The two decades before the First World War saw British yards continue to dominate tramp ship building, with an increasing range of builders entering the business, although yards in the north east of England were still the largest contributors.
There was considerable diversity in design during these decades, although definite trends can be traced. Two types popular in the 1880s declined or disappeared in the early 1890s. The short raised quarterdeck was now largely confined to smaller (under 300ft) ships intended largely for the middle-distance coal trades, while the long raised quarterdeck (annotated as ‘well deck’ in Lloyd’s Register) barely survived the 1880s. Effectively, these designs were replaced in the early twentieth century by a variant described as long bridge deck, differing visually in that there was an extra well deck just forward of the poop. Thanks to an anomaly in Lloyd’s Register’s rules, this design was to prove surprisingly durable.
Emerging and growing strongly in popularity throughout the period was the three-island design, with separate forecastle, bridge deck and poop. But even this came in several varieties, with the single-deck variant the most common, followed by spar-deck, awning-deck and two-deck forms. Again, the three-island design was to prove extraordinarily long-lived.
Two-deck types continued to be built in some numbers during the 1890s, and these included awning and spar deck vessels. These had either three-island hull forms or appeared to be flush decked, although most actually had a raised quarterdeck and a poop deck. The true flush-decked vessel was rare, and the only example in this chapter was built at the end of the period.
Within these broad types there were some external variations in bow form and, of more practical significance, in mast arrangements. These are referred to in detail in the captions.
This period saw the rise, and in most cases also the fall, of the patented tramp designs, including the important turret and trunk deck types, which are covered in the next chapter.
Note: An asterisk in a caption indicates the vessel shown in the photograph.
One of the newer designs that was to become and remain very popular with tramp owners was the three-island configuration. Mostly, these were single deck ships, such as Wenvoe* of 1894, built by William Gray & Co Ltd of West Hartlepool. This yard was one of the aristocrats among tramp ship constructors, which invested in its own machinery-building works, and Wenvoe was given a triple-expansion engine by Gray’s Central Marine Engine Works. Owner of the 325-ft tramp from 1897 was Longueil Steamship Co Ltd. The combination of a Welsh place name (Wenvoe is a few miles from Cardiff) and a French-style title for the single-ship owning company identifies the manager as the Cardiff-based Morel family, already met in chapter 2.
The First World War completely distorted the prewar pattern of ship owning, and one of its oddest effects was that the French government set up a London-based ship owning company, Bay Steamship Co Ltd. The British government had made it virtually impossible for ships to leave the British flag, even on sale to its allies, so France simply had to resort to leaving under the British flag the ships it expensively bought in the United Kingdom. At least they were allowed to rename them, a practice denied to most British owners, and Wenvoe became Bayvoe in 1916. She was not to see out the war, because U 84 torpedoed her off the French coast in January 1918 with a cargo of wheat loaded in Portland, Maine and destined for Bordeaux.