61' Barnett class lifeboat

Hi Neil,

Many thanks for the Tyne Class drawings, Wow what a project !!, I must have a few beers to get over how large it would be to build

You must have already had the beers for your current build

Kind Regards Ray

just bought some in Ray.................cant wait to pck up my obeche on thursday and get stuck in.........the plug soon takes shape once i start........will just have to sharpen my spoke shaves lol.

This morning before I go to Fleetwoods RNLI Lifeboat open day in a few minutes I put the cleaned up plans next to those of the first built Barnett 51' boat, and could quite easily see where the extra foot in the hull came from. The rake on the bow is much greater on the Princess Mary.

In all, I find looking at the two boats together, the RNLB William and RNLB Kate Johnston was, although advanced for its age when built in 1923, she was by 1929, six years later a very primative looking boat compared with the Princess Mary of Padstow.

And to be honest, the overall looks of the latter boat are so much more pleasing and less cluttered than the elder, and I am so pleased that I have taken the extra preperation time to be enabled to find the plans for the Padstows' boat RNLB Princess Mary!

I think i'll enjoy both building, showing and sailing this beast.

When I built the 51' Stromness type Barnett RNLB Mary Stanford 11 years ago, I didn't realise that so many of its fittings were a copy of those fitted to the earlier 61' Barnett.


And so I looked through my collection of fittings from 10 years ago to find quite a number that are synonimous with both boats, which will save a great deal of time developing new ones.

Two I dug out and decided to put together first were the mast tabernacle, and the bow manual rope cutter to sever either an anchor rope or a tow rope that was fastened to the main bow bollard.

Here are the bits, cast in resin, years ago.

I'm not sure but I have only ever seen the rope cutter fitted on to the two Barnetts mentioned.

I'VE even found 2 pairs of different propellor shaft "A" frames.........

One set [the smaller pair] being from the Ann Letitia Russell boat I designed 27 years ago and the larger pair was for the 51' Barnett class built 11 years ago.............

I'm like a squirrel...........I hoard everything........

you never know when they will come in handy.

That saves a great amount of work, laithe turning, drilling, cutting legs and silver soldering and then cleaning off.

life is peachy.

Done some more searching and resurecting of old generic fittings this afternoon after the heat dropped a little................

not that I mind this heat.........reminds me of my life in Australia when the temperatures were this high week on week in the summer..............loved it!


Anyway, I found 64 two ball stanchions that I cast some years ago when I possessed a centrifuge caster and melt pot.....


As the fittings were for my own use and not commercial, I put a little more lead into the mix with the white metal than with commercial fittings, to give a much more workable stanchion that would bend rather than break when knocked [as shown in the one bent double].


I also found two fisherman's pattern type anchors and their support stanchions,
And finally some cropped single ball stanchions for if I need them, but not checked on that one yet........

so all comming together nicely.

Always puts a grin on the face to find bits in the bit box that will save you some work. The problem is that I add to the bit box a lot faster than I use stuff!

so true Richard, but i have a great overal plan..........

to keep building lifeboats untill all my bits are used and then relax in the sun and sail what i have built........

as at the moment, its either work on the house, garden and boats and not sail,

or sail and no work,,,,,,,,,,then i get it in the neck from my daughters for not maintaining the house...........

can't win lol.

I thought I had some cast "feet" for the prop shaft support brackets, but l couldn't find any when looking though my spairs yesterday, so quickly made some from 1.5mm plasticard remnants this morning.


I'll now drill the legs for some pins to locate into the supports and through the hull once made making a good strong joint.

AND all stanchions were drilled through the balls this afternoon.

just need to find some leather eyelets in the worksho tomorrow for the bases........unlike the stanchioms that had special brackets to mount on to the toe boards on later boats, these had simple ones that attached to the deck........simple fix.