Speedy and lethal WWI naval vessel, Coastal Motor Boat 4 took to the Solent on Friday, September 8, at Boathouse 4 at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in the form of a fully active and meticulously built replica, CMB4R (R for replica), thanks to six years of research and hard graft by a team of 35 dedicated volunteers and partners of the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust (PNBPT).
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Hello my name is David Griffiths and for the last seven years I've been the
00:03 leadership and project manager on the building of a replica of a World War One
00:08 torpedo boat. And tell me today what it's all about and where we are. Today is the
00:14 official public launch of the replica boat. The replica is based on the
00:19 original boat which you might be able to see upstairs. This one, the skipper of
00:23 that boat won a Victoria Cross in 1919 for sinking a Russian cruiser. Over
00:30 the time we realized that we did not have any boats that were directly from
00:35 or of the First World War era. We have boats preceding the First World War and
00:39 boats subsequent to the First World War. Opportunity came about with the
00:43 Chancellor of the Exchequer awarding funds for projects of historic and military
00:49 military historic interest. We bid for some money there and succeeded to have
00:56 money which allowed us to build the replica of the coastal motor boat.
01:01 They were called coastal motor boats because as they were very fast boats
01:06 they called them fast torpedo boats to give them the game away to the enemy. So
01:11 over the last seven years we've been slowly painstakingly building a
01:16 replica and today we had the public launch. We've also had her out at sea a
01:23 couple of times including a sea trial on Wednesday this week where we managed to
01:29 achieve 36 knots with the boat hydroplaning which is how it's supposed
01:33 to be. The hull on the original boat, you can maybe see, there are two
01:38 levels on the hull. The forward end is at a different height than the other end so
01:43 that creates a lift point so air gets in there the boat rises up. It's the
01:49 primary way you make boats faster is to have less contact with the water. So
01:54 our boat achieved that this week and we got her on to lift up and
01:58 hydroplane. The 36 knots that's an incredible speed we still think we'll
02:03 get a few more knots out of her maybe get her up to 40.
02:08 Luckily, fortunately today we've had all our volunteer team down here as well as
02:13 many friends and members of the Thornycroft family. The boat, I didn't say
02:17 that, the boat was designed by John Isaac Thornycroft company and between John
02:23 Isaac and his two sons John Edward and Tom and his daughter Blanche
02:28 they are largely credited with the lot of design. Blanche especially did a
02:33 lot of test tank trials for the new hull and she was one of the first women
02:41 inducted into the Navy as a naval architect. Blanche is a base in
02:45 Midsummer individual development boat. So I was singing out for women there in the boat
02:50 building business from the First World War. Tell me how you feel about the result of the replica?
02:58 I'm very pleased with the result of the replica. I'm very pleased that we decided to paint her
03:02 white and not admiral grey. I think the white stands out beautifully. When the
03:08 boats were used in the Baltic in 1919 they were painted white so we've done
03:14 ours white. I'm very pleased with the way the boat has turned out. The workmanship and
03:19 the woodwork on the boat is exquisite and she deserves credit to the team of
03:25 volunteers who've done fantastic work all the way through. I'm delighted
03:30 with the product. The boat is excellent.