fairmileB

Almost six hundred Fairmile B motor launches saw service during WW2. Most of them were assembled from prefabricated components such as frames and bulkheads, often produced in factories that had been turning out furniture or other wood items, during peacetime. The boats were built and launched at many small boatyards around the UK, but also yards in Canada and several other countries. Bs were used as rescue boats, minelayers, anti-submarine launches, torpedo boats and gunboats, and many other wartime duties. This hull is moulded with the full-length keel but no rubbing strakes, and this means that it can be used to model any example of the many Fairmile Bs that saw wartime or peacetime service in all their different guises all over the world. We can’t offer any drawings of our own for this hull, but very well detailed sets of scale plans are available direct from John Lambert at www.john-lambert-plans.com as well as a number of other sources. The first photo shows one of the hulls completed in WW2 guise as an anti-submarine launch, but the second shows a post war passenger carrying conversion. A number of Bs were used as ferries and excursion craft, and this model example was one of several that were named Western Lady and employed during the summer months carrying passengers across Torbay between Brixham and Torquay. A trip on one of these boats was the highlight of my own Devon holidays as a child, and the service is still operating using the same WW2 surplus Fairmile Bs in 2005, at the start of the 21st century.