Thread: Historic Australian Lifeboats

Interesting peice of information about the Port Fairy boat. I drive through past there on the way to our holiday house in Nelson. You've now given me an extra excuse to stop in and have a look. Might have to just happen to go past the museum and have to poke my head in. (Wife is not as keen as on boat sheds as I am).

This is a similar one .. or was a similar one. Similar date and construction to the Port Fairy one but now a pleasure boat and has been for many years.

http://wboatsa.supremeit.com/boatdet...ae46e509b16a44

Queenscliff (Port Phillip Heads) have preserved their last lifeboat (1926 model) at the Queenscliffe Martime Museum, along with the recovery systems etc. Also has a range of info on earlier lifeboats used, lighthouses in Victoria, shipwrecks in the area, local fishing boats (couta boat build about 10 years ago in the boatshed). Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

http://www.maritimequeenscliffe.org.au/

The Queenscliff boat looks great and of course is a much later and a more modern interpretation of the RNLI style of lifeboat. The great thing about the Queenscliff Museum and boat is the classic launching system which is very dramatic and has also been preserved, it would seem.

I must get there to see it, thanks for the link.

I'd love to know the history of the Lady Daly then, I must find the book I have on the lifeboats written by the guy who was instrumental in the preservation of the Port Fairy boat. I have it somewhere but can't put my hands on it just now.

GregF

Just had a bit more of a search

Every wooden boat has a story, but the Lady Daly has one that is hard to beat. It has age on its side, because the hull moored on the riverside of the little harbour is the oldest in use on the Murray. The timbers for it were cut at Port Adelaide back in 1867. Folklore has it, that, during its days as a lifeboat at Victor Harbor, a crew rowed out in a storm and were presumed lost. They rowed back in a couple of days later. The Lady Daly (named after a Governor’s wife) first served in the Murray in the 1920’s, when a Murray Bridge marine engineer added extensive super structure to house two sleeping cabins, a galley and upper steering deck. Wooden boat devotees of Rockford Wines fame overhauled it a few years ago and it plied the river from the port of Morgan. These days, it is a grand old dame in the growing wooden boat fleet at Goolwa.

http://www.postcards.sa.com.au/featu...oat_fest3.html

MIK

Thanks Mik

So the boat was stationed at Victor Harbour I must find that book on the lifeboats and I'll report back what else I can find out!

Greg

I found the book that I mentioned above: Lifeboats For Victoria - The story of lifeboats and their crews in Victoria 1856- 1979 by Marten A Syme. Roebuck Press, Melbourne,2001

copies available from the author: P O Box 113 Port Fairy, VIC, 3284. although I picked mine up at BoatBooks.

Sadly, the SA boats are not recorded here ; the Victorian boats only. The Port Fairy boat was designed and built by William White based on the then Royal National Lifeboat Institution design but with reverse sheer on the air-cases and sheer strake.

Besides Port Fairy and Queenscliff there are also lifeboat related displays at Port Albert, Portland (1858 boat) and at Warrnambool (Flagstaff Hill, 1909 lifeboat).

GregF

hehehe - newspaper report on the launch of the Lady Daly
http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/p...m?u=644&c=3770

Column 3 about 2/3 the way down.

Also more on the index page about other boats
http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=644

MIK

Thanks Mik that's great

Bit of a struggle to read but it states that the boat was double diagonal alright and that the outer layer was soemthing pine and the inner lay red pine. Wonder if it was Kauri like The Port fairy boat. What the red pine would be I also wonder. From that site I also saw that they put a motor in her eventually.








GregF