Model Boat Night for Severn Unit

Severn Unit swapped their regular mode of transport for model boats during a recent meeting in Tewkesbury.
HOU Nic Price brought along his model of a Scottish Puffer boat and talked about the history while RVO Gordon McDonald showed a model of the Cutty Sark which he found in a second-hand shop which he is in the process of restoring.

Gordon also displayed a model of a 180-foot topsail schooner the “Lucy Johns” which has great local significance.
Unit members heard how the ship was constructed at Appledore, North Devon in 1906.
It was one of four steel schooners built that year and was registered in Gloucester for the owners of the Lucy and Pillar Warehouse in the docks.
The ship foundered off the Irish coast in 1910 while carrying a cargo of oats from Ireland and the ship and all hands were lost.

At that time a wall mounted “half boat builders scale model” of the ship was on display in the owner’s Gloucester Shipping Office but after the ship was lost this was thrown away.
It was found by William Sheppard who worked as a Shipping Manager in the docks who went about restoring the model.
This was eventually stored for around 100 years in the attic of the family home until his granddaughter Sue Pemberton found it during a house clearance and showed it to her friend Gordon McDonald who set about major restoration work.