Edith May
A Thames sailing barge built in 1906 by J&H Cann in Harwich, Essex.
Her main trading route in her sailing days was carrying 130tons of wheat between London and Gt Yarmouth.
Motorised in 1952, she won the Queen’s Coronation Barge Match in 1953 and was promptly derigged to become a motor barge.
Rerigged in the early 60’s by an Essex farmer, she became known as a bit of a flyer, winning many barge matches.
Sold to become a corporate hospitality venue in Liverpool Docks before returning to London, she entered into a period of decline that culminated with her being sent to the Medway, where her days looked numbered.
Saved by Geoff Gransden in 1999, she was restored over 10 years by three generations of the Gransden family and ex Dockyard shipwrights and has enjoyed her renaissance as the lead vessel in the T&W fleet.
Lady Daphne
Launched in 1923, Lady Daphne was built in Rochester by Short Bros. She’s a large coasting barge that spent much of her working life sailing between the East and South Coasts.
In the 1920s she earned a reputation as one of the fastest coasting barges in the region and survived storms, collisions, and the famous “Lucky Lady Daphne” incident in 1927, when she sailed herself to safety through the Scilly Isles despite having lost her crew!
As motor ships replaced sail, Lady Daphne moved into charter and promotional work. Over the years, major restorations replaced timbers, masts, and rigging. Based in St Katherine Docks, she was a staple of the London skyline before heading to Cornwall following the Covid pandemic, where she faced an uncertain future.
In 2025 she returned to her birthplace, bought by Intra Maritime Heritage and Tiller & Wheel CIC. Now berthed at Ship Pier, Rochester, she has once again returned to public life.
Intra, Rochester, has been a river trade hub since Roman times — home to shipwrights, sailors, and merchants. Today, its Georgian buildings, cobbled lanes, and quays form a conservation area celebrating its rich maritime history.
As flagship of the Intra Maritime Heritage project, Lady Daphne will welcome visitors aboard, offer sailing trips, and keep traditional seamanship alive, ensuring this proud barge’s story continues for generations.
Ardwina
The last wooden barge to be built in Ipswich in 1909, by Orvis and Fuller.
Her trading life was spent in general cargoes and latterly the Portland stone trade between Dorset and London before becoming a houseboat at Chelsea.
Acquired by architects Rolfe Judd, she became an icon of London for over 40 years, skippered by Gordon ‘Willie’ Williamson, operating as a corporate hospitality venue.
Rolfe Judd were looking for new custodians for the barge and approached T&W to take her on, ensuring her future would be under sail.
She sailed to Lower Halstow dock in company with Edith May in April 2024. Now based in Shoregate, Upchurch, a programme of works will now be undertaken to enable her to take part in T&W’s public sailing programme, with 2027 targeted for her return.
Ethel Ada
Ethel Ada was built in Paglesham, Essex, by the Shuttlewood brothers, who each constructed one side of the barge before launching her on 30 July 1904. Made of oak with a single skin, she was named after the women in their lives and proved successful early on, winning the 1904 Southend Match for her first owners, G & A Underwood, despite losing her topmast mid-race. In 1910, while loading coke, a fire broke out aboard, quickly contained by dock workers and firemen. The owners later won £80 in damages from the Ipswich Gaslight Company.
Ethel Ada’s career spanned decades: she carried coal, corn, gunpowder, and later cargoes for ICI, never having an engine during her trading life, which ended in 1957. Sold for yacht conversion in 1958, she was bought by Geoff Mellor in 1969, who restored her at Pin Mill and later fitted a diesel engine for use as a cruise barge. Operating from Snape on the River Alde, she hosted twelve passengers and raced regularly. Passing through several owners, she underwent further restorations in 2001 before moving to London.
She was in a perilous state in a boatyard in Essex when T&W were invited to try and save her from imminent destruction in 2025. A team headed to Essex armed with plywood and squirty foam and undertook a perilous journey back to Kent, where she is now based at Shoregate to begin a lengthy restoration
Thistle
Where it all began.
Back in 1990, Geoff Gransden was invited to go for a sail aboard Stormy Petrel, a Whitstable oyster smack, where her legendary owner, Dick Norris, enthused him so much, he went and bought himself a rotten old smack called Thistle.
Built in 1908 by the Whitstable Shipbuilding Company for £265, she fished under sail for a short while before being motorised in 1910 and acting as a carrier boat, delivering the catch from other smacks to shore to be fetched by train to London.
She was sold after WW2 and became a fishing boat in Essex, before falling into disrepair at Pin Mill, Suffolk during the 1980s.
Geoff acquired her in 1990 and towed her back to Gillingham, where he restored her with help from father Eric and shipwright Mick Murr.
Between 1997 and 2009, she was sailed all over the East Coast, but has taken a back seat since Edith May was relaunched, mainly used for local sailing on the Medway during the winter months.
Other ships:
T&W look to support and promote other vessels that you may also see when cruising the coastline with us:
Please contact us if you’d like any further information about the ships.