Speed Boats, 1930 - 1960

White Lady II - 1930
Miss Windermere - 1958
Trimite - 1983
Chris Applebee - c.1980
Shanida III - c.1985

The collection of modern speedboats is a testament to the breadth of the Windermere historic boat collection. The museum holds six of these boats in the collection dating from 1930 through to the 1960s. Many of these vessels were raced on Windermere and hold a variety of world speed records.

White Lady II

White Lady II was built by the British Power Boat Company during the winter of 1930/31 to the joint design of Hubert Scott-Paine and Fred Cooper. She is a planing boat, intended to ride on the surface of the water rather than through it. These boats are known as ‘hydroplanes’ and White Lady II represents the most sophisticated design of the conventional stepped hydroplanes.

In 1937, whilst racing on Windermere, she sank in 120 feet of water. In 1982 White Lady II was located and recovered by divers and then restored to her former condition.

Miss Windermere IV

Miss Windermere IV was built by Borwicks of Windermere and has a mahogany hull. It has had three different Jaguar engines during its life, originally fitted with a Jaguar XK 1220C then in 1970 it was changed to a Jaguar modified E Type engine. Finally in 1973 a Jaguar Type D engine was put back into the speedboat although sadly she is no longer fitted with it. Miss Windermere was raced by Norman Buckley and achieved four world records in her class between 1960 and 1971.