A HAMPSHIRE museum is calling for funds to help bring a rare Second World War motor boat home to be restored.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy has announced that it has just weeks to save a unique part of Britain’s Second World War coastal heritage.

It has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the remaining funds, to transport the sole surviving Second World War 55-foot coastal motor boat CMB 331 from her current home in Oxfordshire back to Gosport where she will be conserved by experts.

The campaign hopes to raise £9,000 to take possession of the boat and move it to Gosport where it will it will be housed next to Explosion The Museum of Naval Fire Power.

The 76-year-old CMB 331 is the last surviving Thornycroft 55-foot coastal motor boat.

These innovative craft were designed during the First World War, following a suggestion that small, fast torpedo-carrying craft might be able to pass over German minefields and attack the High Seas Fleet at its base in Wilhelmshaven.

Designed by pioneering boat builder John Thorneycroft and built all over the country, including both at Woolston, Southampton and Camper and Nicholson’s Yard in Gosport, the first 40-foot boats first saw action at the Zeebrugge Raid in April 1918.

The smaller 40-foot boats could only carry one small torpedo so in 1916, Thornycroft designed a much larger 55-foot model which could carry two torpedoes, whilst still capable of extraordinary speeds of up to 41 knots, or 76km/h.

The larger boats saw action in the Baltic and Caspian Seas in 1919, during the ‘secret war’ to overturn the Russian Revolution.

These remarkable boats remained current technology right up to the Second World War.

This boat, CMB 331, was one of the last to be built, and was part of an order for the Government of the Philippines but were requisitioned for the Royal Navy in 1941.

She was built at Thornycroft’s yard at Woolston, near Southampton, commissioned in November 1941, and based at HMS Hornet, the Coastal Forces Base at Haslar in Gosport.

It is not known if the boat ever saw action during WW2, although as well as two torpedoes it could lay mines and drop depth charges onto submarines.

It is believed that it may have been used for dropping off agents into occupied Europe, although this is still being researched.

She was decommissioned for disposal in 1945 and was then sold to private owners.

It is unknown what happened to her over the following years but in the 1980s she was being used as a house boat.

The National Museum of the Royal Navy’s head of heritage development Nick Hewitt said: “CMB 331 is the grandfather of the generations of light attack craft which followed, through the motor torpedo boats and gunboats of the Second World War, right up to the missile boats in service all over the world today.

"She will be an exciting and vivid reminder of the very young men who fought their ‘mosquito war’ in small boats, in the dark, at incredibly high speeds, during both world wars.

"We are thrilled at the possibility of acquiring her and saving her for the nation.”

When asked what was special about her, Mr Hewitt said: "She is absolutely the last of the 55ft coastal motor boats from that time.

"It was brought to our attention two and a half years ago. But the owner didn’t want to sell, then one day I got a call asking if I was still interested and I jumped at the chance, there was no hesitation at all.

"I very much hope to be leading on her restoration.”

For more details about the campaign, which closes on May 19, and to donate, visit the website: https://igg.me/at/CMB331.