Medway Queen

PS Medway Queen, Gillingham Pier 2016
History
United Kingdom
Name:	PS Medway Queen (1938-39~) HMS Medway Queen (1939-47) PS Medway Queen (from 1947)
Owner:	New Medway Steam Packet Company (1924-39) Royal Navy (1939-47) New Medway Steam Packet Company (1947-64) (Nightclub, Ryde) (1964-85) Medway Queen Preservation Society (from 1985)
Port of registry:	Rochester (1928-39) Royal Navy (1939-47) Rochester (from 1947)
Builder:	Ailsa Shipbuilding Company, Troon, Scotland
Yard number:	PS 388
Launched:	Wednesday 23 April 1924
In service:	1924
Out of service:	1964
Identification:	UK Official Number 148361 Code letters GGNG (1944- ) Pennant Number N 48 (1939-42) Pennant Number J48 (1942-47)
Status:	Under restoration as a museum ship  Decommissioned 11 December 1997
Notes:	Sea trials 1924
General characteristics
Class and type:	Paddle steamer
Tonnage:	316 GRT
Displacement:	134 tonnes
Length:	179 ft 9 in (54.79 m)
Beam:	24 ft 2 in (7.37 m) hull 50 ft (15.24 m) over paddle frames
Draught:	7 ft 8 in (2.34 m)
Installed power:	76 hp (57 kW) Scotch type boiler 11 feet long, fitted with triple furnaces feeding Ailsa built compound diagonal steam engine. Coal fired when built, converted to oil fired by Wallsend Engineering in 1938, built by Ailsa
Propulsion:	Paddles
Speed:	13 knots (24 km/h) at 45rpm cruising 15 knots (28 km/h) at 55rpm maximum speed
Armament:	1 x 12 pounder gun, 2 x machine guns (HMS Medway Queen)

The PS Medway Queen is a paddle driven steamship, the only mobile estuary paddle steamer left in the United Kingdom. She was one of the "little ships of Dunkirk", making a record 7 trips and rescuing 7000 men in the evacuation of Dunkirk.

She was the subject of a £1.8 million National Lottery Heritage Memorial Fund grant to restore her hull. By 2014, her hull had been reconstructed and she is sitting at Gillingham Pier on the River Medway.

PS Medway Queen was built at the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company in Troon, Scotland, in 1924 for service on the River Medway and in the Thames Estuary. Trialled on the River Clyde, she was delivered to be part of the "Queen Line" fleet of the New Medway Steam Packet Company based at Rochester, Kent. She steamed the Thames on the routes from Strood and Chatham, to Sheerness, Herne Bay and Margate in Kent; and Clacton and Southend in Essex.

On 3 August 1929, Medway Queen collided with Southend Pier, Essex, and suffered extensive damage to her bows.