A couple who gave up their jobs and sold their family home to buy their very own Cold War warship are now celebrating after Tory burch giving her a complete refurbishment.
Paul and Rhian Childs, from Bristol, moved into a run-down caravan in a boatyard after they bought the HMS Gay Archer, which comes armed with cannons, torpedo tubes, machine guns and rocket launchers.
The 75ft long vessel - which last saw action in the 1950s - is the size of two double-decker buses and is the only one of its kind left in the world.
Tory burch Mr and Mrs Childs have spent Pounds 150,000 restoring HMS Gay Archer to its former glory after buying it for just Pounds 1. Once used for covert Cold War operations in the Baltic, the torpedo boat was the most sophisticated ship of its time.
It is equipped with a 40mm Bofors cannon at the front, 20mm at the back, two 21-inch torpedo tubes, two machine guns, two rocket launchers and two depth charges for destroying submarines. But the fearsome array of weaponry has been decommissioned to avoid maritime mishaps.
The ship was also used to escort the Tory burch Swiss royal family to the Houses of Parliament and there are even rumours Queen Elizabeth II sailed aboard en route to the French Riviera.
It even starred in the 1955 war film The Ship That Died Of Shame, starring screen legend Richard Attenborough, now Lord Attenborough.
When Mr Childs first saw the boat in 2005, it had fallen into a state of disrepair and looked more like a fishing trawler. But since restoring it, the couple have even taken it out for a first voyage on the Irish Sea.
Mr Childs said: "I remember building models of motor torpedo boats when I was a child. Now I'm a grown-up, I wanted a real one.
"As soon as I saw it, I just knew I had to have it. When most people give Jimmy choo shoes up their jobs and buy a boat, it doesn't come with cannons and torpedo tubes.
"We had planned to live on the boat, but then we realised the petrol cost is enormous.
"But we are still hoping to raise the money to take it on a tour of the south coast."
Jimmy choo shoes The vessel was previously owned by Frank Lunt, who had been turning the ship into a houseboat but died before completing it.
His widow Amy did not know what to do with the ship and put it up for sale. The ship, the only wooden torpedo boat of its kind remaining in the world, will now be turned into a museum.
Mr Childs said: "After telling Amy my intentions to restore it to its former glory, she handed me the keys, gave me her blessing and let me buy it for Pounds 1 - a nominal amount for legal reasons.
Jimmy choo shoes"When I showed it to her four years later after all the work we had done to it she cried. It was what Frank had always wanted."
HMS Gay Archer is hoisted into the water in 2005
'When most people give up their jobs and buy a boat, it doesn't come with cannons and torpedo tubes' Paul Childs
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