TSMV Brading

Sealink ferry Brading
History
United Kingdom
NameTSMV Brading
Operator
BuilderWilliam Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton
Yard number1412
Launched11 March 1948
CompletedOctober 1948
In service2 December 1948
Out of service21 February 1986
IdentificationIMO number: 5050050
FateScrapped 1994
General characteristics
Class and typeTwin Screw Motor Vessel Passenger Ferry
Tonnage988
Length200 feet (61 m)
Beam46 feet (14 m)
Draught7 feet (2.1 m)
Propulsion2 x Sulzer 8 MD 32 two-stroke 950 bhp diesel engines
Speed14.5 knots
Capacity1135
Crew33

TSMV Brading was a passenger ferry that operated between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight between 1948 and 1986.[1]

Background and construction

Following the Second World War, Southern Railway, which operated passenger and vehicle ferry services to the Isle of Wight, decided to supplement and replace the existing coal burning paddle steamers that operated on the Portsmouth to Ryde route with modern twin screw diesel powered vessels.

Initial plans, incorrectly based on a predicted downward trend in passenger numbers, were to order the construction of two such vessels. These were to be the identical ships Southsea and Brading built by William Denny and Brothers in Dumbarton on Clydeside. They were launched on 11 March 1948[2] and went into service with British Railways, Brading being the second to enter service, on 2 December 1948. One of the existing paddle steamers, Merstone, was replaced (two having been sunk during World War II) and four were retained initially. The two ships were the first on the route to be fitted with radar which quickly proved itself in foggy conditions that had previously left the Isle of Wight cut off from the mainland.[2]

Increasing numbers of passengers quickly led to the order for a third sister ship, Shanklin, in 1951. She entered service as a one-class ship and her two sisters became one-class at the same time. The ships all received a major overhaul in 1967 with an extra passenger deck, as a continuation of the bridge deck, and improved seating and catering facilities.[2]

Brading and Southsea outlasted their newer sister on the Portsmouth to Ryde run, being replaced in 1986 by new catamaran-type ferries, Our Lady Pamela and Our Lady Patricia.

She was scrapped at Pounds Scrapyard in Portsmouth in 1994.

Incidents

On 13 May 1960 a navy liberty boat, D11, was crossing Portsmouth harbour from Gosport to HMS Vernon with civilian workers on the way home. In attempting to avoid a yacht entering harbour it was run down by Brading on its way to Ryde. Four people from the boat were killed.[3]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "M/S BRADING". Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  2. ^ a b c Hendy, John (1989). Sealink Isle of Wight. Kent: Ferry Publications. pp. 30–35. ISBN 0-9513093-3-1.
  3. ^ "960: Four died as navy liberty boat collided with ferry in harbour". The News. Retrieved 20 February 2019.