County Derry man wins prestigious award for restoring a historic lifeboat at 2024 National Historic Ships UK Awards

At tonight’s National Historic Ships UK (NHS-UK) Awards, Bernard Condon from Coleraine was announced as the Winner of the prestigious Martyn Heighton Award for Excellence in Maritime Conservation. 

Bernard won for his restoration of the historic lifeboat Grace Paterson Ritchie, moored in Coleraine Harbour.

NHS-UK’s annual awards are a celebration of maritime heritage around the UK. 

They encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to engage with historic vessels through photography, volunteering, conservation, online activities, and skills-based training. 

The Awards film was premiered on YouTube and revealed the winners of the Photography Competition, Marsh Volunteer Awards, Excellence in Maritime Conservation Award, and Flagships of the Year.

In honour of NHS-UK’s late Director, Martyn Heighton, the Excellence in Maritime Conservation Award was launched in 2019 to mark best practice in the conservation of historic vessels.  The Award boasts a hand-carved trophy that was commissioned using wood from HMS Victory.

The 2024 recipient of this prestigious Award is Bernard Condon, from Coleraine, for his exemplary conservation of the 1964 lifeboat Grace Paterson Ritchie, returning her to in-service condition with 95% of the hull and fittings intact.  

The Judging Panel were particularly pleased to award the trophy to Bernard, as the first private vessel owner – and the first individual - to win the Award, following five museums including the National Museum of the Royal Navy and the Scottish Fisheries Museum.

Gracie, as she is affectionately known, is a RNLI Clyde Class lifeboat designed by John Tyrrell of Arklow and built by Yarrow’s on the Clyde in 1965.  The Clyde Class was unique, the largest class ever built for the RNLI, and the only class ever designed to be permanently manned.  Gracie and her crew served with great distinction both at Kirkwall and Clovelly, being launched 197 times and saving 86 lives.  When withdrawn from service in 1988, she was sold to the Icelandic Lifesaving Association and became the Reykjavik lifeboat, where she served with further and great distinction until 2002.  

ABOVE: Grace Patterson Ritchie.  COPYRIGHT: Bernard Condon

In 2018, facing an uncertain future, she found Bernard, who also owns the last Watson Class lifeboat ever built, the Joseph Soar.  

The restoration of Grace Paterson Ritchie was a logistically challenging, four-year journey, through Covid and beyond. 

Bernard and his colleagues Pippin McGrath and Ishabel MacIntyre stopped counting after well over 26,000 intense, painful, and sometimes brutal, work hours.  Now fully restored, Gracie’s mission is to preserve RNLI heritage and contribute to its future.  She is used exclusively in promotion and fundraising for present and future RNLI generations.  Following the restoration, Grace Paterson Ritchie was assessed as of such high historical importance and excellent condition that she joined the prestigious National Historic Fleet, alongside such well-known vessels as Cutty Sark and HMS Victory.  She is one of only fifteen historic lifeboats on the Fleet out of 157 on the National Register of Historic Vessels, maintained by NHS-UK on behalf of the UK Government.

Bernard says: “The honour of receiving the Martyn Heighton Award is somewhat overwhelming.  Martyn’s volumes have been our go-to for years, and we never in our wildest dreams imagined we’d be worthy of his name”.  

More details here