The Daniel Adamson also known as The Danny is a historic steam-powered tugboat. [1] [2] [3]
The Daniel Adamson also known as The Danny is a historic steam-powered tugboat. [1] [2] [3]
The boat was built as a tug-tender in 1903 for the Shropshire Union Canal Company and named the Ralph Brocklebank. [4] Between 1903 and 1915 it towed barges, and carried passengers, along the Mersey, thereafter it only towed freight. The boat was bought by the Manchester Ship Canal Company in 1921 and used as a tug, however it was also operated as a cruise boat between Manchester and Eastham that included a return train-trip from Ellesmere Port to Manchester. [4]
In 1936 it was converted into a luxury passenger vessel and renamed after the first chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, Daniel Adamson. [3]
In 1986 the boat was at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port. By 2004 the boat was in disrepair and under threat of being scrapped, a rescue plan was initiated that resulted in a £3 million award from The National Lottery that enabled The Danny to return to service as a cruise boat. [4]
The Danny was built in 1903 by the Tranmere Bay Development Co, of Birkenhead. It is propelled by a coal powered steam engine. It has a beam of 7.47m, a depth of 1.83m, a length of 33.53m and has a gross tonnage of 173. [4]
The Danny has been listed on the UK's national register of historic ships. [4]
Since 2017 The Danny has operated as a cruise boat along the Manchester Ship Canal. [3]
The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36-mile-long (58 km) inland waterway in the North West of England linking Manchester to the Irish Sea. Starting at the Mersey Estuary at Eastham, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, it generally follows the original routes of the rivers Mersey and Irwell through the historic counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. Several sets of locks lift vessels about 60 feet (18 m) to the canal's terminus in Manchester. Landmarks along its route include the Barton Swing Aqueduct, the world's only swing aqueduct, and Trafford Park, the world's first planned industrial estate and still the largest in Europe.
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.
The Chester Canal was an English canal linking the south Cheshire town of Nantwich with the River Dee at Chester. It was intended to link Chester to Middlewich, with a branch to Nantwich, but the Trent and Mersey Canal were unco-operative about a junction at Middlewich, and so the route to Nantwich was opened in 1779. There were also difficulties negotiating with the River Dee Company, and with no possibility of through traffic, the canal was uneconomic. Part of it was closed in 1787, when Beeston staircase locks collapsed, and there was no money to fund repairs. When the Ellesmere Canal was proposed in 1790, the company saw it as a ray of hope, and somehow managed to keep the struggling canal open. The Ellesmere Canal provided a link to the River Mersey at Ellesmere Port from 1797, and the fortunes of the Chester Canal began to improve.
TS Queen Mary is a Clyde steamer launched in 1933 at the William Denny shipyard, Dumbarton, for Williamson-Buchanan Steamers. She is currently being restored as a museum ship, in Glasgow.
The National Waterways Museum (NWM) is in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England, at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal. The museum's collections and archives focus on the Britain's navigable inland waterways, including its rivers and canals, and include canal boats, traditional clothing, painted canal decorative ware and tools. It is one of several museums and attractions operated by the Canal & River Trust, the successor to The Waterways Trust.
Daniel Adamson was an English engineer who became a successful manufacturer of boilers and was the driving force behind the inception of the Manchester Ship Canal project during the 1880s.
The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was a Company in England, formed in 1846, which managed several canals and railways. It intended to convert a number of canals to railways, but was leased by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) from 1847, and although they built one railway in their own right, the LNWR were keen that they did not build any more. They continued to act as a semi-autonomous body, managing the canals under their control, and were critical of the LNWR for not using the powers which the Shropshire Union Company had obtained to achieve domination of the markets in Shropshire and Cheshire by building more railways.
The Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal was a canal in England which ran from Nantwich, where it joined the Chester Canal, to Autherley, where it joined the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. Forming part of a major link between Liverpool and the industrial heartlands of the Midlands, the canal was opened in 1835, and merged with the Ellesmere and Chester Canal Company in 1845, which became the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company in the following year.
The steamboat Clallam operated for about six months from July 1903 to January 1904 in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. She was sunk in a storm on what should have been an ordinary voyage to Victoria, British Columbia.
A "Scotch" marine boiler is a design of steam boiler best known for its use on ships.
Liverpool in North West England, is a major British city with significant road, rail, and ferry networks, in addition to an international airport and a well-known dock system. As with most other major UK cities, Liverpool's transport infrastructure is centred on its road and rail networks. Public transport services within the city are controlled and run by Merseytravel.
W. J. Yarwood & Sons Ltd were a shipbuilding company based in Northwich, Cheshire from 1896 to 1966.
ST Cervia was built in 1946 as a seagoing tug for use as a fleet auxiliary by Alexandra Hall & Company Ltd of Aberdeen, Scotland. Today she is a floating Museum still undergoing restoration in Ramsgate, Kent.
TS Pretoria was a ship that had a long and varied career as first a German cargo liner, then a U-boat depot ship, hospital ship, British troop ship, Muslim pilgrim ship and finally an Indonesian naval accommodation ship.
Mayflower is a steam tug built in Bristol in 1861 and now preserved by Bristol Museums Galleries & Archives. She is based in Bristol Harbour at M Shed. She is the oldest Bristol-built ship afloat, and is believed to be the oldest surviving tug in the world.
SS Magnetic was a passenger tender of the White Star Line built in 1891. She was laid down at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast, Ireland. Magnetic was sold to a different company in 1932 and renamed Ryde, and scrapped in 1935.
TSS T/T Calshot is a tug tender built in 1929 by John I Thornycroft & Co, and completed in 1930 for the Red Funnel Line. Calshot is one of only three surviving classical tender ships which served the great ocean liners. In her career, Calshot has tendered some of the most famous ocean liners ever built, such as the RMS Caronia, the Cunard Queens RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Mary, the SS United States, and the White Star Line ship RMS Olympic. During World War II she was requisitioned by the British Admiralty for servicing troop ships and took part in D-Day. She is a registered vessel of the National Historic Fleet of the United Kingdom, holding Certificate No. 1.
Henry Scarr Ltd. was an English shipbuilding company based in the East Riding of Yorkshire at Hessle on the Humber. Henry Scarr took over an existing shipyard in 1897, and continued to build ships there until 1932, when the site was bought by Richard Dunston Ltd. Dunstons operated the shipyard until 1974, and after a series of takeovers, shipbuilding ceased in 1994.
Basuto is a Clyde puffer built in 1902 by William Jacks & Co. in Port Dundas in Scotland for its own use on the Forth and Clyde Canal.