HELLO
This is Howard, the owner of Llys Helig, enjoying reading your comments.
She is still at Burnham - we missed our window to get out before winter last year. She’s come through the winter in pretty good shape for a former wreck which spent three years mainly underwater.
We are getting her ready to move to the Medway for basic repair work on the hull, and she should be on the move in the next few weeks - certainly by the end of June.
Your posters are right that if money was no object then we would have picked her up with a giant crane and taken her off to a shipyard for what would have been many millions of pounds and several years worth of complete rebuild at the end of which almost none of the original boat would probably remain.
It would of course also be cheaper to build a new boat using the original plans.
But what’s the fun in that??
And also, if money was no object there are one of two other perhaps more famous and prestigious candidates out there for a total restoration. One of which I was offered for £1 shortly after buying Llys Helig.
But there is literally no other boat of this size and age - at the very point of being unsalvageable - that could be saved. Everything else pre-war has either been scrapped, sunk or has come through in one piece.
It’s true that superficial painting at this stage was an odd choice, but I think a good idea. To start with it was for towing purposes on the advice of the contractor. But it was also because she just looked awful, covered in barnacles and caked on mud.
It was helpful cosmetically for her upcoming short stay in Medway before she goes into the yard, and, as it turns out, it’s been good to have her look a bit more presentable over the winter in Burnham. The neighbours have certainly appreciated the fact that for the last 6 months she has looked at least cared for rather than the rusty wreck she was for the last 3 years.
20 tins of cheap paint, 20 volunteers, 2 days work, good value I think. It’s probably provided a tiny bit of protection for the painted sections from wind and weather, too.
You’d laugh at the comments from passers-by - who literally cannot believe this is the same boat. She’s riding about 7 metres above where she was when partially submerged.
I also laughed at the comments about whether I’ve taken on more than I bargained for. Of course I have. I bought a sunk 100ft boat on eBay! I’m a lunatic. There is nothing sensible about this project. It’s one of those things where you look at and say, it would be really interesting to do, but obviously crazy. So you don’t do it. Well, this time, I did it.
Put it another way, I’m spending too much time and money on a boat, which is a type of affliction really - I’m sure this is not an unfamiliar story to other members of the forum.
But I’ve had more fun with this so far than pretty much anything else, ever. There’s probably a book in it, at least.
Everyone said, you’ll never get her upright. We did.
Everyone said, well she’ll never float again. She’s floating quite happily thanks.
Now she’s off for a sea voyage and for some new steel. Pretty much everyone is sceptical about that prospect. Let’s see how it goes.
She may have to do a temporary stint as a houseboat again once the hull is done- but we do have the funds to put this old girl back together one section at a time. It may not even be me that gets her to the point of being fully restored and that’s OK. With a boat like this you are always only going to be a temporary custodian.
it’s going to be a journey - and as anyone who has anything to do with boats knows, the journey is often the point, not the arrival.
But at least now there is a destination which is possible, and I’m very happy to be helping her on her way.
Watch
www.llyshelig.com for updates . . . She’ll be moving soon.
Howard
PS:If anyone does have a couple of million spare and wants a project, let me know . . . .
Tickler
Sula
