Lizzie Porter is an historic lifeboat, restored and on view at the Chalham Dockyard Museum. By studying similar boats and how they have been restored, we learn how to best restore Jane Hannah MacDonald III.
Lizzie Porter in age and construction is essentially a sister ship to Jane Hannah MacDonald (JHM). Lizzie Porter was she was built in 1909, one year before JHM III. Just like JHM, Lizzie Porter has is also a self-righting vessel and has the twin drop keel arrangement. The main difference between the boats would be that Lizzie Porter didn’t have water ballast as JHM did.
Lizzie Porter provides a glimpse into the future for Jane Hannah, and shines a light to inspire the completion of her renovation – imagine sailing on the River Torridge in such a vessel, smartly painted in the eye catching red, white and blue!
The horse in the bottom right hand corner of this photo provides a scale – she was quite a lady, and both Lizzie and Porter and Jane Hannah required 6-10 horses to pull them to the sea as well as back out onto dry land.