Design No. 248
Sea-King
Design 248 represents Alfred Mylne's work on a twin screw motor yacht designated Sea-King. The design is documented by 29 drawings held in the archive. At least one vessel derived from this design was constructed: Sea-King II, built in 1921. The complete specifications of the original design, including dimensions and construction details, remain to be verified from the archive material.
Original Drawings · 29 sheets
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Notes
Many of us know the British-born traveler willed two million U.S. dollars to a trust fund for the benefit of the citizens of what was then the colony of British Honduras simply as Baron Bliss and yearly we look forward to the holiday that marks his death, but today 16 February 2009, we would like to mark the 140th anniversary of his birth. The national benefactor of Belize, was born Henry Edward Ernest Victor Bliss in Marlow, county of Buckinghamshire with a family lineage that went back to Edward Bliss, an Englishman who gained the Portuguese title Baron Barreto in the1820's. The English Barons Barreto considered that, being Bliss' too, they could legitimately use the name Baron Bliss. It was during his early adulthood that Bliss became the Fourth Baron of the Former Kingdom of Portugal. It is generally accepted that Bliss received his title of Fourth Baron through a family lineage with one Sir John Moore, a war hero of battles past. As an adult living in Quarry Court in Marlow, he was an engineer by profession and had been appointed a Justice of the Peace. A marriage to Ethel Alice Bliss produced no children. By the end of the first decade in the new century, Baron Bliss was wealthy enough to retire to his love of seafaring & fishing. However, in 1911 at the age of 42, the Baron was stricken with a paralysis, probably polio, that left him paralyzed from waist downward, confining him to a wheelchair. Though paralyzed from the waist down from 1911, Baron Henry maintained his love of sailing and fishing. Undeterred, the Baron remained active and acquired a yacht, the Sea King, using it for leisure travel around the United Kingdom. After the start of the First World War in 1914, the Baron's yacht was commandeered for the British war effort. Once the War had come to an end in 1918, Baron Bliss commissioned the building of the Sea King II. She was a yacht for meant for tropical waters, built to the Baron's specifications. When the Sea King II as competed in 1920, the Baron prepared left England, never to return, he left his wife and his native land for the Caribbean, spending the next six years living aboard his yacht Sea King II off the Bahamas and apparently spending time at Dunmore House (now the official Governor's Residence), on New Providence. He had purchased property on some of the islands, but whether he intended to settle in the Bahamas is open to speculation http://belize.mybelize.net/index.php?section=98
Yachts in the Register · 1
Historical Context
Alfred Mylne's career spanned a period of significant change in yacht design and marine engineering. The early decades of the twentieth century saw increasing adoption of motor propulsion alongside traditional sailing craft. Twin screw configurations offered advantages in manoeuvrability and reliability, making them popular for larger motor yachts. Design 248 belongs to this transitional period in maritime technology. The 1921 construction date of Sea-King II places it within the interwar years, when motor yacht design was becoming increasingly refined and commercially important.