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ASR 102
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Air Sea Rescue Launch 102 is preserved in full running order by Power Boat Restorations, at Hythe, on the Solent. She makes a lovely prototype for a scale launch.
The model is not too big, elaborate or expensive, but she carries a satisfying level of detail, and has a lively performance. She is a good model to take to the water on impulse, and blast around until the batteries run out.
These boats are of great historic interest. They were the first high-speed planing vessels designed to operate in the open sea. Previously, planing boats had been confined to inshore racing courses, and "fast" offshore rescue craft had been exemplified by the RNLI's "Sir William Hillary", a displacement type boat with a top speed of seventeen knots. In contrast, these ASRs would make forty knots. Every fast motor yacht, and all of the modern breed of lifeboat, owe a design debt to these launches.
This model was featured in "Marine Modelling" magazine, April 1999, and is now in the famous Childe Beale collection.
(model by John Davies)
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