Steam Yacht Eleanor
Steam Yacht Eleanor
1892 Built by Summers and Payne for Sir Gilbert Clayton-East, replacing S. Y. Pansy. He was a director of Willans and Robinson and their main shareholder at the time.
Lloyd's register of yachts in 1903 recorded the engine as a 9-cylinder engine by Willans and Robinson (three lines of triple expansion cylinders in tandem, 7", 10" & 17" bore, 8" stroke). 250IHP at 400 rpm.
However, R. Cox described and illustrated the engine as a three crank Willans & Robinson compound engine with bores of 10" and 17", 8" stroke, c.250 IHP, 400 rpm. The boiler was an early example of a Babcock and Wilcox water tube boiler. Willans departed from his usual arrangement of central admission valves in favour of offset piston valves, driven by a layshaft running parallel to the crankshaft, being driven by a pair of spur gears.[1].
Wooden hull. Length 99.3ft. Owned by Percy Lankester in 1903 [2].
1905 Sold to Duke of Schleswig Holstein.
She had returned to Britain by 1914, and in 1929 was sold to Louis Bogrand who operated her as a pleasure boat, giving trips from St. Brieux.
1932 Sold to J. F. Bewley.
1944 Renamed 'Silver Lady'. Based in Devon.
The original Willans engine may have been scrapped during 1945, as by 1946 she had been fitted with a 6-cylinder internal combustion vertical engine built by A. G. Mumford.
Reported to have sunk at her moorings at Stoke Gabriel on the River Dart. She was raised up but then broken up by July 1953.
See also National Archives
See Also
Sources of Information
Some of the above information is drawn from extensive unpublished research into Willans & Robinson by the late Robert Cox.