Sun Risen Barge

Information about Living Aboard a Converted Barge.
Pitfalls of Liveaboards
Pros of life on the water
Things that go wrong with a Barge
Costs of Barge Life

Sunrisen motor barge nee Jesse Wallwork II
Keel laid 12 /23 Launched 03 /10 /1924 completed as Sunrisen for J Bannatyne & Sons Ltd, Limerick Co.
Sold to South Ireland Transport Co Ltd 06 /03 /31
Sold to T S Townsend & Sons Ltd, Albion Flour Mills 1934.
19 /11 /37: Loaded with wheat from Avonmouth and bound for Worcester, struck a submerged object and lost all her propeller blades, was towed to Worcester.
07 /07 /61: Sold to Upper Mersey Nav. Commissioners, Runcorn for £500.
Converted too Buoy Tender, including new engine (6cyl Gardner) propellerer repaired, new bottom plates & rivetting at Manchester Dry Docks.
01 /1963: renamed Jesse Wallwork II.
03 /73: With the closure of the Upper Mersey Nav. to shipping, sold to Manchester Shop Canal Co.
c1992 Sole to Salveson Diing Co Ltd, Liverpool. Renamed Salvor.
c1995 Salveson Diving Co Ltd into receivership and sold to Mr K Birchall Liverpool.
08 /1994 Sold to Samuel Cockroft Co Lt, worsted spinners Bradford. Renamed Sunrisen and re-registered Liverpool
14 /10 /97 Sold to Mr Sam Bemrose, Somerset and converted into residential boat.
14 /09 /99 Sold to Linda Hird London.
08 /02 /2016 Sold to Victoria Shorland, Faversham.

Further history added 19. 01. 2017
I worked on the Jesse Wallwork 11 for about 15 years when it was the MSC’s Diving boat, loved every minute of it, the boat was very handy not just for diving but as a Multipurpose vessel, it had a living cabin and would hold our crew of 5 comfortably, the hold was used for storing our Diving gear and the small cabin in the hold for personal things, the cabin forward was used as a drying room for the Diving suits, you say it has the Original engine, think it was Gardener 6 if my memory is right with two fuel tanks above the gearbox.



A bit of history for you, the reason the MSC sold it was because the Engine seized when we were working on a big job changing the Lockgates at Eastham, it was destined for the Scrapman because the company wouldn’t pay for the engine to be refitted, Salveson Diving stepped in, bought the Jesse and repaired the engine, they had it for a few years then sold it to a firm in Scotland, from there I lost track of it for a number of years until I found it again via Ship Spotting.



I’m glad its still surviving, apart from the Hull and the Cathead everything has changed.