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| Volume 6, Number 4 - Summer 2006 | |
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Unusual New Entrant to the Sankey
She was built of welded steel in Germany at the close of WW2, and launched by Henry Scarr Ltd. at Hessle in October 1945. She was completed by the UK Ministry of Transport, given a 2 cylinder steam engine by John Dickinson & Sons Ltd at Sunderland, and registered in Britain as ON 180480, and designated TID 174 (Tug, Inshore & Dock). There were 182 TIDs, of 54 GRT, and measuring between 65 and 71 feet long, 17' wide, with a draught between 6 and 8 feet. She was laid up initially in 1946 under the management of Townsend Brothers (Ferries) Ltd., and then set to work, along with TIDs 159, 164, 165, and 167—175, with the Port of London Authority. In the same year she was re-allocated to the French Government.
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Dan Cross, of the Daniel Adamson Preservation Society, and a Mersey tugman, sends us pictures of the tug BONCHURCH following her arrival on the Sankey at Fiddlers Ferry on Sunday, September 10th. He has also sent us a resume of her history.
In 1948 she went to Le Havre, to the Compagnie de Remorquage et de Sauvetage Les Abeilles, and renamed ABEILLE XIII or ABEILLE 13. In 1963 she was sold to Sirespa Building Co. Ltd. of La Baie, Quebec, Canada, but only sailed across to Southampton, where she was re-engined with an 8cylinder GM diesel of 375bhp, by Glebe Construction Ltd., before being laid up in the River Hamble for sale. She was purchased by Red Funnel in 1966 and re-named BONCHURCH. In 1983 she was sold to the shipbreakers Pounds Marine Shipping at Portsmouth, but then was resold in 1987 to Marev Tugs at Penryn. In 1992 she went to Lagan Marine Services, Belfast, but quickly moved in 1993 to Tyne Towage, but was never used. In 1998 she was sold to the American company Read Heavy Lift, but never moved before being resold in 2002 to Eveleigh (Griffin Towage) at Southampton . She was seen for sale in Plymouth that year and went to Shane Francis at Leigh on Sea. She was again put up for sale in 2004, and was seen on the slip in Ramsgate in the summer of 2005, when she was reported as having been re-named BON CHANCE but that may not have happened, though part of with her old name looks obscured in the picture above. In 2006 she was spotted lying for sale on the other side of the Mersey at Weston Point… and now she's on the Sankey.