RS 1 Colin Archer

Type

Cutter

Period

19th Century

Nation

Norway

Overview: RS 1 Colin Archer is the prototype sea-rescue cutter designed and built by Norwegian naval architect Colin Archer for the newly founded Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue (Redningsselskapet). Launched in 1893 at Archer's Rekkevik yard near Larvik, she became the pattern vessel for the entire "Colin Archer class" of double-ended rescue ketches/cutters that protected Norway's fishing fleets for the next three decades. Specifications: She is a double-ended (sharp-sterned) sailing hull roughly 13.95 metres long with a 4.65 metre beam and 2.25 metre draught, carrying mainsail, mizzen, staysail, jib and topsail for about 110 square metres of sail. Design emphasis was on extreme seaworthiness and heavy ballasting (a ballast keel plus internal ballast) so she could stay at sea with the fishing fleet in harsh North Sea and Arctic conditions. Service History: Commissioned in 1893-94, RS 1 Colin Archer served the rescue society for about 40 years, credited with saving dozens of ships and well over a hundred lives (sources vary between roughly 67-236 people/ships saved) and assisting well over 1,500 vessels before being sold out of service around 1933-34. She was later fitted with an auxiliary motor by private owners, crossed the Atlantic in 1938, and was wrecked/neglected in the United States, being found derelict on the Potomac River around 1960-61. Notable Facts: She was shipped back to Norway as deck cargo in December 1961, briefly used as a Scout boat, and acquired by the Norwegian Maritime Museum in 1972, which has operated her ever since in partnership with the Seilskøyteklubben Colin Archer; major hull and interior restorations followed in 1977 and 1993. As a fully restored sailing museum vessel she has gone on to win the Tall Ships' Race (Cutty Sark Trophy) multiple times (1983, 1987, 1993), a remarkable second career for a 19th-century rescue cutter and a popular subject for period-accurate scale models.