QUEST

Type: Motor Cruiser
Length: 30ft
Beam: 9ft 6ins
Draft: 3ft 3ins
Displacement: 6.5 tons
Engine: BMC Captain 4-cyl 32hp Diesel
Construction: Carvel, mahogany on oak
Builder: Gibbs, Teddington
Year: 1937

Built at Teddington and moored at Bourne on the upper Thames in 1937, Quest cost £750 (including cutlery, crockery and bedding!). She was fitted at that time with a Gray-Marine petrol engine. In 1940 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and, after being checked over by Tough’s boatyard they sent her down river to Ramsgate to take part in Operation Dynamo. Once at Dunkirk her task would have been to transport troops from the beaches to larger ships lying off-shore. She returned to Toughs and then, finally, to her owner.

After the war, probably in 1947, she was taken to the West Midlands of England and spent some time on the Rivers Avon and Severn. Her immediate post war owner used her for holidays in the Bristol Channel and Devon.

In 1980, after being laid up for two or three years, Quest found new owners in Maureen and Alex Patch. She required serious work and Judge's boatyard, where she had lain, restored her hull to deck level and Alex and Maureen did the rest - topsides and interior. Her interior panelling in mahogany had been over-painted, after many hours stripping off the white paint and re-polishing it looks like new. Subsequently they have won three trophies for the best maintained boat in their yacht club. Every three years she is slipped, the hull stripped to bare wood and any repairs completed before renewing the paintwork.

In 1983 her original Gray petrol engine was replaced with a BMC Captain 4-cyl. Diesel. In 1996 the decks, cabin roof and wheelhouse roof were stripped and replaced by marine ply covered with glass-fibre mat.

She is now in first-class condition and ready for next seasons cruising on the river Severn and the Gloucester ship canal.

Quest’s owners are members of the Severn Motor Yacht Club at Worcester. In 1969 the Club received an Admiralty Warrant granting the members the privilege of flying a defaced Blue Ensign. Quest only does this when not engaged on ADLS activities, on these occasions a Red Ensign is flown.

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Updated: 09/12/99.