matk

I'd forgotten about this page, and just thought I should add that Drake (possibly a shortened Manvers Barge) is after a lengthy conversion now moored on the Thames just below Tower Bridge and in very good company. As she was when bought in Penryn As she is now Her interior when she arrived in London, as she is now And the best view in London

I'm currently getting a lot of work done on her in Falmouth and hopefully in the new year I too will be heading for London via an initial mooring in Gravesend. Thank you for the tips. I will check out the Facebook page. I did visit Waddingtons when I was researching humber barges but being a southerner I needed a translator.

I have just noticed that you are the owner of Goodwill, I saw her when she was in dry dock in Knottingley, she had been beautifully converted and looked after...where is she now, if you don't mind me asking?

Thank you for this and I apologise for my mistake, I got my conversion from metres to feet and inches wrong. According to the surveyor's report she is 18.6 metres...61 feet... by 4.65 metres near enough 15 feet 3 inches which at least indicates she wasn't a Barnsley barge. I was also told that she was a sister ship to the Grenville, but that could be wrong too.

I spent yesterday with various surveyors, boat builders, welders etc gazing through various holes in the hull of my recently purchased and very recently grit blasted, Sheffield sized keel, Drake at present in dry dock in Falmouth. Does anyone here know any of its history. I have been told she was built in Doncaster in 1912. I have also been told she was originally a "Barnsley Barge", which would have been longer, but there seems to be no sign that she has been cut down. She measures 60 feet ten inches by 14 feet ten. I know very little more than that apart from that he was brought down to Falmouth from Waddingtons some 7 or 8 years ago