HMS Norfolk set a potential world record by sailing 101 miles in 24 hours in her namesake county.
If that has you a bit surprised – the frigate paid off in 2005 – the record bid was made by a 9ft scale model of the Type 23 warship.
IF YOU never again expected to see HMS Norfolk under her own steam in British waters again – think again.
For this is she, admittedly 48 times smaller than the real thing, struggling against the tide on the River Waveney in Norfolk in a bid to achieve a world record and raise money for various good causes in East Anglia and beyond.
Seventeen years ago model maker Graham Davies determined he would have a crack at the record for the longest distance travelled by a replica boat on a tidal river in 24 hours.
The team pose with their model and the command ship – a river cruiser – ahead of the attempt
Graham and his ‘shipmates’ – Peter Dorsett, Richard Flatt, Richard Thurston, Dave Tedstone and David Houseago – chose a six-mile stretch River Waveney, just outside Lowestoft in Norfolk, for the attempt and picked the longest day to give it a go.
“With my home in Norfolk and with the county’s links to the Royal Navy as Nelson’s birthplace, a model of HMS Norfolk was my choice of boat with which to attempt the record,” he explained.
The mini Norfolk has taken eight years to build (twice as long as the real thing). She’s 9ft 3in long, weighs 110lbs and comprises 400 separate plates on the hull alone. Inside are £1,500 of electronics and around 330ft of wiring. Two 24v 4,000rpm electric motors power her along driving five-blade propellers which push the replica through the water at speeds of up to 10mph.
“We achieved an incredible 101 miles in extreme weather – heavy rain and high winds which chopped up the river so badly that sometimes we lost sight of the model in the spray. At the end, all the team were shattered,” said Graham.
The miniature Norfolk makes her way up river on a calmer section of the Waveney
Is it a world record? Well… according to Guinness, that’s held by a 1:32 scale replica of destroyer HMS Gloucester built and driven by Brits which covered 195.678km (121.589 miles) in a 24-hour period at Bude Model Boat Festival back in 2002.
However, Norfolk was going for the independent record in a tidal river. So, maybe she is the title holder.
As for the full-size Norfolk, she paid off in 2005 and was sold to Chile, where she’s still going strong under the new name Almirante Cochrane.
