The Search is on for a Sister Matbro

During a visit to the Isle of Wight over the weekend, my good friend and Construction Collective colleague Peter Haddock had a chance encounter with the team at the Sandown and Shanklin Lifeboat Service and their old Matbro forklift.

Chatting to Peter, the team said that they are looking for a sister machine for their current model which has already put in 5-years of service, so far, the search has proven to be difficult as these machines are becoming rarer to find by the day. The team love the Matbro machines for their simplicity and reliability, and this is the second one they have owned.

The machine looks to be a Matbro Teleram-C model and the team are looking for the same model which must also feature a Clark gearbox.

The telescopic handler is used to pull the lifeboat out of its dedicated housing, and manoeuvre down to the beach, then pushing it out into the sea for launching, as one might expect, the machine will have to like sea water, which as we all know can be savage on paintwork and internals!

Do you have one of these available, or do you know where one is that could be? If so, you could help these guys saving lives as they do on a daily basis

Get in touch with Mark Birch at sandownlifeboat@btinternet.com if you can help.

For more information visit sandownlifeboat.com