I was riding my push bike yesterday, when this river cruise came passing by. I thought the stern looked suspiciously like a Landing craft......and than there was the name "Sir Winston".
My first though was a modified LCT, but it looked too narrow....
After a search on the interwebs I found "Sir Winston" is indeed a former WW2 boat....built in 1944/45 by Furguson in Glasgow for the Royal Navy. It was converted to a river cruise post war and also stretched later on.
The exact WW2 history is unknown, but somewhere I read the rumour that it was a "Destroyer". This seems unlikely as Destroyers were a lot longer and the hull shape different.
Too narrow to be an LCT III or IV.....the stern too narrow for a British LCI, so I am thinking it might have started life as a Landing Craft Support; LCS(L) or more likely a Landing Craft Gun; LCG(M). I think the latter as the hull seems to be spot on.....and given the fact that the untrained eye could easily mistake this for a Destroyer.
Alex