Key details
- Current boat name
- Swan of Avon
- Boat class
- 7540
- Function
- Sports and Leisure
- Type
- Launch
Dimensions and specifications
- Propulsion
- Engine
Design and build
- Designer
- Not Known
- Date of build
- 1898
- Place of build
- Gravesend
Current status
- Present use
- Commercial
History
SWAN OF AVON is believed to have been built as a private launch for a doctor at Stratford-upon-Avon. The vessel did not suit his purposes and was immediately sold to Albert Rose, who operated our company at the turn of the 1900’s. The vessel has remained in the same ownership since that time, worked for the firm on the river as a commercial passenger vessel. The original engine was an early Austro-Daimler oil engine, following which the vessel has had a Brit petrol/paraffin engine, a Lister air cooled diesel engine, and a BMC 1.5 litre diesel engine. The vessel was re-furbished for her 100th birthday in 1998 and fitted with a Simpson Strickland 8ihp two cylinder compound steam engine supplied by a coal-fired vertical fire-tube boiler. The vessel is currently having a new replacement boiler fitted.