Based on a Pembrokeshire One Design Dayboat, she was built in 1938 by the Aberystwyth boatyard of David Williams and Son.
The name
‘Undine’ comes from the water nymph who married a human to
gain a soul.
When built the boat cost £31 and 10 shillings for an 18-foot clinker boat complete with sails and oars. Unusually, she had an oversize keel and hog to allow for an engine shaft to be bored later. She was fitted with and Austin Seven car engine in the late 1950’s.
She was donated to the Society in November 1985 by Pembroke business man Ron Campbell; the Society's very first boat. She was nicknamed the ‘banana boat’ because of her unusual hull shape.
Udine had the distinction of being one of the very few leisure boats to be permitted to sail in the World War II at Burry Port. Society member Barry Burgess sailed on her when he was a boy. He recalls the story: “One fine summers evening as the sun was setting on her red sails, when a squadron of fighters aircraft returning to RAF PEMBREY flew overhead. Several Polish Pilots who had a reputation for daredevil escapades, found the temptation too much and swooped in for the ‘kill’. David Paton was enjoying a quiet sail, he raised a languid eyebrow over the cockpit to see 3 Hawker Hurricanes coming straight at him, screaming overhead, it is said they cleared the mast by a couple of feet."
In 1989 Undine was hired as a ‘prop’ in the BBC film “Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader” Her starring role lasted one second. The boat was taken by road to Porthclais where the scenes were shot, with one of the Society members playing a part as an extra. The harbour was called ‘Narrow Haven’ in the film and the BBC fee paid for a new sail for Undine.