Thames Mystery Launch
photo ex Gwenyth Herbert
Gwenyth took the above photo back in April 2015 of this launch ‘resting’ in the Thames mud.
She looks to be biggish old girl & has a serious case of the live-aboard look 🙂
So woodys anyone out there able to shine some light on this vessel?
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waitematawoodys.com #1 for classic wooden boat stories, info, advice & news - updated daily - 14+ million views 
LOVE IT!!! — What a great sense of humour — KEN R
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Called by this fine craft this arvo and had a bit of a chat with a resident who lived aboard an adjacent luxury craft.He stated that he had owned the launch for twenty five years before onselling to the present owner. Didn’t know the boat’s name, who built her or what. I did however ascertain she was not sheathed with anything other than tired paint. She may have at some time been a fine ship. I hope she may rest in peace. Does one good to sometimes see how the other side lives. 🙂
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Convenience, grrr !! There’s no substitute for a wooden hull, your either a woody with all the woody headaches or your not.
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Yeah, not enough people with enough disposable income to spend on them. Look at the fantastic Little Jim still for sale(?)- less money than a Haines Hunter which most of my neighbours seem to own. It may all come down to the convenience convenience convenience of the end product.
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Perhaps they felt she was beyond repair
Iris was meshed and plastered over, I’m not sure how she’s keeping these days but it seemed a reasonable solution at the time.
We read about huge, very exspensive, restorations taking place off shore. Yeep we have some realy good things happening here – from what the backyard boatbuilder can achieve to the professionals but we are still resorting to sheathing hulls with some darned medium or another unnecessarily Where taking short cuts with our restorations or perhaps it’s a money thing – we are just so darned poor in NZ.do you think?
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What intrigues me about the boat is that she could well have been as attractive as the Lady Gay or her contemporaries and instead this is the way she has gone.
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Could be micro balloons, they were affordable once. Poor thing.
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Exactly – she did not start out as a roll of chicken wire.
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The assumption being that she’s wooden under there, I’m keen to know what she may once have been…
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waitematapavement.com
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Someone’s plastered a layer of concrete over her. : /
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