Bring Lively Lady to Chatham

We are a team of volunteers who have the opportunity to bring the historic yacht "Lively Lady" from Portsmouth to Chatham in Kent. As well as preserving this amazing boat our aim is to keep her alive and ultimately she will be made available to our community to experience sailing and to appreciate the historic significance of Lively Lady and Sir Alec Rose.

Lively Lady is a bespoke sailing yacht built in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India in 1948, from thick teak hull planking and frames of paduak timber making her an extremely tough boat.

Sir Alec Rose bought her in 1964 and in July 1968 attempted the first solo circumnavigation of the world. Five months later he arrived in Melbourne. On July 4th 1968, Sir Alec and Lively Lady sailed back into Portsmouth to a hero’s welcome. 250,000 people had crowded onto the beach at Southsea to catch a glimpse of them.

In 2006 - 2008 Lively Lady sailed around the world a second time. The charity Around and Around set up this amazing voyage where volunteers and a number of underprivileged young adults took turns to take part in legs around the world. This opportunity was truly life-changing for the participants, some of whom went on to become teachers, army officers and Yacht Masters.

After her second around the world voyage Lively Lady was completely refitted and refurbished however then COVID hit and she was not able to be used. As anyone who has ever maintained a wooden craft will realise she suffered from the lack of use and maintenance.

in 2022 plans were started to allow our team to become part of the trusteeship of the charity Around and Around. Since then we have undergone significant training to start our journey to earn the qualifications we need to take young people on board.

In the spring of 2023 Lively Lady was lifted out of the water and we were able to view the extent of the work required to bring her back to her former glory. This process was started with a full scrub, scrape, sand and re-paint. Volunteers existing and new all worked together to allow us to get her back into the water.

At the time of writing, we are about to embark on the 160 nautical-mile journey to sail Lively Lady from Portsmouth to Chatham. Thanks to A-Plan insurance (www.aplan.co.uk) we have secured insurance at no cost and thanks to the Historic Pontoon at Chatham Marina we have also secured a safe berth for Lively Lady to call home.

The overwhelming support we have received so far has been wonderful however we can not get away from the fact that we need funding to make this happen. To repaint and antifoul has cost us over £700 already. During our voyage from Portsmouth to Chatham we will be met with marina fees, fuel bills (we can't sail all the way!) and more.

The training that we have already done was all funded ourselves however going forward we want to make this opportunity available to as many people as possible so we are looking for funds to be available to pay for training. We are also looking to upgrade all the onboard electronics and equipment, start a rolling programme of maintenance and repairs and generally get Lively Lady being used so there is lots to be done.

Please support us however you can and all donations will be used to help fund this amazing project.

We are also pleased to announce that we will be taking Lively Lady to the St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival which is open to the public 9th and 10th of September. This should be a fantastic event and we are looking forward to the honour of being able to showcase Gipsy Moth IV and Lively Lady together. https://www.skdocks.co.uk/whats-on/classic-boat-festival/.