Motor torpedo boat at Duxford

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Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 2,757

Hey, noticed from www.duxford-update.info that there is now a torpedo boat from WW2 parked next to the lifeboat in hangar 3 on a trolley. Anyone know if it's going to be moved, or taken down off its trolley? Gets in the way of the splendid lifeboat unfortunately, which is one of my favourite exhibits!

Original post

Member for

21 years

Posts: 2,246

Yeah that makes sense, get a loan boat back from a museum and put it on an AIRFIELD about as far away from the coast as possible.

:D

Member for

19 years 3 months

Posts: 561

Do you think IWM North (Atlantic) would have been more appropriate?

Member for

21 years

Posts: 2,246

When are you going to Dam the M11 to make the boating lake then ;)

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 2,757

Apparently they might be moving a Schnellboot (German E-boat, much bigger than an MTB) there as well and also a WW2 version of the small WW1 CMB already in Hangar 3.

Member for

20 years 5 months

Posts: 490

When are you going to Dam the M11 to make the boating lake then ;)

I think they floated it up the Cam at the last high tide :diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

only at Duxford :dev2:

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 120

Only evicted three air worthy aircraft !!!!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 201

It`s all part of the museum plan to revolve exhibits
they are planning to swop the sunderland and hms belfast over later in the year :dev2:

Member for

19 years 2 months

Posts: 120

Avros Finiest & Cas Wooden Spoon to u both

Member for

19 years 11 months

Posts: 1,988

British Military Powerboat Trust etc

For the full story on the boats - see here

http://www.bmpt.org.uk/News/news.htm

but we're loosing valuable artefacts still.......

http://www.prinzeugen.com/S97.htm

sadly S-97 which was also situated in the UK has been broken up as being too far gone which only leaves S-130 as the sole survivor.

It seems that to give the IWM their due they seem to be doing a bit of a rescue mission here

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 201

wooden spoon :rolleyes: what are you implying I have on good authority from the rumour factory :D :D

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 3,553

Hats off to the IWM for helping to preserve these boats. I'm amazed that S97 was rescued, managed to float again three years ago, and has now been scrapped. Imagine the outcry on here if the same fate (discovery, recovery, partial restoration, scrapping) had befallen a WW2 aircraft? Especially if it left just a sole surviving example!

Member for

19 years 7 months

Posts: 1,260

Excellent - see you can put a boat in an aircraft hangar - stops it rotting. I wonder if Hendon ever reads this forum. Good ideas catch on, you know

Member for

19 years

Posts: 1,177

I think they floated it up the Cam at the last high tide :diablo: :diablo: :diablo:

only at Duxford :dev2:

Surely you'd sussed that IWM really stands for "Inland Watercraft Museum"! Isn't it an IWM policy to bring boats inland away from their natural element and place rare valuable Aircraft at more salt laden coastal environments like Meteor NF11 WD686 rotting at the Muckleburgh Collection on the Norfolk coast and not tucked up in the dry No.4 hangar that it used to reside in? As you say only at DX ;)

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 9,780

There are indeed a number of historic craft still dying in various parts of the country. The one I am saddest about is the former German 'R' boat 'Blitz' which was captured by the British and used in attacks in the Norwegian Fiords. She survived all that and a number of years sat on display in Ramsgate harbour only to be wrecked a little further down the coast
in the late 1990s. A sad and needless loss.

Member for

21 years

Posts: 1,746

I accept that the IWM is about all artifacts of War but other museums like the Chatham Historic Dockyard have the facilities to store and restore boats.
There is a large collection of RNLI boats at Chatham as well as a destroyer and a submarine. I think the hangars on a historic airfield should be filled with aeroplanes especially when some are decaying outside.
mmitch.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 201

Excellent - see you can put a boat in an aircraft hangar - stops it rotting.

I would have thought it would speed up the rot process . wood boats are better kept damp to stop the timbers from drying out and shrinking, not kept in a warm de-humidified hanger?
this MTB already is showing serious signs of shrinkage.

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 2,598

Will she be at Legends?

Member for

20 years 6 months

Posts: 8,195

:rolleyes:
It's called the "Imperial War Museum". Not the "My Favourite British Aircraft Museum". The Brief is 'war' and 'wars'. Perhaps they should get rid of all those civil aircraft cluttering up the place? (We'll forgive them the 'Imperial'. Someone must have misplaced the Empire. Seems to have gone.)

It will, I suspect, be in the hanger at Legends. ;)

One of the things that I like about DX and a reason it is popular with the punters is that there's a variety of items there. The X Craft, tanks, Gibraltar Gun, V-1 ramp and the wartime garden all add something for those whose interests aren't monomaniac on aircraft.

Member for

18 years 10 months

Posts: 2,757

I accept that the IWM is about all artifacts of War but other museums like the Chatham Historic Dockyard have the facilities to store and restore boats.
There is a large collection of RNLI boats at Chatham as well as a destroyer and a submarine. I think the hangars on a historic airfield should be filled with aeroplanes especially when some are decaying outside.
mmitch.

Good point, been there a few months ago and the MTB's would go in great, theres one huge covered slip completely empty, and one only half full, you could fit all of them in there, would make a good coastal forces collection.