Name Kathleen and May

1.      What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric?

Evidence for designs, functions, techniques, processes, styles, customs and habits or uses and associations in relation to events and people.  How early, intact or rare these features are may impact on significance.

As the UK’s last wooden hulled three-masted topsail schooner, KATHLEEN & MAY typifies the great era of the British merchant schooner with a rig that was widely adopted from the 1870s to the First World War due to its efficient and economical form. Both rig and hull were crafted, then subsequently repaired and reconstructed, using traditional techniques developed over 400 years. At build, KATHLEEN & MAY incorporated the first known example of the Appledore roller reefing gear which has been fully restored on all three booms.  In 1931, she was fitted with an engine, her topmasts reduced in height and square topsails removed.  During conservation work undertaken in the late 1990s, approximately 85% of her planking and 60% of the frames were replaced and she was re-decked. Most of her internal timbers and fittings remain original, but the waterways and margin boards were renewed. The Balau decking was fastened to the beams with 7inch galvanised spike nails, caulked with oakum and payed with marine glue, as was the hull planking. The deck furniture and hatches were removed and renovated. A new oak samson post was fitted forward and the hatch coamings were also renewed. As the keel was hogged by approximately 16 inches, Appledore Shipbuilders fabricated a false steel channel keel which was fastened through the centre line framing of the ship by a stainless threaded steel bar to produce a straight line to the bottom of the keel. The steel standing rigging was overhauled prior to stepping the masts.  In 2001, her rig was restored to its original specification, a sail is no longer carried on the crossed yard on the foremast which was used in the original square topsail configuration. As one of her authentic features, the Captain’s quarters were restored to their original position in the stern, comprising a saloon, and comfortable sleeping cabin, reflecting the high social status of the vessel owner in the quality of craftmanship. A prayer from her Irish ownership can still be seen in the saloon panelling. Working with Cammell Laird, the engine and generator were replaced in 2015 by maritime specialist James Troop with a Volvo Penta D13 450 bhp engine installed. In 2021, KATHLEEN & MAY underwent repairs to her bowsprit, hull and re-caulking work was undertaken. She was de-rigged and a bespoke frame and canvas was installed to protect her from the elements.

2.      What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?

Associations with people or places.  Off-ship research.

KATHLEEN & MAY was built by the reputable wooden shipbuilders Ferguson and Baird at Connahs Quay on the River Dee, North Wales in 1900 and is now the last surviving Welsh-built merchant sailing vessel.  She was commissioned by leading Chester ship-owner Captain John Coppack and originally named LIZZIE MAY after his daughters.  Links have been re-established with Captain John Coppack’s great-great grandson and local history societies, underpinning the importance of her Welsh associations. KATHLEEN & MAY covered a wide geographical area during her working life in the home trade, sailing between Scotland, London, the Channel Islands and later between Cardiff, Ireland, Liverpool and the West Country. Achieving nearly 40,000 nautical miles in her first eight years of sail, she had a clear national significance to the coast of Britain. Under ownership of Martyn J. Fleming of Youghal in Ireland, she was re-named KATHLEEN & MAY after his two daughters and developed a strong local connection to that area with links that are still present as of 2025, as well as to the Bristol Channel where she plied the coal trade. In this role, she is illustrative of national efforts to maintain an essential trade in basic materials during the First World War.  In 1969 the Duke of Edinburgh, the late Prince Philip, who had been instrumental in the rescue and restoration of CUTTY SARK, started the Maritime Trust as a means of preserving other significant British ships, with KATHLEEN & MAY an early object of attention as a national icon.  She was purchased by the Trust in 1970 with funds from the Hong Kong ship-owner Sir Yue-Kong Pao and, after conservation, was opened to the public first in Sutton Harbour, Plymouth, then in London at St Katharine’s Dock and St Mary Overie Dock. Following disbursement of the Trust’s collection, she was later purchased by the late Steve Clarke OBE. She was towed to the Port of Bideford, with which she had formerly been associated, and preserved to full working order at Brunswick Wharf. From 2002 until 2017, she cruised the UK coast attending maritime festivals and visiting once more her considered home port of Youghal where she was the subject of a documentary film. She developed European links, being chartered for the first time by Companie de Transport Maritime a la Voile to carry 30,000 bottles of French wine to Dublin and also crossing the Bay of Biscay to Bilbao where she was the guest of the Guggenheim Museum for three weeks. Records survive of the cargoes carried in her working days as a coastal trading schooner from 1900 to 1960, together with a range of historic photographs and paintings, and logs from the First World War era. KATHLEEN & MAY was recorded on the National Register of Historic Vessels in 2001 and given the status of inclusion in the National Historic Fleet.

3.      How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?

Overall aesthetic impact of the vessel, her lines, material she was built from and her setting.  Does she remain in her working environment?

KATHLEEN & MAY was substantially built to carry a cargo of 226 tons over a considerable distance around the UK coastline.  Her planks were of three inch pitch pine, laid on doubled oak frames and fastened with tree nails and iron bolts.  She has an elegant semi-elliptical stern and a sailing rig of a kind first developed in Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through North American connections. Her form made her fit for purpose, as well as being economical and a handsome vessel. Carrying as small a crew as possible was crucial to commercial success for modest sailing cargo vessels: the roller reefing gear fitted to the fore-and-aft sails on KATHLEEN & MAY was an important innovation in keeping crew numbers and costs to the minimum consistent with operating the ship to the highest achievable levels of performance. Until 2018, KATHLEEN & MAY remained in operational condition, cruising the same waters she once traded before being laid up in Liverpool, then returning to Gloucester, an appropriate setting which highlights her significance as one of the few historic sailing merchant ships to have survived from this coastline. She is currently laid up alongside the quayside, maintained by volunteers with occasional public openings. 

Source: NHS-UK team, 9 July 2015. Revised and updated by Karen Taylor, June 2025.