Nieuwpoort ship Watson now has a working engine
Now the focus is on the painting of the wooden hull. Sailing tests will follow after the summer. Those who still want to visit the shipyard can do so for free on 13 and 14 August 2022.
Bringing back the two Ferry diesel engines has been a priority from the start of the restoration. Only with smoothly functioning machinery can the ship sail again and it becomes more than a static museum object. The port engine was removed in 2021 to be checked by specialists. They completely disassembled, repaired, cleaned and finally reassembled the engine before putting it back. Replacement parts were used for the engines of the Zeebrugge Lifeboat 1, the sister ship of the Nieuwpoort Watson.
Throughout the restoration, the other copy, the starboard engine, remained in the Lifeboat 2. With a lot of patience we tried to get this to work on the spot. After a lot of tinkering, this engine slowly came back to life. In addition to the importance of the engines in getting the ship back to sailing, preserving these complicated pieces of technology is also important for the heritage value of the Lifeboat 2, explains mayor Geert Vanden Broucke: “Step by step, the Nieuwpoort Watson acquires its grandeur. back from yesteryear. We constantly look to make sure every possible detail is correct, even when that requires extra work. For example, it would have been easy to replace the existing engines with brand new ones. But the engines are the beating heart of the ship. Removing them carelessly would completely detract from the authenticity of the ‘Lifeboat 2’. After all, we want to go back to the most original version of the ship.”