Template:Featured picture/January 2009

The Boat was built partly as an inspection vehicle and partly as a private vehicle for the Spooner Family. Its date of construction is unknown but almost certainly predates the operation of steam locomotives (1863). It came to a sticky end when Charles Easton Spooner disobeyed the rules for train staff working and crashed into the single Fairlie, Taliesin, at the north end of the old Moelwyn tunnel in February 1886. One of those on it at the time was thought to be Nora Tiddeman, Charles Easton’s niece. A replica was built in 2005 and made its first public appearance during the Vintage Weekend that year. It made its first journey on Saturday 15th October 2005 with Sam Hughes in period costume as the first passenger. Initially fitted with a small sail, The Boat could only reach 10 m.p.h, so a larger sail (dipping lug rig) was prepared, and with this she has reached 20 m.p.h. by GPS (17.4 knots). She was memorably used at Quirks and Curiosities Weekend in 2010 to carry the Bishop of Bangor from Port to Pen Cob to dedicate the memorial to deceased volunteers and to baptise the locomotive Lyd. The Bishop looked enchanted, but his fellow clergyman, a Director of the FRCo., looked terrified - he knew too much. Photo credit: Keith C. Bradbury Recently featured: Prince in the Aberglaslyn Pass – Palmerston – The Simplex