In Penzance Wet Dock, February 2007, being brought around from the Dry Dock.
RMAS Warden (A368)
Moorings Tender (she ensures test range marker moorings etc are secure)
Operated by the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service - serving the Royal Navy
Based at Milford Haven.
She came to Penzance dry Docks for extensive works in February 2007.
Taken over by Serco Denholm in 2008 and renamed SD Warden
Built 1989
Displacement: 900 tons
Length 160 feet
Breadth 34.5 feet
Draught 11.5 feet
2 diesel engines, 2 shafts, 3,800 bhp, 15 knots
Crew of 15
Call Sign GACZ
IMO 8807600
Built by Richards (Shipbuilders), Lowestoft, Yard Nr 579.
Sam Richards
A name that will be seen very often, when investigating the builders of ships,
is S Richards and Co/Richards Ironworks/Richards Shipbuilders.
Samuel Richards was a Penzance man;
his father Samuel Richards (born 1826) was a shipbuilder in Penzance.
In 1841 Samuel snr was a young Shipwright’s Apprentice;
in 1850 he married Hannah Tregarthen (b 1830) and lived at 34 Queen Street.
In 1851 he was a Shipwright; by 1864 he was a Shipbuilder, at 78 Market Jew Street.
In 1854, Samuel Richards jnr was born.
At the age of twenty, Sam Richards (jnr) left Penzance, and sailed to Lowestoft,
where he opened his own yard (established 1876)
[in 1881 he was living at 56 St John’s Road, Lowestoft, a Boatbuilder]
and became one of the leading shipbuilders in the country.
He died in 1919, the business taken over by his three sons.
Raymond Forward
