The RAF Museum recently asked
Model Boats if they would be interested in covering the last voyage of SP 206, a restored seaplane tender that has been purchased by the Museum and is making her way from Lymington to Shepperton over the Bank Holiday. There is some more info here:
http://www.asrmcs-club.com/welcome.htm It is quite a historic vessel.
The magazine recently featured building a model of this launch so we were obviously interested. I turned up early at Newhaven Saturday morning to find the lifeboat, which was due to provide an escort, sitting on the marina pontoon instead of at her usual berth due to the very low spring tide. So I waited on the pontoon for the crew to appear and the Coxswain very kindly agreed to take me aboard if there was room among the RAF veterans he was also taking out to greet SP 206 - they can only take 12 passengers. Fortunately there was! I had my Lifeboat Special issue of the magazine to help establish my credentials.
We embarked a number of retired Air Force crew and their Chaplain (in his robes) from the lifeboat station and put to sea a bit later than planned as the ST 206 had put in to Brighton to refuel. Once clear of the harbour the Cox'n put his foot down and clinging on for dear life on the back of a Severn Lifeboat (the RNLI's biggest) at 25 knots is an experience I won't forget in a hurry - absolutely fantastic and silly grins everywhere!
We met up with the ST 206 a mile or so offshore and spent the best part of 45 minutes manoeuvring around each other with the launch making high speed runs towards us for photography. I got some excellent photos although some are at funny angles as the lifeboat was bouncing around like nobody's business!
After waiting for the car ferry to come out we escorted ST 106 back into harbour and passengers were disembarked from the lifeboat which went alongside the fuel pontoon, ST 106 then tied up alongside her. There then followed a short ceremony attended by the local Air Training Corps and others including the Mayoress, the Chaplain gave us a prayer which he said was needed after his experience aboard the lifeboat!
There was then an opportunity for the more agile (including myself!) to scramble aboard ST 206 where I took some more photos. I took over 250 pics altogether.
I also had a chat with the chap who restored her and he was very interested in the Model Boats article.
Must say that thumbing a lift from a lifeboat was a new experience for me. I have included a couple of pics below but have uploaded a bigger selection to the
Model Boats site if anyone is interested. http://www.modelboats.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=39716#786689
There will be a full article in the magazine later in the year.
Colin