SOS to find saviour for Churchill funeral boat
AS AN occasion of sombre splendour, the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill was unequalled, not least for the dipping of the cranes in an unscripted final salute as the funeral barge Havengore headed along the Thames.
Now, though, I can disclose that Havengore’s fate hangs in the balance.
Chris Ryland, the retired businessman who bought her for nearly £800,000 in 2006 and spent over £1.5million restoring her, has concluded that, at 74, he needs to hand over to someone younger.
‘Unless we find someone to take her on, she could rapidly fall into disrepair and be lost,’ his son-in-law, Mike RylandEpton, tells me, explaining that running costs amount to £100,000 a year.
Yacht brokers, says Ryland- Epton, are unable to find a buyer for what was originally a Thames surveying vessel, while an appeal to the Government for help elicited an acknowledgement but
‘no real interest’.
His father-in-law’s passion, he adds, stems from watching Churchill’s funeral procession after hitch-hiking with a school friend from Gloucestershire to London to join millions standing in silence on that freezing day in 1965. Forty years later, hearing that Havengore was being sold — and taken abroad by the prospective buyer — he matched the asking price and promised to move the 85ft vessel to London and keep her there.
The deal was done, only for Ryland to discover that Havengore, launched in 1956 and constructed from oak and teak, needed massive restoration. ‘It’s a constant battle,’ explains Mike Ryland-Epton.
But it paid off, with the Havengore taking her place in ceremonial occasions, including the Diamond Jubilee river pageant in 2012, when nine members of the Royal Family were on board.
The boat bears a brass plaque where Churchill’s coffin lay, inscribed with the words of Richard Dimbleby, commentating on the day of the funeral: ‘And so Havengore sails into history — not even the Golden Hinde has borne so great a man.’
But will Havengore now sail into oblivion?