Gemini Explorer

Gemini Explorer in Buckie Harbour, Scotland on 20th June 2011.

Owners web site can be found @ http://www.geminiexp...ni_explorer.php and this explains :

The Gemini Explorer is a beautiful ex Clyde class lifeboat.

Built in 1974 at Bideford Yard in Glasgow, she still proudly carries her RNLI number of 70-003.

The Gemini has a first class pedigree and a very interesting history. Based in Clovelly in England from 1974 until 1988, she was launched a total of 144 times and saved an incredible 40 lives.

After 1988 she was sold to Kent Fisheries in England and worked as a fishery patrol vessel around the waters of the UK before being bought by her current owner Peter Hizzet in 2003, who refitted and converted her for marine tours, diving and commercial charter work.

These days, based in Buckie on the beautiful Moray Firth, Gemini Explorer is fully MCA compliant to carry 12 passengers and three crew 60 miles from any safe haven.

Being an ex lifeboat she is built to exacting standards and all essential equipment and machinery is at least doubled.

The Gemini still carries original equipment from her RNLI days and draws attention wherever she goes. Her main engines are twin 8, 3lb Gardners housed in their own engine rooms with lots of brass and copper to polish!