Penolver Gallery

Steamship Penolver.

LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL

Northern Daily Mail, May 18/12

Today, Messrs. William Gray and Co., Ltd., launched the handsome steel screw steamer, Penolver, which they have built for Mr. Richard B. Chellew, of Truro.

She will take the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions, viz.: Length over all, 361ft.6in, breadth, 50ft., and depth, 25ft. 11in., with long bridge, poop, and top-gallant forecastle. The saloon, staterooms, captain’s, officers, and engineers’ rooms, etc., will be fitted up in houses on the bridge deck, and the crew’s berths in the forecastle.

The hull is built with deep frames, cellular double bottom, and large aft and fore peak ballast tanks, seven steam winches, steam steering gear amidships, hand screw gear aft, patent direct steam windlass, large horizontal multitubular donkey boiler, steel grain divisions, stockless anchors, telescopic masts, with fore and aft rig, boats on deck overhead and all requirements for a first class
cargo steamer and for Admiralty transport work.

Triple-expansion engines are being supplied by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, having cylinders 25in., 40 ½ in., and 67in., with a piston stroke of 45in., and two large steel
boilers for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.

The ship and machinery have been built under the superintendence of Mr. John Chellew and Mr. R. B. Roberts, on behalf of the owner, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Penolver was gracefully performed by Mrs. G. H. Baines, West Hartlepool.



Masters: 1915 J Trethowen: 1916-19 JR Bradshaw: 1943 George H Naish.

On a voyage from Wabana, Newfoundland for Sydney, Nova Scotia with a cargo of iron-ore & a crew of 40 Penolver struck a mine laid by German submarine (U-220 Bruno Barber) & sank 15 miles of St Johns, Newfoundland in 47.19N/52.27W on 19 October 1943. 3 gunners & 23 of the crew lost.

Lives lost October 1943: Blake, Herbert John, chief officer, 30, Brislington, Bristol; Clark, Victor James, steward, 23, Epsom, Surrey; Cook, Henry T, boatswain, 49, Hull; Dorney, Patrick Michael, fireman/trimmer, 26; Duncan, William, 1^st radio officer, 33 (son of John & Mary); Entwistle, Kenneth, 2^nd radio officer, 20, New Malden, Surrey; Frost, John Raymond, 3^rd engineer, 27; Fullerton, William Thomas, fireman/trimmer, 26; Gibbons, Francis John Edward, able seaman, 19 Walthamstow, Essex; Gunn, William Purdie, donkeyman, 44; Johns, David, fireman/trimmer, 43, South Shields; Jose, Thomas Alfred, 2^nd engineer, 45; Joyce, Peter, 3^rd radio officer, 18, Wallasley, Cheshire; Lawson, John James, able seaman, 20, Gateshead; MacKenzie, Hector, carpenter, 42, Gairloch, Ross & Cromarty; Macmillan, John, able seaman, 21, Tolsta, Isle of Lewis; McDonald, William, fireman/trimmer; Meeks, Ernest, cook, 26 (son of William & Alice); Millar, Alexander Hepburn, assistant cook, 19 (son of Graham Henderson & Susan Tosh Roberts); Poole, Eric, able seaman, 26, Hoddesdon, Herts.; Rogers, John William Thomas, ordinary seaman, 17, Baldernock, Stirlingshire; Rutherford, Evelyn Percy, chief engineer, 60, Stoke Bishop, Bristol; Wrightson, Gibert James, 3^rd officer, 31; Lambley, Northumberland (husband of Florence Mary).

TRIAL TRIP OF THE s.s. PENOLVER

Northern Daily Mail, 24/6/12

The handsome steel screw steamer, Penolver, built by Messrs. Wm Gray and Co, Ltd., West Hartlepool, for Mr. Richard B. Chellew, of Truro, had her trial trip on Saturday. The vessel has been built to Lloyd’s highest class, and her principal dimensions are: Length over all, 361ft.6in, breadth, 50ft., and depth, 25ft. 11in. All the requirements for a first class cargo steamer and for Admiralty transport work have been fitted.

Triple-expansion engines have been supplied from the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, having cylinders 25in., 40 ½ in., and 67in.diameter, with a piston stroke of 45in., an evaporator, duplex pumps, and other auxiliaries of the “C.M.E.W.” make. There are two large steel
boilers adapted for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.

The owner was represented by Mr. John Chellew, under whose superintendence the ship and her machinery have been built. Mr. James Innes and Mr. W. M. Ward surveyors to Lloyd’s Registry were also on board. The performance of both ship and machinery gave entire satisfaction, the speed obtained being 12 knots.

The vessel afterwards proceeding on her voyage to Cardiff to load.