Originally Posted by
Kev
SHE brought joy to millions. Now campaigners battling to save one of our best-loved ships are urging those people to buy a stake in wonderful memories of yesteryear.
The problem is where to put the Maxman - a very large port like Liverpool, with miles of redundant docks, couldn't even find space for the historic warships turned away from the East Float in Birkenhead. The tall ships which visit Liverpool regularly, cannot berth at Princes and associated Docks near the centre. The river locks at Brunswick Dock in the South End have been made very small only accommodating very small, mainly leisure craft. The wide South End Coburg Dock river lock has been removed and the lock sealed up. The South End docks can only be accessed by ships via the Canning Half-Tide river locks, which are small accommodating only small ships, precluding any ocean going ships. The North End Docks running from the city centre are duck pond depths. Trafalgar Dock has been filled in.
The Manxman Steamship Co, wanted to berth SS Manxman at Princes Dock, however the dock has been filled in to canal boat depths precluding deep water vessels from using the city centre dock. Princes Half-Tide and West Waterloo Docks are also filled in to duck pond depths. They were filled in to make money for the owners who charge for dumping building waste in the docks. The owners care little about Liverpool and its deep sea maritime heritage.
City centre Canning Dock is also in dire need of dredging unable to accommodate even smallish ships at one end. HMS Whimbrel is earmarked for berthing at Canning.
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The whole dock in-filling and failure to maintain adequate river locks for deep water vessels in the non-commercial docks is an acute embarrassment for the city as a whole. Liverpool is one of the few cities in the world where ships could berth in the city centre. The sooner Peel and British Waterways are ordered to excavate the docks and widen the river locks the better.
The UN noted that Liverpool has historic docks, but no historic ships - because there is nowhere to put them, unless they are berthed amongst the large commercial ships in the large far north end docks - amongst the liquid tanks and piles of scrap metal. Which happens now when visiting foreign naval vessel dock - amongst the scruffy scrap piles. Acutely embarrassing.
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