Despite the seemingly endless development, the West India and Millwall Dock system has survived and in the former, seemingly caught in a time warp, the world’s last remaining steam coaster SS Robin and the UK’s last coal fired twin screw steam tug Portwey have their home. They are maintained, as if often the case in the world of ship preservation, by dedicated groups of volunteers.<\/p>\n
Built by Harland and Wolff in 1928 for the Portland & Weymouth Coaling Co, Portwey ended its working life in 1967 and, after being saved from scrapping by Richard Dobson at Dartmouth, sailed for London under the ownership of the Maritime Trust in 1982, with the Steam Tug Portwey Trust being formed in 2000.<\/p>\n
The need for constant maintenance is no different to any other ship and recently Portwey made the trip to Ramsgate, three weeks after it’s 80th birthday, for its three yearly slipping and maintenance programme at the recently rejuvenated Ramsgate Harbour Slipways Ltd. The trip is a venture in itself as Barrie Sanderson, skipper and Trust Secretary explained, ‘Good steam coal with the required specification is now not produced.<\/p>\n
Over the last 20 years or so we have used Russian, Columbian and Polish. The last two loads of Polish gave good heat without too much ash. The downside is that a great deal of soot is produced, which starts to fir up the tubes. Even the distance from London to Ramsgate was beginning to cause a loss of heat transfer and the cost of \u00a3260 per ton delivered is crippling.’<\/p>\n
The refit involves general painting and upkeep work and Barrie revealed the problems the Trust face in their efforts to keep this historic ship afloat. ‘The big worry now is how much thin steel is found by the ultra-sonic testing. At 80 years old it will be touch and go between getting back to London and being turned into razor blades! One thing we are determined about is that the old lady will not be allowed to rust away in some backwater.’<\/p>\n
For Ramsgate Harbour Slipways Ltd, a steady stream of craft are now occupying the slips but Portwey is a special visitor, as the yard’s managing director David Hawkins explained, ‘It was a great pleasure to receive the order for the Portwey tug and an opportunity for the people of Ramsgate to view a vessel with such character. A lot of interest has already been shown.<\/p>\n
The work to be carried out includes high pressure water washing, painting, steelwork repairs and the fitting of new anodes. All works have been carried out with great enthusiasm from the workforce.’ The task of ensuring the Portwey’s continuing well being is as difficult now as when it was in commercial operation. For further details or to offer support, visit www.stportwey.co.uk<\/p>\n
By Peter Barker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most peoples image of the bustling concrete and glassjungle that is East Londons\u00a0 Docklands business community is probably the iconic skyline.Pockets of the areas rich\u00a0 maritime history are, however, still to be found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shipyard-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1499,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maritimejournal.com\/get-set-for-workboat-2050\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}