Model engineer on adventure

The story was about a family, father, mother and son, planning to leave England and emigrate overseas to Australia, I think. The general plan was that father and mother should sail to their new homeland and mean while the son should stay with e relative, the model engineer. Before leave parents had changed all property into gold? hidden away in a secure spot (pocket in the keel) on the boat. However, almost there they hit a reef, both parents drowned but the boat wreck could be rescued.

Now, the model engineer decides that he should try to rescue the property from the wreck, and off he goes. With him on the long trip he brings a fantastic model of a petrol motor and by demonstrating the motor here and there he always finds equals helping him on. Finally he returns with gold or what it was hidden in the motor rescued from the boat wreck.

I would be highly grateful if somebody recognise the story and could give a hint of title and author of the book.

Neville Shute.

Trustee from the toolroom

Yes, but a few inaccuracies:

Destination was Vancouver?

It was a daughter not a son

Money was converted to diamonds hidden in a silver soldered copper (?) box in the sump of the yacht engine - which is why the corroded engine is shipped back to England

Motor plus generator plus pea bulb, so it did more than just run

Andrew

Andrew has it almost spot-on. One small detail wrong - the box of diamonds was concreted into the hull of the boat, and after being salvaged was then hidden in the engine sump.

Absolutely cracking good story. I've re-read it several times, and it always bring a smile to my face.

Mike

I seem to recall it was a bit dubious as to the source of the wealth and tax implications.

The source of the wealth wasn't dubious - the girl's parents sold their house but, at the time the book was written, there were severe restrictions on taking sterling out of the country. Presumably Shute was familiar with the issues having moved to Australia.

Rod

There was a related (spin-off?) story by Desmond Bagley, called (IIRR) The Golden Keel. As I recall, the source of the wealth was even more dubious, but the engineering implications of a gismo which would melt small quantities of gold fascinated me. Though even at the tender age I was when I first read this, I just knew that the project management implications of using a small scale process to serve a big project (casting the keel of a boat) weren't going to end well.

And (without spoiling the story) they didn't!

But I think, to return to the original thread, there was more of the romance of engineering in Nevil Shute's various stories.

Rgds to all Simon

Neville Shute Norway (his full name) was an engineer of some distinction.

He was a protege of Barnes Wallis when the great man was designer in charge and designer of the R100 airship. Shute amongst other work was the stress engineer working on the aluminium framework. The private venture R100 was a successful and (relatively) safe machine which the Government backed R101 wasn't. It crashed on it's maiden flight in France. Shute tells the tale in his autobiography.

During the 30s he founded the Airspeed aircraft company with private subscription money, mostly from Lord Grimethorpe who saw his investment as a job creation program in depressed Yorkshire. Knowing it was such a high risk venture, both of them declined offers to buy shares from smaller investors. Shute was chief designer. That venture was reflected in "Ruined City" where a businessman floated a shipbuilding company on a bent prospectus, just to find work for the men on Tyneside. It all blew up and the guy went to jail, a hero to all except the law.

Airspeed was eventually hugely successful by way of wartime contracts, particularly the "Oxford" and Shute stuck with it to wars end out of patriotic sentiment, but hated mass production and the wartime economy BS. He sold out and took up the pen for a living.

"SIlde rule, the autobiography of an engineer" is a terrific read and has a lot of relevance even today. There are several copies on Abe Books for around £3 post inclusive.

Eug

Edited By Eugene on 23/03/2016 19:56:08

Edited By Eugene on 23/03/2016 20:00:16

Airspeeds York factory was demolished a short while ago would be nice to have a memory of Yorks aviation past but engineering seems to be a dirty word to York Council

I love the Golden Keel - one of my favourite Bagley's, but wasn't aware of this one. Amazon has just taken some more of my money!

Thanks.

Iain

Neville Shutes books are in the public domain in Canada and can be found here.

Slide Rule

Trustee from the Toolroom

Gah!!!! That's another £3.99 I'll never see again...

Iain

Both well worth reading.

Russell.

There is another thread, "Hobby related novel", this has some interesting stuff on it, and about Neville Shute.

Ian S C

As a lad I enjoyed some of Neville Shute's stuff. But just now following the link and reading the first part of 'trustee' I admit to finding his sentence construction irritating.

More to the point i wonder why he planned to braze the lid on? Why not soft solder the last part? Isn;t it wise to keep oxy-acetylene away from the family jewels???? Oh, and diamond combusts at 900C.....

I'm glad I've already read it, talk about spoiler alert.

All the OP wanted was author and title.

Instead he got 12,754 Amazon reviews.

Hopefully should get better in a month or so when it warms up outside and the superglue bond on the armchair lets go a bit

It's all right, there are so many versions of the ending posted no-one is any the wiser.

Neil

Hi John

Thanks for pointing that out (I do like a free download, to say the least).

The Trustee, What a good read! I could not put it down, and read it over the last couple of days.

Well, I had to read it quickly, as everyone was starting to give the game away.

Steve