61,5 ft Motor Fishing Vessel
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Following the heat wave I did a small scratch building project, an Admiralty 61 1/1 ft Motor Fishing vessel.
That was the first type of MFV ordered, completed in 1943/44. The boats got the numbers 1 – 442 but 100 got cancelled. 238 are completed in UK, 79 in South Africa and 25 in Australia.
Driven by a Diesel engine they reached between 8,5 and 9 kts. With crew of 6 they served as tenders in the many harbors used by RN. With 50 ts they are among the smaller service vessels.
Most had just a single .303 MG but some got converted for D-Day as LL sweepers. They got a 2 cm on top of deck house and two twin .303 MG. For the guns additional crewmen came on board. They lost the second mast aft for free arc of fire.
Some had to do long voyages to reach an anchorage far away from civilization. 2000 sea miles or more. For that they got sails and additional Diesel fuel in casks.
A few served as Royal Army Service Corps fire boats, getting an extra pump. Some books make these MFV into Motor Fire Vessels. It seems veterans got told so in the war. But fire service was just an additional job and they served under RN control.
One of these, No 114 based at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, was at the Solent in time of D-Day, ferrying stores to ships. Post 7th June it was sent to Gold and Sword area, working also in the Mulberry harbors. Fire service on board 114 was done by Auxiliary Fire Service men with sailors from RN.
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227 more are built of a 28,5 ts design, just 45 ft long. A 114 ts / 69 ft and a 200ts 90 ft MFV are the other Admiralty built ones. A smaller number of civil vessel got hired.
RN got also 30 Coastal Transport (small) vessels (FT 1 – 30) from USN for that role. 103 ft and 238 ts. With 4 x 20 mm a bit more armed.Post war most MFV went into civil use as fishing vessels. Today some are still used or fishery but more are used as yachts. If you have some 65.000 pounds too much ……
There was hardly an anchorage without a tender of MFV type. Two of the 50 tons type got lost, both in Mediterranean area. No. 70 sank 27.2.44 post striking a submerged object at Dodekanes. And No. 117 was destroyed by an explosion 14.10.44 of Pasha Island in Aegean sea.
Warlord’s Strath class Trawler Shows how small the MFV was.
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