PS Medway Queen has been appointed 'South East Regional Flagship' for 2020 by the National Historic Ships UK and SS Explorer as the Regional Flagship for her area.

Congratulations to them both.

The Medway Queen has a new website feature, a sponsored blog. Each day until 5th June it will be updated with details of that day in 1940

www.medwayqueen.co.uk/news/dunkirk-day-by-day

They also have a history in minature page and a virtual tour.

www.medwayqueen.co.uk/history-in-miniature.html

www.medwayqueen.co.uk/virtual-tour.html

Ian Rutter writes:  

SL Alaska is in trouble with this year’s season a wipe out because of Covid-19.

Peter Green the owner and skipper has set up a Go Fund Me page for donations to keep the vessel in steam. She was built in 1883 at Bourne End and is part of the National Historic Fleet. The first propeller driven boat on the River Thames, originally operated by Salters Steamers and where she still plies her trade as the oldest working passenger steamer. To have the boiler permanently go cold would be tragic.

Details on their website   www.thames-steamers.co.uk   where there is a link and details for donations.

Ian adds: I  have many happy memories of trips when I was the engineer onboard with Derek Brown the skipper. We would often give SBA members a trip for a nominal amount when repositioning after a charter.  Perhaps the SBA Membership can help SL Alaska in return.

Note from editor: the donation link on SL Alaska's webpage may not render correctly on all browsers.  You can go to the donate page directly from here.

The SBA has teamed up with BESST (The Boiler and Engineering Skills Training Trust) to produce some training modules.

These Marine Steam Modules have been prepared by a group of experienced marine engineers and experts from the Steam Boat Association, BESTT and Maritime Heritage Trust including Bob Garnett, John Megoran, Mark Rudall, Kevin Slater and Rob van Es who co-ordinated and edited the work. The work is part of the BESTT National Lottery Heritage Fund "Skills for the Future" project to extend syllabus based steam heritage engineering training, whose first marine trainee has recently started at the Windermere Jetty Museum. The modules are aimed at trainees and other new entrants to these topics and don't aim to offer a comprehensive account - references to textbooks and other sources are provided.  The modules will, however, be of real interest to any steamboater; read them at  www.bestt.org.uk/training_plan. 

These syllabus modules are published in draft and comment is welcome. Please forward any comments to: enquiries@bestt.org.uk

The Windermere Jetty, Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories is closed until further notice and all boats are requested not to call at their jetties.

Good morning gentlemen, in line with Government policy I am suspending

or two. Good luck to all, see you later. Captn. Banjo.

We trust that all other musical members of the SBA will do likewise ...

Greetings to all SBA members. I’m in an unusual situation in having very little material for the next ‘Funnel’ – in fact no articles at all have arrived thus far, just a few ‘possibilities’ mentioned. This has never happened before!

I’m writing this as the implications of the Covid-19 crisis are making themselves felt with a vengeance and one result is that lots of us – including me – are being advised to self isolate.  Can I ask that if you have a story to tell, please let me have it within the next couple of week.  It would be very much appreciated and would enable us to have a Summer edition.

Bidding on E bay has now opened for SL Dyad

We are saddened to report the death of Lanarkshire based John Macmillan on 25^th January . We have heard that John died peacefully and have been advised of his request that there be no funeral: nevertheless it is hoped that at some point SBA colleagues who knew him may be in a position to read about and gain a picture of the life of this interesting Scottish member and friend. Our thoughts are with all those close to him.

Just in case anyone wants/needs to refresh their memory prior to attending this year's AGM, here is a link to last year's DRAFT AGM Minutes.