Excellent brought out from being laid-up; She is a classic ship built in 1931, a pride of Newlyn and elsewhere.
EXCELLENT
Excellent PZ 513. [Originally FR 242 Efficient].
22.95 metres (75.24 feet) x 5.83 metres (19.10 feet) x 2.56 metres (8.40 feet)
65.73grt; 26.88nrt.
Built 1931 J and G Forbes Ltd, Sandhaven for William Ritchie skipper owner, who were engine manufacturers,
trying to get their revolutionary new diesel engine marketed.
The idea was that the engine had instant start (instead of being externally heated with a blowlamp – which was the practice beforehand);
The Ritchie Brothers owned Petters of Yeovil which eventually became Westlands.
Official Number 125368; Number 8 in Fraserburgh in 1931, Nr 1 in Penzance (Newlyn) in 1945. Single Screw, Single Deck, Two Masts;
Rigged as a ketch, straight stem, cruiser stern; Carvel built; Three bulkheads, Fishing Vessel;
Joint Owners in 1945 given as James Richard Harvey Stevenson, William Sampson Stevenson, Bryan Sampson Stevenson,
Basil St Clair Stevenson.
Length recorded as 75.3 feet; breadth 19.1 feet, depth in hold 8.4 feet; Length of engine room 15.1 feet.
11 knots, being the fastest vessel on the coast at that time. She worked from Fraserburgh and Lowestoft.
1935 she was bought by the Stevenson family for £393, (originally fitted with a 160hp Petter Atomic Diesel Engine of Yeovil);
brought to Newlyn by skipper William Lowe.
In 1938 Efficient was converted to a trawler, under Lowestoft man skipper Joseph Carr.
Efficient had her bulwarks heightened.
In 1941 she was taken over by the War Department and they paid £35 a month for this.
She was decommisioned at Grimsby with a broken crankshaft.
In 1946 she was rebuilt and re-engined with a 160hp Blackstone Lister and Co Ltd, Stanford.
Her name was changed to Excellent PZ 513, and in 1946 returned to line fishing under skipper J Reynolds.
Surveyed in Falmouth 15th August 1946;
In 1947 she was converted back to trawling, with skipper Lennie Dew in 1948 and in 1961 skipper Edward Lockwood
In 1961 she was extensively modernised being stripped to deck level and fitted with a 280hp Mirlees Blackstone engine.
Raymond Forward
