CHEQUERED CAREER OF 84- YEAR-OLD LIZZIE AND ANNIE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29702, 21 December 1961, Page 20

CHEQUERED CAREER OF 84-YEAR-OLD LIZZIE AND ANNIE

One of the oldert vessels ta Uoyd’a Register, the Lizzie and Anode, has just celebrated her eighty-fourth birthday, say* “100A1” a bulletin published by Lloyd's Regiater of Shipping. The Uzzie and Annie is an Iron motonbop of 117 gross tons, which was completed in June, 1877, by J. Softley and Sons, of Shields. Built under special survey, she was still in claes in July of this year.

“Her long career can only be described as chequered,” says the bulletin. “The records show that, in the course of her life, she has run aground three tames, and been in collision seven times. ‘The Lizzie and Annie was first owned by a Liverpool firm. She was intended for trading to France and was described on the first certificate as an iron ketch-rigged steamship. The description continued: "One deck vessel. Double angle irons have been fitted upon the floors for 46ft amddishipe. The general quality of the workmanship is good.’ The first propelling machinery was made in Newcastle and was of 25 rbp. "The series of accidents which have befallen the ship began only some two years after her completion. The damage was quite severe and a reoort on the repair survey in 1879 states: *Vessei having gone aground, sternpost was found fractured, to repair which sternframe was got out and fractured post welded and 21 damaged plates taken off, four renewed, the remainder made fair and replaced, six damaged floors doubled to way of slight fractures, additional angle irons riveted alongside nine fractured reversed frames: cement in flat of bottom renewed fore and aft and cement in waterways repaired where found disturbed.’ "This should have been a Large enough quota of trouble to last for a long time,” says the bulletin, "but three years later the Lizzie and Annie was being repaired again. By this time she had changed hands. She was now registered at Boston, lines, and

was being used as a master carrying seed and other goods to London, and probably other ports ae we*. The repairs now needed arose from a collision but the ship seems to have suffered rather less than when she went aground, for the survey report reeds: ■Stemframe taken out, straightened and refitted. Three forehoods of plating and one bulwark plate on the starboard side, four forehoods and one bulwark plate on the port side renewed, one frame set fair.’ “Even then she was not free of trouble. Over the next five years she received a new foremast, a new boiler, lost her propeller and damaged her tailshaft and was run into and damaged on the port bow.” “In 1890 the ship underwent a special survey which she passed. The surveyor’s report on the survey contains one amusing note, however: ‘Donkey boiler carefully examined. Could not get inside owing to it being so small, the manhole also being only 12in by 9in.’ A new donkey boiler was actually fitted in 1894. “For the next 10 years the Lizzie and Annie led a comparatively quiet life, requiring only normal wear-and-tear maintenance, a new boiler and a new crankshaft In 1901 she passed into the hands of a firm of com cake, hay and straw merchants. "But in 1905 she was in trouble again. After being to collision with a tug, her machinery was removed and she suffered the indignity of being classed as a ‘barge for being towed.’ In 1906 she was put into the sailing ship register and two years later her owners discontinued survey.

"From then on the ship was in limbo for several years: but in 1922 she came up for reclassification. She had been fitted with full sail power and with new oil engines in 1913, and class was finally assigned again to 1923. The following year the propelling machinery was sent back to the builders for overhaul under survey. “When this had been done, the ship being classed as a ‘barge for being towed’ in the meantime, a Lloyd’s Machinery Certificate was issued and the vessel was reclassed as a motorship. “The glory of her new status was tarnished within a year, however, when she ran aground while turning to take up a new berth to the River Welland—an incident which necessitated the fitting of a new sternframe and rudder. Five years later in 1930, she collided with a dock wall at Boston, Lincs, and had to have stern and shell plates and four frames renewed. “By this time there can

have been little, if any, of the original stern left. In 1932 new Swedish-built oil engines were fitted. “An examination in 1934 showed that the bottom plating was set up on both the port and starboard sides. This condition had existed for several years, however, and was caused by the ship's loading and discharging on the hard. "In 1935 a new main engine was ordered from Sweden to obtain higher horse-power: and in the same year the Lizzie and Annie sustained damage to her port side bulwark in colliding with an unknown trawler in the River Humber.

“Her port bow was damaged in the following year, when she collided with an oil tanker in the same river. The next accident did not occur until 1943, when she again ran aground in the River Welland near Boston, but the damage was fortunately not severe and needed only minor repairs. In December, 1944, there was aether collision with a tug, which caused slight damage to the port side sheerstrake plating and bulwark plating. “That was the last accident to happen to the Lizzie and Annie. Her troubles since then have been trivial by comparison with earlier disasters. Normal wear and tear has necessitated the renewal of rivets and some plating. The ill-luck which has afflicted her stern all her life did reappear briefly in 1948, when the blades broke off a brand new cast iron propeller.

“Otherwise the gallant Lizzie and Annie seems to have settled down to a decorous and uneventful old age,” says the bulletin. “She is now owned by a contracting company in Yorkshire and works in Whitby harbour.”