was bought from Banbury in the early 1990s, and had been used > by possibly Sea Cadets. > > The boat is believed to be of mahogany, and to have been built by > Walkers, for the British Admiralty in 1944 but I have no way of > corroborating this. Can anyone confirm that Walkers range included > this sort of boat? > > The upper planks are very brittle (recent damage can be seen on the > upper planks on the port side), and the boat was leaking badly before > sinking several years ago. > > The boat is very imminently to be broken up by a BW crane boat alongside. > > Has anyone got any further ideas on the provenance of this boat, and > whether it has any rarity? Clearly it has some heritage value but this > has to be balanced against it's poor condition. > > Good information is needed on which a sensible decision can be based. > > Please forward to any group as applicable. > > Thanks > > Matt >
