Lively Lady in court battle

Two UK Portsmouth-based charities are about to go to court over a dispute involving one of Britain’s most famous yachts.

The charity which runs Lively Lady, in which Sir Alec Rose solo-circumnavigated in 1967-8, is suing the charity which used to run the International Boatbuilding Training College in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Alan Priddy, who runs Lively Lady for Portsmouth City Council with his charity Around and Around, is suing the trustees of IBTC for more than £15,000 which he claims was paid to restore the 36ft yacht over 2016 and 2017.

The yacht was put into Boathouse 4 – which was run by the IBTC Portsmouth trust as a boatbuilding training school, with a number of mostly wooden boats for students to repair and restore as part of their course. The IBTC charity ceased to operate in August 2017 with the running of the school and the buildings passing to the landlords Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust. IBTC trustees cited the charity had decided to wind down after it ‘found itself unable to secure sufficient funding streams to make it viable’.

Alan Priddy aboard Lively Lady

Lively Lady was removed from Boathouse 4 soon afterwards and the work to rebuild her was carried out at Hayling Yacht Company on Hayling Island. “We worked hard on her for nine months,” Alan said, “and the cost was the same – £15,000 to do quite a lot of work. Three of us funded it; me, Mark Smith our new chairman and another benefactor.” LL returned to the water (see above photo) looking great and with some ceremony this summer, being feted around the Solent and appearing as one of the star boats at the Southampton Boat Show in September. See our earlier report and video interview: HERE

“But I’m angry about how we’ve been treated,” Alan says. “They took £15,000 from us and are basically saying it was for storage! I think there was one girl student who worked on her (LL) for a day and a half in all that time. To be honest it’s not even about the money at this stage, I’d like them to say sorry and admit that we got mucked about. And by the way I am funding the court case out of my own pocket.”

IBTC trustees say they billed Around and Around, monthly as they would other boat owners on the understanding that restoration work would be done by students when it fitted in with their curriculum. There was no dispute for a full year of the billing period, they say. They also say that the shipwright employed by Alan Priddy to work on Lively Lady at the time, asked students not to work on the boat. “We really need a truce on this,” a spokesman told CS. “The existing trustees joined towards the end of this saga and all we inherited was some paperwork and some angry people. We have remained active as a trust solely to see this case resolved, after which we will wind it down and cease to exist as a charity.”

Meanwhile it would seem that the boatbuilding school, now being run by the Naval Base Property Trust is going well with a full contingent of students learning valuable boatbuilding and restoration skills. IBTC Portsmouth is not linked in any way to IBTC Lowestoft.

The hearing is set for October 31st at Portsmouth Crown Court (11.30am).