UK Charity Races to Save 130-Year-Old Sailing Barge That Survived WWII
A charity in Ipswich, England, has launched an appeal to save a historic sailing barge because of her long connection with the town. The Victor 1895 Community Heritage Trust hopes to raise $337,000 to buy the Victor, a 131-year-old Thames sailing barge whose future is uncertain.
For the past two decades, Victor has been a regular sight on the River Orwell, running public and private cruises from the Ipswich waterfront. Her longtime skipper is retiring, and no buyer has come forward. With the barge facing decommissioning or even scrapping, the charity is raising money to keep her afloat as a community-owned heritage vessel.
Victor's ties to Ipswich go back to 1895, when Horace Shrubshall built her at the Dock End Yard for Owen Parry Ltd of Colchester. For much of her early career, the wooden barge carried linseed from East Coast farms to Colchester and came back with barrels of oil. During World War II, she ferried munitions, including torpedoes and shells, from Chatham Dockyard to naval vessels under cover of darkness. She survived a direct bomb strike that destroyed a lighter lying alongside her.
In the 1950s, Victor was converted to a motor barge, and she worked for the London & Rochester Trading Company until she was sold in 1964. She changed hands several times over the following decades, serving at different times as a strip club, a passenger charter barge and a floating office.
Her fortunes turned in 2005, when Steve Godwin and Tony Chancellor bought her. After a major refit that restored her rigging, systems, decks and accommodation, Victor returned to her home waters on the East Coast. She has run passenger charters ever since under skipper David “Wes” Westwood, and the trust says nearly 100,000 people have stepped aboard in that time.
Victor has been on the market for the past two years without finding a new owner. With Westwood retiring, the newly formed charity warns that the barge could be lost if she is not saved.
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“Sailing barge Victor epitomizes the working dock that Ipswich used to be. For children and young people, it's the pirate ship, the boat with red sails that looks different to every other vessel in the dock,” said Hannah Houghton, education and opportunities lead at Thomas Wolsey 550 CIC.
Houghton said that because Victor connects people to Ipswich's maritime heritage, it is vital that she be saved. The trust's goal is to buy the barge and secure her future as a community-owned heritage asset for Ipswich and Suffolk.
