Benefactor to attend launching

Press, 4 February 1982, Page 3

Benefactor to attend launching

Mrs Marion McTeigue, of Halswell, will be a special guest of honour at the launching of a new Sumner lifeboat in about five weeks. The 4.5-metres jet rescue craft will be named The Marion McTeigue in honour of the woman who gave $lO,OOO when it was most needed to build a replacement for the ill-fated Aid 11. The Sumner Lifeboat Institution had been left without a jet boat for inshore rescue work after the Aid II was pounded to pieces on rocks at Sumner during a rescue

■, last December. 1 Fund-raising and planning 2 for a replacement lifeboat r was started immediately, and it now seems likely that i The Marion McTeigue will ; be ready for service less r than three months after the J loss of the Aid 11. t “We have received magni- - ficent help and support,” said the secretary of the Sumner - Lifeboat Institution, Mr W. J. t Baguley, yesterday. ; He said that complete with s trailer, radio, and all other s equipment, the final cost of : putting The Marion

McTeigue in service would be close to $24,000. The fibreglass-hulled lifeboat is nearing completion at the Christchurch factory of C.W.F. Hamilton Marine, which is building her at a “special rate.” “We are very glad to be involved with this project,” said the firm’s assistant manager, Mr Harvey Taylor. The Marion McTeigue is being built to rigid rescue craft specifications, with a strengthened bow for pounding into heavy seas, a high coaming forward of the crew

d compartment, and buoyancy chambers integral with the - hull. t She will be very similar in f appearance to the Aid 11, but !, will have a more powerful a Ford Falcon cross-flow motor and a three-stage jet e unit instead of a two-stage ” unit. t The Marion McTeigue will be housed in the same shed s as the Aid II at Scarborough, e The Christchurch City a Council has told the lifeboat - institution that work on reli building the slipway used by v the main Sumner lifeboat,

Rescue 111, might start next month. The timbers of the slipway have been so ravaged by Toredo worm that the Rescue 111 cannot be launched or slipped at low tide. The lifeboat was forced to go to the Port of Lyttelton after one call-out. Mr Baguley said it was hoped that the slipway would be completely rebuilt below the spring tide high water mark. The job, using prestressed concrete beams in place of timber, is expected to cost about $50,000.