Tuesday 19 February 2008

"Jack Cleare" returns to station... with a new bottom!

Our ILB "Jack Cleare" returned to station today after her 18 month refit. She returns to station looking fantastic and it looks like another good job by the fitters at ILC, Cowes. ( Inshore Lifeboat Centre) This was the third refit since the introduction of "Jack Cleare" back in August 2003 .

Most exciting is her new reinforced bottom, designed to prevent the cavitation and loss of speed experienced by some of the older boats. Much of the trial work was undertaken here at Swanage with crews asked to put hours on the boat and test it in varying weather conditions. All new IB1's will now receive this modifcation during their build.


Changing boats is no easy business although we seem to be getting pretty good at it! It requires a small number of willing crew members with not much better do on a Tuesday afternoon, all under Dave's watchful eye!









First of all the boat leaving station needs to be stripped and everything that stays with us is put to one side.




















"Jack Cleare" is unveiled on it's trailer. Will it pass the inspection?

















Then the whole process is done in reverse and final checks are made.
















Finally the fun bit, a quick blast out to sea to prove the engine and electrics. It was nice to get a feel of how she handles and how all the improvements have affected the boat. It's safe to say we were all really impressed with a good job well done.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can I just point out that its a refit that's done every 18 months not one that take 18 months to do! (Although it did take about 4 months to do this one) Thanks for your help this afternoon chaps, I know you all like to have an excuse to leave work early :o)

Anonymous said...

Has anyone got access to delete "Jon"'s comment? It's linking to a spam site.

Glad the boat is back and in good shape.