Gull mast to make yacht club return

3:20pm Wednesday 29th August 2012 in News

Cllr Joy Redsell with the mast Cllr Joy Redsell with the mast

PART of a major Grays landmark could soon find a new home.

An application has been made by Thurrock Council to erect the mast from the wrecked Gull lightship on land at Grays Yacht Club.

The historic ship, number 38 on the Trinity House Ancient List, dated back to around 1860.

It was rammed and sunk near the City of York on March 18, 1929, resulting in the death of Captain Williams.

Thurrock Yacht Club brought the vessel for £750 in 1947 and it was the club’s headquarters until 1971, when a permanent home was built and the ship was rendered redundant again.

She lay on the banks of the Thames off Grays in a state of disrepair, and fell victim to vandalism.

In October last year, the ship was taken apart and sold off for scrap, but the 75ft mast was rescued.

Solar panels were installed on the mast in refurbishment works costing £48,000, and planning permission was granted for it to be installed at a site within Grays Town Wharf.

Concerns about the mast being open to vandalism have led to this latest application to site it within Grays Yacht Club.

Thurrock Council’s planning committee will discuss the application at its latest meeting tomorrow (Thursday).

Planning officers are recommending the application is approved.

A report said: “The application is promoted as a heritage installation for the benefit of Thurrock residents. The structure will be sunk into the ground at the base and will be self supporting, with no requirement for any cables to secure it in place.

“There will be a light in the top part of the mast.

“The mast would be located over 120m from the nearest residential properties to the north western side of the site and over 170m from the nearest residential properties on the junction of Thames Road and Argent Street.

“Given the distance from these properties, it is not considered it would be detrimental to their amenities or outlook.

“It is considered the mast would contribute positively to the character and appearance of this area.”

The report goes on to say that although the mast will be illuminated, the level of light can be controlled and it is not thought it will effect homes nearby.

Although the mast will be within the yacht club’s grounds, it will still be visible from the outside, especially to anyone using the riverside footpath.

Comments(4)

A.N.Other says...
6:32pm Wed 29 Aug 12

I hope Thurrock Yacht Club are proud for letting this historic ship rot and for smashing it up with a JCB last year making it impossible for anyone to restore it.

And how shocking tha tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers cash have been spent refurbishing a piece of rusty metal to be placed at the very yacht club that allowed the original ship to decay and then vandalised it and smashed it to fire wood with a JCB.

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rogwj says...
8:48pm Wed 29 Aug 12

What is not mentioned in the report above, A.N.Other, is that the Gull was sold many years ago after it became redundant and therefore the yacht club had no interests or rights in the vessel. The last known owner of the vessel, not a British national, reportedly became bankrupt or lost interest in preserving Gull and it was abandoned and left to rot. Several initiatives over the years failed to get funds to preserve the vessel and at the same time the Port of London Authority and Thurrock Council could not determine with whom ownership of the Gull was vested. No one was interested, but it was certainly not the responsibilty of the yacht club, for which the presence of the Gull on the adjacent mudbank over the past 40 or so years was a physical liability. The decision to spend money on preservation of the mast and its solar panels does seem a bit excessive cost-wise (£48K), and I would hope that does not come from the Thurrock Council coffers. While the mast and the light structure did date from the 1840s, there was another structure on the vessel that was not from the original, and that was a housing that actually came from a River Thames excursion vessel that was broken up at the Thomas Ward shipbreaking yard in 1953. It was rescued before it was scrapped, thanks to local maritime historian Sherwin Chase, and served a useful purpose attached to the deck of the Gull. That bit had rotted substantially and was finished off by the JCB.

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WTF100 says...
10:27am Thu 30 Aug 12

So who got the money from the sale of the scrap? Will the mast remain property of the Thurrock tax payer? And if there is a problem with vandalism that means it can't be sited in a certain place then perhaps the answer is to use money to tackle that vandalism rather than 'give' the mast to the yacht club.

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rogwj says...
8:59pm Thu 30 Aug 12

The Gull was a relatively small vessel and I very much doubt if there was much in the way of scrap material net value after the cost of machinery hire, personnel, and transportation, etc was taken into account. But it would be interesting to learn how the restoration of the mast was funded. It seems quite a lot for Thurrock Council to spend on such an exercise in these budget conscious times. The mast and the beacon could be easily seen and was for a few decades associated with Thurrock Yacht Club and so it is at least fitting that it should be relocated as near as is practicable to the club's HQ. Far better than run the risk of vandalism elsewhere in south Grays.

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