“Talking Sailing” From My Archives. One Man and His Boat

By Richard Crockett

There’s an interesting little story today, which goes as follows.

In November 1942 the United States naval supply tanker ‘Swiftsure’ was torpedoed and sank ten miles off the Cape of Good Hope. The surviving crew were picked up by a passing destroyer and the two lifeboats they were in were left to drift. A couple of days later a mine-sweeping flotilla obtained permission to take the lifeboats in tow after sighting them off Dassen Island. They were brought back to Cape Town, taken out of the water and stored behind E Berth on waste ground where they sat for a long time. During the war Len Millard approached the American navy to buy one of the lifeboats, but was refused.

He later had a cheeky offer accepted, and took some 18 months to convert it into a yacht.

In 1992 he sold the yacht, and after a subsequent sale, she sank at her moorings.

I wonder whether this charming converted lifeboat has a new and caring owner, or whether she simply decayed until restoration became impossible? If anyone has info please SHARE and COMMENT.

READ IT ALL HERE:  Pages from 1996 09 – SA Yachting – OCR