£1.4m repair grant keeps Shieldhall sailing

The contract was won against stiff competition from other shipyards and also highlights the importance of repeat business to A&P. The company has a long term partnering relationship with the SS Shieldhall, the largest steamship of its type in Europe.

The contract will see A&P Falmouth undertaking major hull repair and modification work in dry dock, extending the life of the steamship for another 25 years. Work will take place in April 2014 and is being funded by a £1.4m Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant.

Graham Mackenzie, marketing director of Solent Steam Packet, the charity which owns SS Shieldhall, said: “It was a highly competitive contract because we had to comply with HLF’s procurement guidelines and get a minimum of three quotes.

“We chose A&P Falmouth because it not only represented the best value for money, but because it put together a very detailed response and we felt it enabled us to go back to the yard we have worked with for the past 10 years, where we have built up a rapport with the management and the workers on the coal face.

“Work on a heritage ship such as ours is quite special and it’s not the sort of job any shipyard can do, it has to be sympathetic to what we are trying to do. A&P really is a trusted name for us.”

A heritage cargo-passenger ship, included in the National Historic Fleet, Shieldhall was built and launched on the Clyde in 1955, to a classic pre-WW2 design. It had a long and successful first career with Glasgow Corporation, carrying treated sludge out to sea and, in the summer, taking passengers on pleasure trips. Bought in 1977 by Southern Water, it was finally withdrawn from commercial service in 1985 but saved and purchased for £20,000 in 1988 by the charity that still operates it.

Today the 2,000 tonne Shieldhall is a unique seagoing ‘time capsule’, providing a working example of steamship machinery both above and below deck, typical of the cargo and passenger ships that plied the oceans of the world between the 1870s and 1960s, after which they became all but extinct.

Whilst other heritage ships are held permanently in dry dock, Shieldhall remains active, with a cruise programme that allows passengers to access the engine room with its two impressive 800hp steam engines at work and the bridge, complete with traditional instruments and gleaming brasswork. The hull repairs to be undertaken by A&P will mean Shieldhall will gain a fully certified UK Class III Certificate enabling it to take a ‘conservation in action’ message beyond its Solent base.

Shieldhall’s 2014 sailing dates are listed at www.ss-shieldhall.co.uk