Volunteer Views: Full Story
The Tug, Meeching
The tug which had caught the attention of our Everard’s Lightermen at the weekend is in fact the Meeching, whose impressive bulk looms over everything else in Oare Creek. Looking taller and bigger than the Shipwrights pub itself she can be seen for miles as you approach down the approach road. She seems to be as fascinating to tug-fans, as Cambria is to us, and there are reams about her, revealed even in a quick and superficial browse.
There’s a great chunk about her on the Red Sands Radio site
http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/RedSandsRadio_6/RedSandsRadio_6.html
and a big long discussion thread following her from about 2005 on
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=4797
Built by PK Harris in Appledore (in Devon, not the little village near Rye!), she seems to have been mainly Newhaven’s harbour-tug, her name being the old name for Newhaven. Launched in 1960, she served Newhaven for 40 years. Decommissioned, she then lay idle for a year before being sold on for work around the coast including in the Medway and Queenborough.
There is an enormous write up about her on the Newhaven Maritime Museum site at...
http://www.ournewhaven.org.uk/page_id__383_path__0p69p63p.aspx
I can, however, find no mention of Everard’s, so I’m not sure how all this ties in with our visiting Lightermen.
