WEARSIDER tug

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

WEARSIDER tug

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Jan 19, 2010 8:07 pm

The name on the bows of this tug is MAYRA, however the design is that of four tugs operating on the River Tyne and River Wear in the North East of England.
The four tugs are HOLMSIDER (built 1984), SEASIDER (1985), TYNESIDER (1981) and WEARSIDER (1980).
I spoke to Lawson Batey Tugs owners/managers of the tugs, and was told that none of their vessels had been sold to Cuba. I was not able to contact the builders, R.Dunston (Hessle) Ltd. Of Hessle – Humberside (who) I believe are no longer in business) to confirm whether they ever built tugs for Cuba.

On checking through Lloyds List of Shipowners 1991/92 and Lloyds Registers, I can find no mention of a tug called MAYRA.
I am convinced that the tug on the stamp is only one of two of the four in the Lawson-Batey fleet.
I have checked my photo’s of the four tugs and am convinced that the tug on the stamp is either TYNESIDER or WEARSIDER as they are identical to the MAYRA. The two newer tugs vary from the older ones in having two extra windows below the five main ones on the front superstructure. Having spent my early years on Tyneside & Wearside, the hull and red and black funnel colors of Tyne Tugs Ltd. Are well known to me, and the only difference from the MAYRA and the Lawson-Barey tugs appears to be some writing on the funnel. By 1988, the Tyne Tugs Ltd. Fleet changed their funnel colors to those of Lawson-Batey, yellow with a blue Maltese cross on them.

In December 2002 I attended the World Ship Society Tyneside Branch meeting where the talk and presentation was of tugs from ports in the North East of England. It was during this meeting that I learned that there was one way of identifying which Tyne Tugs tug was which when two sister tugs were side by side and this was by the colour of their masts. It turns out that one sister would have an all black mast while the other would have a black mast with a tan-colour top.

This set me to looking at the MAYRA on the Cuban stamp. The top of the mast was tan coloured which lead me to believe that the tug in question is the WEARSIDER which has a tan top to its mast and not the TYNESIDER.

With this in mind I scanned the stamp and published it on the Tug Talk news group (part of Clydesite - http://www.clydeshipping.co.uk/), giving details of the stamp and also my thoughts on the identity of the tug and asked if anybody could confirm or deny my identification of the tug as the WEARSIDER.
One reply led me to a book called 150 YEARS OF THE MALTESE CROSS by John H Proud as the responder thought that the tug on the stamp was identical to one of the photographs in the book. As I had the book I checked up and sure enough the tug on the stamp is almost identical to the photograph of the WEARSIDER.

I have scanned the photograph in the book and compared it with the stamp and I sure that you will agree that they are one and the same ship – even down to the men in the wheelhouse.

As far as I am aware none of this class of tug was built for Cuba.

Details of the WEARSIDER are :-

Completed in November 1980 by Richard Dunston (Hessle) Ltd. at Hessle
for Lawson-Batey Tugs Ltd and chartered to Tyne Tugs Ltd.
Yard number H 929
GRT: 135
NRT: 20
DWT: 72
Length 28.02 mts
Breadth 7.83 mts
Draught 2.81 mts
Powered by 1 Mirlees-Blackstone ESL 8 diesel engine, 1125 bhp, speed maximum 10 knots. One controllable pitch propeller.

Port of registry was Newcastle

HISTORY
March 1985: Chartered to Wear Tugs Ltd.
April 1986 : Chartered to Tyne & Wear Tugs Ltd.
June 1990: Laid up
December 1990: Chartered to North Sea Tugs Ltd for 6 weeks for work
on River Medway in Kent.
May 1991: Chartered to North Sea Tugs Ltd for work on River Tees and
renamed SAMURAI SWORDSMAN.
June 1992: Charter completed and returned to River Tyne and renamed
WEARSIDER
August 1995: Acquired by Hellenic Tugs Shipping Co Ltd. of Piraeus of
Greece and renamed MEGALOHARI VI

In 2005 renamed MEGALOCHARI VI
2017 Renamed by owners in ARTEMIS VI.

2018: In pressent fleet. IMO No. 7918000

(Information from 150 Years of the Maltese Cross by John H Proud;
Lloyd's Register of Ships 2001 – 2002; Equasis.)

It would appear that the stamp designer has used artistic licence in
giving the tug the name MAYRA. Perhaps this tug should now be listed
as WEARSIDER despite the name on the bow.

Cuba 1993 30c sg3796, scott?

Peter Crichton
Attachments
WEARSIDER xx.jpg
Wearsider 01.jpg

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