Restoring William Riley
William Riley was built at the Thames Iron Works Co in 1909 for the sum of £722.9s 1d, funded by a legacy from William Riley of Coventry. The 32ft ‘Ruby’ class lifeboat had no motor or sails and was rowed by ten oarsmen.
After sea trials she was named and put into service at the Whitby ‘Upgang’ station where she remained until the station’s closure in 1919, after which she was transferred to Whitby, remaining there until her decommissioning in 1931 when she was put into the reserve fleet. She was sold in November of the same year for just £35 having been launched on service some 41 times.
Her most famous launch was to the Hospital Ship Rohilla where, owing to sea conditions, she was pulled through the streets of Whitby to the cliff top on her carriage opposite the Rohilla and lowered by manpower down the 200ft cliff face. She made two unsuccessful attempts to reach the stranded ship and on her second attempt a huge sea drove her round and back on shore. Her exhausted crew together with conditions dictated the rescue had to be abandoned.
Interestingly, during the repairs I found areas of deep scoring on the hull – I suspect this occurred when she was dramatically lowered down the cliff.
After her sale she was converted into a single-screw four-berth cruiser, spending most of her life on the canals around Stourbridge. She was later moved to Barnstaple in Devon.
Sadly, later in her life she settled onto a mooring post on a falling tide and this resulted in a hole in her hull. After many years of neglect she was found in a pretty sorry state.
Bought by the Whitby Historic Lifeboat Trust she was returned to Whitby to be restored. Having repaired the Mary Ann Hepworth, I was asked by the Trust to repair the double diagonal hull planking.
The hull had suffered considerable damage – I knew it would be quite a challenge – but to make life easier she had been fitted into a custom cradle which enabled her to be rolled into a convenient working position.
Her hull construction was virtually the same as that of the Mary Ann Hepworth, so I could employ many of the techniques I’d previously used, only this time I was able to use epoxy and eventually put a woven glass skin on the hull.
I found out early on that trying to remove large areas of planking in one go was going to be a problem as the hull shape would quickly develop nasty bulges when it was weakened.