LAUNCH DAY PHOTOGRAPHS
JOHN HARKER SHIPYARD KNOTTINGLEY
11th APRIL 1967
' FARNDALE H '
Official No.334053
LAUNCHING OF 100TH HARKER TANKER MAKES HISTORY
When the 500-ton tanker 'FARNDALE H' was launched at the Knottingley shipyard of John Harker Ltd., on Tuesday, history was made for the Company, the Aire & Calder Canal, British Waterways and the petroleum company of Esso Ltd.
The vessel is the 281st and the 100th tanker to be built at Knottingley for John Harker Ltd. With an overall length of 181 feet and a carrying capacity of 490 tons, it is the biggest tanker yet built for the canal. And the canal has recently been widened and deepened and provided with new signalling, lay-by, and lock facilities, to cope with the new traffic. The vessel is an all-welded single screw motor tank barge whose powerful pumps can discharge 250 tons of spirit an hour.
The launching ceremony, performed before a large crowd, by Mrs Brian Croft Baker, wife of Esso Operations Manager, of Leeds, went without a hitch. An employee of John Harker Ltd., Miss Jaqueline Benwell, presented her with a boquet. Among those present were Mr and Mrs J.K.Whitaker of J.H. Whitaker (Holdings) Ltd., Hull; the Secretary of British Waterways Commercial Department, Mr O.H. Grafton and Mrs Grafton; a director of Cory Tank Lighterage Co., Mr F. Crampton and Mrs Crampton; the deputy General Manager of British Waterways, Mr D.J. Kinnersley and Mrs Kinnersley; and Major Hedley of Pollard Bearings Ltd., Ferrybridge.
At a subsequent luncheon afterwards at the Monk Fryston Hall Hotel, the Chairman of John Harker Ltd., Mr Michael Lyon of Ackworth, said the design of the 'FARNDALE H' and of her sister ships represented a new approach to the problems of economic movement by water between Hull and Leeds, He presented Mrs Baker with a broach.
Pontefract & Castleford Express, 13th April 1967, page 19.
Registered at Hull number 25 on 19th July 1967. A steel tanker barge with an 8-cylinder Burgins Kelvin engine, built by Harkers in 1967. Measurements 175.45ft x 18.55ft x 8.9ft, gross tonnage 293.21, register 199.60. Sold to John H Whitaker (Tankers) Ltd. of Hull on 12th January 1976.
