Following on from discussions about the boat used in Riddle of the Sands, I have been thinking about lifeboat conversions. As a boy growing up in Durban, South Africa, I was always looking at lifeboat hulls with the view to procuring one for peanuts and converting it into a world-cruising yacht. One thing I noticed was that there was some variation in design. Most hulls had a standard, well-rounded bow and finer stern with a distinctive, almost swan-necked sheer, but a few were more like yacht hulls. I met a Swiss sailor, Michel Mermod, who converted one into a bermudian cutter and completed a seven year circumnavigation. There was also a guy called Jerry Walker from Durban who, long after I left, converted one into a very interesting junk-rigged yacht called Jung Jung. He sailed it up the Atlantic to England, eventually losing it in Portugal for want of a motor. He was delighted with its performance, another vindication of the suitability of shallow-draft bouyant hulls for ocean cruising.