Pinnace

Hi all

Hubbie and I are the proud owners of an ex-admiralty pinnace that we would very much appreciate finding out about!

She was built by Rowhedge Ironworks in Essex c.1911, decommissioned 1947 and converted to a two-masted gaff-rigged yacht with a 6.5l BMC marinised diesel engine. She is (we have been told) larch on oak and iron, diagonal planked.

She has some origianl fittings- wheel with brass trim, bell, two barometers and clock. Above the entrance to the galley is wooden board with an ID number on it of 82755. In the forepeak is a through deck fitting where we beleive a gun turret may have been, and there are several through-hull fittings in the saloon.

Her name is Transmare and she is registered in Gloucester- we were told that she served as a ferry.

She is the oldestboat that we can find by Rowhedge Ironworks and I will be returning to the UK in a couple of weeks with the hopeful aim of raiding the archives of the company held at the University of Essex Library in Colchester.

We are living aboard the boat in Pafos, Cyprus. Photos can be seen on my website :) but here is one to start...

Edited by BoatBird

OOOPS!! I can see it clearly now

Yeeehah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have started to find out the history of our boat!!! I'm so thrilled!!!!

I contacted a lovely man called Hugh Conway-Jones who runs the website www.gloucesterdocks.me.uk and he provided me with the following information..

I was visiting the Gloucestershire Archives today, and so I looked up Transmare in the local
Shipping Registers. I found that in 1949 she was owned by surgeon Ewart William Evans of Hagley
Lodge, Hagley, Worcs. She was described as a cutter-rigged pleasure yacht with a wooden hull and the
Official No 182755. She was 52.5 ft long and 11.5 ft wide, 11.77 tons register, and she was powered
by a 6-cylinder Chrysler petrol/paraffin engine turning a single propeller.

Note that there is no mention of her being a ferry, and I do not think she would have been suitable
for that role on the Severn. Note also that the official number has an extra digit compared with
that quoted on your website. The 11.77 tons register is not her weight but a maritime measure of the
volume available inside for cargo carrying (or for passenger accommodation in this case).
Unfortunately, the register does not record when the vessel was sold.

How cool is that??!!

And for a bonus... a fellow member of our sailing club (Paphos International Sailing Club), well his grandfather worked at the Rowhedge Ironworks where our boat was built!!! I will be getting what I can from him soon!

 a very happy bunny

 

Further information!

(PS I'm back in the UK now for two weeks)

The Deputy Librarian of the University of Essex Library (a very kind gentleman by the name of Nigel Cochrane) contacted me back to say that he had done some research for me in the Rowhedge Collection.

He is 'fairly confident' that our pinnace is one of two commissioned by the Admiralty for HMS Hercules. SP149 and SP150 were powered by AG Mumford compound two cylinder engines and were completed on the 3rd January 1911 and 27th March 1911 respectively. He believes that SP149 is our boat as it is listed as being altered in Chichester in 1946 in a list of Rowhedge vessels compiled by John Collins in 1995.

Sadly, he says there are no sketches, photographs, drawings or specifications of either boat.

For those who would like to know...

HMS Herecules has the distinction of being the first boat to be launched during the reign of His Majesty King George V.  It was built at Palmers in Jarrow, laid down July 1909 and completed August 1911. She was a Colossus Class Dreadnought Battleship of 20,600 tons, length 546 ft (166.4m), beam 85ft (25.9m) and draught 26.3ft (8m). She fought at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. In 1918 she was detached to take the Allied Armisitice Commission to Keil. Reduced to Reserve Fleet in 1919 and in 1921/2 she was scrapped at Kiel.

So now I have a service number, I can try to get her service history- but I will have to apply for both and see what I can find out...  keep you posted!

Hows this for strange. Transmare ISN'T a pinnace- she's a Steam Harbour Launch. I think this is now in the wrong forum- can someone move it????

The Deputy Libarian did some further research- and the new information he told us ties in with information Hugh Conway-Jones passed on to me so Transmare was a home boat rather than one that has travelled the world!

Edited by BoatBird