Enter your details to receive regular updates from the Doncaster workshop as we restore ‘Phantom’. Join the mission as we uncover the history of this 1940 RAF Seaplane Tender and prepare her hull for the 2027 crossing.
The ST200
By the summer of 1940, the war against Germany had erupted and Dunkirk had fallen. The Battle of Britain raged over the English Channel.
More than the Spitfires, more than the Hurricanes, our most powerful defence was our pilots. Yet, even in high summer, life expectancy for an airman in the icy waters of the Channel was measured in minutes – and many, many pilots were downed.
The RAF had spent the 1930s developing the ST 200 Class Seaplane Tender. Lightweight, responsive and fast, these vessels were engineering masterpieces in miniature.
To a pilot adrift, the roar of a Seaplane Tender’s engines tearing across the horizon was the greatest sound on earth.
“This precious stone set in the silver sea,
William Shakespeare, Richard II
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands…”
Meet Phantom
We do not yet know her official wartime operational number. We know she is an exceptionally rare survivor – an authentic 1940 ST 200 Class Seaplane Tender. Her sister ship is safely retired to the RAF Museum in Hendon.
Finding a vessel of this pedigree in a restorable condition is practically unheard of. No cliché is enough: one in a million, a needle in a haystack – this is an extraordinary find.
For now, stripped of her markings, she is known to us simply as ‘Phantom’. Powered by twin period-accurate Perkins S6M diesels, she is a masterclass in British wooden-hulled maritime engineering.
This autumn, she will be moved north to Doncaster – home of Structural Repairs’ manufacturing plant for ReInforcerX. As specialists in heritage asset restoration, we will use an arsenal of advanced, sensitive repair technologies to rescue her original timber and mechanicals.
Her history is a mystery we are actively uncovering, but her future is already secured.
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