By LNRS Member Geoffrey Holmes
From Lloyd’s Register, 1949:
William Gregson Official Number 165156 Signal Letters M A I IK
Built in 1937 by Harland & Wolff, Belfast
Gross Tonnage: 309 Nett: 62; Length: 119.7ft Breadth: 27.1ft
2 oil engines connected to electric motors and screw shafts.
Owned The Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Liverpool.
The William Gregson (was not, as popularly supposed, named after the bandleader at the New Brighton Tower Ballroom) was built in 1937 as the Duchess of Abercorn, a tender for the Belfast Harbour Commissioners. In 1948 she was sold to W.E. McCaig of Glasgow (Clyde Shipping Co. Ltd„ Managers) and renamed Wimaisia.
In the following year (1949) the Wimaisia was acquired by the City of Liverpool as a combined Firefighting and Port Sanitary tender. She was renamed William Gregson after an Alderman on the City Council and for many years graced the south end of George’s Landing Stage. Criticised as a white elephant, it was said that one could predict a fire in the Port of Liverpool when the William Gregson was going in to drydock!
As far as I am aware, she took no part in fighting any of the major fires which occurred in the port during her years of service.
In 1963 the William Gregson was sold to the Marine Diamond Corporation of Town and renamed Collinstar. The company had been set up by an American – Sammy Collins – who had previously owned a fleet of small vessels operating in the Mississippi Delta and along the Gulf coast of Texas. These vessels were amongst the first to service the off-shore oil industry.
In the early 1960s, Mr Collins transferred his operations to South Africa and obtained a licence to dredge for diamonds off the coast of South West Africa (Namibia). His theory was that. as there were diamonds on the beach at Oranjemund and other points further north, it was reasonable to assume that there were diamonds offshore.
Several of Collins’ Mississippi fleet went out to South West Africa and two large barges were acquired to dredge for diamonds. The larger – the Colpontoon – was built in the Duncan Drydock at Cape Town about 1964. A number of other craft including whale catchers and tugs were bought.
In February 1965 the Collinstar (ex William Gregson) working with the Colpontoon in Chamais Bay which is south of Luderitz Bay. Whilst attempting to prevent the dredging barge from being swept ashore by the South Atlantic rollers, the towline parted and this fouled the Collinstar‘s propellors. She was lifted on board the barge by the seas and immediately thrown off and rolled on to the beach by the swells with the loss of her entire crew.
In 1966 the Marine Diamond Corporation was bought by Consolidated Diamond Mines – a subsidiary of De Beers. Mr Collins, after setting up an unsuccessful pipeline construction – Collins Undersea Pipelines subsequently moved his operation to Doha in Qatar taking a number of the craft with him. The Colpontoon was salvaged from the beach at Chamais Bay and was working in the Gulf as late as the mid 1980s.
