Historic
these are the original chairs, this is the original table, those are the original light fi ttings…there are all sorts of original bits. Some things we have decided completely to update…” “…It’s safer really. Up to a point you can go back to original…but blast injection engines, for instance…” Blast injection engines, if I understand the explanation that followed, were what Lilian was originally equipped with. Jonas Hesselman developed the idea that you could use compressed air to vaporise the fuel and push it through into the engine. The problem was that producing constant quantities of compressed air under enormous pressure took about a third of the power of the engine. Lilian’s engines were thus converted to solid injection in the 1940s. “But,” says Scott Pereira, “We could put it all back as
it was.”
The Pereiras, who are both yacht masters, have regularly taken Lilian to sea with help of family and friends, with the longest journey to date a return to Stockholm in July-August 1995. Hilary says that eight people is ideal, socially and practically, but they have managed her with only three of them on board, on trips back from Brighton and Harwich. Raising and lowering the masts is where labour is required and there need to be a good few people ashore to handle lines.
Channel
Returning from a mid- channel trip to see the eclipse in 1999, the crankshaft of the port engine severed. That engine is just completing full restoration at Kew Bridge Engines Trust, with Lilian powered in the meantime with a modern JCB engine using
Bottom: Press day 2006
the old prop-shaft on port, and the original Polar
Atlas diesel from 1916 on starboard.
“There is an issue
about what will happen in the future,” says Hilary. “Whether the engines and the boat stay together or whether the engines are so special that they should be in a
museum separately. We have become increasingly aware that, while there are
boats of this sort around – although not exactly like this – it is the engines that are so special.”
Scott Pereira is treasurer of the charity, Heritage
Afl oat, dedicated to keeping historic boats functioning, so they are committed to keeping Lilian going. The Barcelona Convention, to which all members are signatories, is an agreement that they will all keep their boats going, in as original condition as possible, and in their home waters. “This is why we’ve kept her going as originally as we
have,” says Scott, somewhat unconvincingly because we all know they’d have done it anyway. “A lot of people say we’re crazy,” he continues. “That we should just upgrade the engines to three times the power and start using it properly instead of faffi ng around at seven knots trying to do the historic stuff. But, actually, we’re not in a hurry to get to places usually, and it’s quite nice to just to just travel around.” I think it must be glorious. It was a lucky day for Lilian – and for users of the Thames with an eye for beauty – when Scott and Hilary Pereira happened along. CY
28 cywinter 2011
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