Watson and Arun Class Lifeboat Models

Two lifeboats, two eras

Watson and Arun lifeboats both make excellent models, but they’re very different projects.

• Watson. The Watson motor lifeboats were traditional wooden boats, developed from designs by the naval architect G. L. Watson and built over several decades in the first half of the twentieth century. They’re slow, heavy, seaworthy displacement boats with a lot of character.
• Arun. The Arun class arrived in the early 1970s as one of the RNLI’s first generation of faster all-weather lifeboats. It was kept afloat at moorings and has a much more modern profile, with a tall wheelhouse and upper steering position.

Choosing between them is mostly about what kind of building and sailing you enjoy.

The Watson motor lifeboat

“Watson” covers a family of boats rather than a single fixed design. They were built in several lengths over the years, with details that changed as engines, shelters and equipment evolved. That variety is good news for modellers: there’s almost always a Watson with a link to a station you know.

Features to capture on a model

Using a well-documented example, a 46 ft Watson built in 1938, as a guide, typical features include:

• Double-diagonal wooden construction. The real hulls were planked in layers of mahogany. On a model this matters mainly for finish. Some builders reproduce planking lines (see planking a wooden model hull), while others paint a smooth hull.
• Propellers in tunnels. The propellers sit in tunnels in the hull bottom to protect them, the usual practice on lifeboats of the period.
• Turtle-back deck structures at the ends, designed to shed water.
• An open or partly sheltered steering position with a large wooden wheel, rather than a fully enclosed wheelhouse (this varied between boats and changed over time).
• Traditional fittings such as a fisherman’s anchor, wooden fendering, bronze or brass deck fittings, masts and a small funnel or exhaust.

Sizes and scales

Watsons came in a range of lengths, broadly from around 40 ft to the high 40s. As an example, the 46 ft boat mentioned above had a beam of about 13 ft 6 in.

A Watson is beamy and deep for its length, so even a 1:24 model has room for a sensible battery and twin motors.

Building a Watson: kits, plans and scratch-building

Commercial Watson kits are less common than kits of modern lifeboats, and availability changes. Common routes are:

• A kit, if one is currently offered for the boat or length you want
• Published plans from model boat magazines or plan services, with the hull built plank-on-frame or from a moulded hull if one is available. Our guide to finding and using model ship plans explains where to look
• Scratch-building from a combination of plans, published dimensions and photographs, often of a particular boat that survives

Many Watsons survive in private hands or museums, and ex-lifeboat rallies bring some together. If you’re scratch-building, photographing a surviving boat is the best reference you can get. If your plans are at the wrong size, see how to scale model boat plans up or down. Remember that surviving boats have often been altered since service, as the broker example above notes.

The Arun class

Features to capture

• A tall superstructure with an enclosed wheelhouse and an upper steering position
• A hull shape built for higher speed than earlier displacement lifeboats, with a pronounced flare forward
• Afloat operation. Aruns lay at moorings or in harbours rather than launching down slipways, so there are no slipway keels to model
• Modern-era RNLI colours, typically a dark blue hull with an orange superstructure
• Operational numbers beginning with 52 (a few longer boats used 54)

Sizes and scales

Most Aruns were about 16 m (52 ft) long, with a few slightly longer. That puts a 1:16 model at about a metre and a 1:12 model at about 1.33 m. For other classes, compare the table in our guide to radio controlled lifeboat models.

Building an Arun

Arun kits have been produced by small specialist makers, usually in the GRP-hull-plus-fittings format. As with Watsons, check current availability. Several Aruns passed to other owners and rescue services after RNLI service and were modified, so check your references against photos from the period you’re modelling.

Running characteristics on the water

• A Watson model is best run at a steady, scale-like pace. It looks right pushing through small waves with a modest bow wave. Over-powering it spoils the effect.
• An Arun model can be run faster and looks good on the plane-like run of a fast afloat lifeboat. It’s still a heavy boat, so don’t expect speedboat performance.

Both benefit from careful ballasting. Get the boat to its waterline before you finish the superstructure.

Choosing your boat, station and era

Decide early on:

1. Which boat, by name and operational number
2. Which station, since boats were often moved between stations
3. Which period of its life, because fittings, radio aerials, shelters and colours changed with refits

These choices drive all your detailing. They’re worth settling before you start painting.

Painting historic lifeboats

RNLI livery wasn’t constant. Older wooden lifeboats often look quite different from today’s boats, with combinations of blue, white, varnish and red or brown that varied by period. Rely on dated photographs of your chosen boat rather than modern RNLI colours. Our article on painting a model in accurate RNLI livery covers matching paints, masking and markings.

Display ideas: boathouses and slipways

Watsons in particular look superb displayed in a boathouse or on a slipway diorama, and some modellers build the boathouse as a project in its own right. See model ship dioramas for scenic techniques. A simple wooden cradle at the right angle, plus a short section of slipway, can be enough to suggest the setting. For a different take on small working craft, see our article on the Loyal class fleet tender model.