CRAFTSMANSHIP
YARD VISIT: HARBOUR MARINE SERVICES
BUSY TIME DURING LOCKDOWN We catch up with the motor boat specailist in Southwold WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS STEFFAN MERYRIC-HUGHES
A
s with so many boatyards, Harbour
hearing from boatbuilders are that they have more
Marine Service has been
work on than ever before – but that the availability
exceptionally busy during the Covid
of skilled labour has never been lower. To address
pandemic – and that’s saying
this, John will soon be starting a project for four
something at a yard whose order book is full for a
new apprentices to restore Elizabeth Green, a 43ft
year ahead in normal times. Is it the amount of
6in (13.3m), twin-engined Dunkirk Little Ship built in
time away from the water that has given boatowners daydreams about floating projects and
1935 by H Milland of Twickenham. She was one of the John Buckley
happier days? Is it just that that time has allowed projects to forge ahead full-bore, without the need to sail?
first to save Allied troops from the beaches, and her record is one of the best-preserved of the fleet. She’s presently an empty hull on the hard outside the boatyard. This
Is it the unprecedented transfer of inherited wealth from a generation
could be self-funding, with the cheaper labour of apprenticeships and
that has fallen prey to Covid to the next generation down? All three,
the resale value of the finished boats. John’s reward, if it works out, will
probably, but whatever the case, the two things we are increasingly
be skilled boatbuilders to employ by the end of the process.
MAGYAR Here’s one they did earlier. The TSDY Magyar, 45ft (13.7m) of teak motor yacht magnificence, built in 1939 by Saunders Roe, before they went on to build hovercrafts, guided missiles and so on.
MAIMONDE Maimonde is a sisterhip to Magyar, the other boat in this photo. They are both to the ‘Medina Class’ of which eight were built.
