The Girl Maureen

A Memory of Padstow.

She was launched as a rowing lifeboat, Docea Chapman, and came to Padstow as a relief boat. She was only on station for nine moths then laid up. I am the girl Maureen. Father bought her in 1952 and converted her into a fishing boat, giving her my name. I spent many hours at sea with him hauling pots and catching mackerel. He retired in 1982 but continued to fish skippering other people's boats until his death in 1996. Many happy memories of days at sea, warm flasks of tea and kitkats. The boat was sold to the Lynton and Lynmouth Preservation Society in 1982, restored to her lifeboat colours and shape and renamed Louisa II. The ‘Girl Maureen’ was sold to the Lynton and Lynmouth Preservation Society in Devon in 1982, restored to her lifeboat colours and shape and renamed ‘Louisa II’ in memory of the ‘Louisa’, the Lynmouth lifeboat used in the famous Overland Launch in 1899, when bad weather prevented the lifeboat being launched from Lynmouth on a rescue mission, so it was dragged overland to Porlock’s sheltered harbour to be launched there instead. She was deemed too old to haul over Porlock Hill in 1999 in the re-enactment on its 100th anniversary of the Overland Launch, but she is still on public display at Lynmouth as a reminder of the ‘Louisa’ and other Lynmouth lifeboats.Maureen Tatlow (The Girl Maureen)