Conceived during the height of World War Two to hunt German E-Boats, the Motor Gun Boat 81 stands today as a testament to the era when beauty and function met high-performance design
Those of you as old as me (or even older, heaven help you) might see the name MGB 81 and wonder why we’re covering classic British Leyland sports cars from 1981. However, the MG MGB ceased production in 1980 and the actual subject of this month’s Cool Boat is the Motor Gun Boat 81, a far more appropriate machine.
In 1940, The Second World War was in full swing, and while the RAF was doing a valiant job of defending Britain’s skies, the ship convoys bringing us supplies were under attack, targeted by torpedoes from German E-Boats and suffering heavy losses. Conventional Navy ships were too slow to react to sightings and drastic action was required. Step forward Hubert Scott-Paine, former powerboat racer and founder of the British Powerboat Company.
His answer to the dilemma was a 70ft high-performance gun boat with a planing wooden hull and three Packard 1,250hp petrol engines, giving an incredible (by today’s standards of 70ft boats, let alone nearly a century ago) 40 knots! They must have sounded pretty amazing too.
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A two-pounder gun capable of firing over 100 rounds a minute at a range of over two miles was fitted to the bow and depth charges could be deployed amidships to finish off any E-Boats that dived underwater to dodge the shells.
The Admiralty was impressed and ordered 24 of them.
MGB 81 was the very last of the second batch built in July 1942. Constructed from double diagonal half-inch thick mahogany planking above the waterline and triple beneath it, it’s bent over a framework of rock elm and spruce. The result is a light but impressively strong hull that used its speed and agility to dodge enemy fire and catch E-Boats unaware.
After seeing active service during the war, she was sold off in 1945, eventually ending up as a house boat in Gosport, before being restored to her wartime appearance by the British Military Powerboat Trust between 1999 and 2002.
Imagine what you could do with an interior like this…
In 2018, thanks to a Government LIBOR grant, she underwent another major refit at Berthon International in Lymington.
By that time, the original petrol engines had been replaced with MAN diesels, which were again upgraded during the refit to triple FPT 825hp diesels.
During wartime, she would have needed two engineers huddled in the tiny engine bay, operating the gears and throttles in response to commands from the bridge. Happily, today, separate triple levers for gears and throttles give direct control. Top speed is a rather more modest 30 knots but it no doubt uses just a fraction of the 12,000 litres of fuel that those Packards must have guzzled.
The most notable aspect of this warship, though, is its style. From the flared bow to the arching sheerline and narrow transom, it’s a great looking piece of design, particularly when you consider that it was conceived so single-mindedly as a war machine. But perhaps that’s no surprise. You’ve only got to look at the fighter aircraft of the era, the Supermarine Spitfire introduced a few years prior, or the Vulcan bomber of a few years later, to realise that dead serious doesn’t have to mean dead ugly.
Motor Gun Boat 81 specifications
Year: 1942
LOA: 21.9m
Beam: 6.3m
Power: Triple Packard V12 1,250hp petrol engines
Speed: 40+ knots
Price when new: N/A
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