BARMOUTH RNLI received a very welcome gift last Wednesday evening, when Tom Hughes presented his model of the RNLB The Chieftain to the Barmouth Lifeboat Station.

Local man Tom grew up on the quay and spent his childhood messing about in boats.

An ex-fireman himself, Tom has the highest respect for the rescue services and continues to take a keen interest in Barmouth RNLI. The Chieftain was a familiar sight to him in his youth as she launched down the slipway into the harbour.

Tom is well known locally for his artistic talents and exhibits and sells his watercolours and pastels at the annual Mawddach Artists’ Group exhibition, but few knew of his model boat building skills until this evening.

The boat was built from scratch using reclaimed timbers and Tom succeeded in making an accurate and very realistic replica of this memorable boat.

It took over 500 hours to recreate the replica with the iconic hood being painstakingly constructed out of quarter inch mahogany strips heated and bent to the shape. All that was bought was a 3x3 sheet of ply, and portholes and chain which had to be exactly to scale.

See the full story in this week’s Meirionnydd edition of the Cambrian News