Mary Rose of tug boats is saved to sail again
Civilian captain spends 18 years restoring historic Daniel Adamson to regain its seaworthy status
A 120-YEAR-OLD steam tug boat as historically important as the Mary Rose and Cutty Sark has been restored to its former glory by a member of the public who bought it for £1.
Captain Dan Cross, 48, a skipper from Liverpool, has devoted 18 years of his life to saving the Daniel Adamson, one of only 100 vessels classed as part of the UK’S “historic fleet”, the maritime equivalent of Grade I listed status.
The coal-fired tug – unique because it not only pulled ships but also carried passengers – had fallen into disrepair after being decommissioned in 1984 and was about to be scrapped when Capt Cross stepped in with a band of 20 maritime enthusiasts to save it for the nation.
His hard work and gritty determination has now earned him a Merchant Navy Medal, the highest honour awarded by the Department for Transport to civilian sailors for the outstanding achievement of restoring a slice of maritime history. He is one of 14 winners this year.
“It was more a twist of fate than anything else. I had seen the tug many times as a kid when it was held by a museum in Ellesmere Port, but I didn’t have any connection with it unlike a lot of our volunteers,” he said.
That moment of fate came in 2004 when, over a cup of tea with his port manager, Capt Cross discovered the tug that he had visited with his parents was to be sold off for scrap.
“My manager said: ‘You should get hold of it, put it in a dry dock and see if it’s worth saving,’” he said.
“It was one of those offers you could not say no to. I am not a big fan of the word ‘can’t’.”
Built in 1903, the tug jostled for space with the great steam and sailing ships as it pulled barges laden with goods and ferried passengers between Liverpool and Ellesmere Port. During the First World War, it briefly served as an unarmed patrol boat with the Navy.
In 1936, it was chosen by the Manchester Ship Canal Company (MSCC) to be its flagship “director’s launch”, a marketing tool to carry dignitaries including the King of Denmark and Sultan of Zanzibar and provide trips to reward long service employees.
It was renamed after the MSCC’S first chairman and ship canal’s founding father Daniel Adamson (“The Danny” for short) and revamped with an artdeco interior, replicating the inside of the new generation of Atlantic liners.
By 2004, 20 years after it was decommissioned, neither the museum nor the MSCC could afford to maintain the ailing tug and were persuaded by Capt Cross to relinquish it for £1.
With the dry dock and surveyors waiving their fees, Capt Cross and his volunteers – who connected via a website for maritime enthusiasts called Tug Talk – set about restoring its engine and internal mechanics, a task that saved £1 million.
After initially being refused a lottery grant and told not to reapply for three years, he promptly submitted another application for a bigger amount of £3.8 million – which they got. This paid for the external restoration at Cammell Laird shipyard at Birkenhead, where the tug was originally built.
They rebuilt it as if it were new with the same materials and to such a high standard that it regained its passenger licence in 2016, ready for its new role as a showcase for Merseyside’s seafaring history and purveyor of short cruises along the river Weaver in Cheshire.
Capt Cook said: “As a national historic fleet vessel, she is exemplary. It puts her alongside the Mary Rose and Cutty Sark because she is unique being a ‘tug tender’.
“She can tug and carry passengers and is still coal-fired. The whole thing makes her a completely unique package.”
‘She can tug and carry passengers and is still coal-fired’