Perfect Lady 2

Mostly this year as usual I have been kept busy with work at the boatyard.  You would think we would be sick and tired of all things related to boats.  For some reason we got it into our heads that we would like to have a boat of our own again.  Years and years ago we had a little wooden cruiser but were forced to sell it (long story).  We wanted a traditional wooden boat as opposed to the modern fibre glass boat. 

We nearly bought this:

We soon realised that it would take about 2 or 3 years to get this old girl floating again. 

Shortly after, we came across this:

She was built in 1936 by Herbert Woods as a sailing cruiser for hire, one of their Perfect Lady class – she was Perfect Lady 2.  She was in their hire fleet from that time up until the early 1980’s, so you can imagine the hundreds of families that have had there summer holiday on board her.  She had been stored on land for 3 years, so we had to make sure she was water tight before she was put back into the water, so we could motor her home.

Once we got her back to the boatyard, we took all her mast and sails off as we never intended to sail her but just use her as a motor boat.  We decided to put her name back to her original Perfect Lady 2. Over the years she has been modified somewhat.  She originally was 31ft but previous owners wanted to make her sail fast so added 3 foot on her back end so they could have a longer mast on her and more sail.  Nigel set to and removed the extra 3ft and put a new back end (transom) in. 

Also as she was a sailing boat, she had a complicated extra roof affair that raised and lowered when you were not sailing her for extra head room inside, rather like a camper van. When we bought her the extra head room had been taken off, but luckily we came across some of these window panels and Nigel put them back on and secured them in the raised position as we will have not have reason to lower them ever as we are not going to sail her.

Next instalment soon.