Queen Mary and the lifeboats

[Malcolm Lawrence]

This reminds me of a friend of mine in the late 60s, he bought an open lifeboat 36' I think and converted it into a coastal trawler (6' Beam Trawl) I helped with it and it turned out pretty well.
The main issue was getting the prop in a position that would bite the water enough to provide traction to tow the trawl, we overcame the problem by building a tunnel for the prop (with the aid of wooden mould former's and fibre glassed over) bit of a job working upside down but worked well with a Perkins diesel, caught loads of fish on overnight trawls and sold them in the local pubs. Note: no such thing as Quota in those days

[Gordon Gray]

Tristan Jones incredible bloke. I read three of his books and the trip he made in south America lugging his boat over the mountains until he finally caught up with tributary of the Amazon and then on to "civilisation" was almost fantasy. A great read and quite unforgettable.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Roy #16
I hope you were wearing your long Johns, I used to wear them going across to Canada in the winter.
Des