Bid to save historic tall ship in Gloucestershire launched
A bid to save the Kathleen and May has been launched
Last updated 1st Oct 2025
A bid to save Gloucester tall ship the Kathleen and May by raising more than £250,000 for urgent repairs has been launched.
The 125-year-old coastal schooner is currently laid up in The Docks and there are plans afoot to stabilise its structure.
It is the last working three mast, wooden hull topsail schooner and the only one of her class still in operation.
And the Kathleen and May Community Interest Company was formed last year with the aim to acquire and preserve the vessel.
They are organising a 100-day fundraising appeal to raise £258,678 to pay for urgent works at world leading traditional ship restoration specialists T. Nielsen and Co.
Their long term aim is to restore the ship, which was designated as a national treasure by the Arts Council in 2011, to be able to sail again.
David Morgan, President of the Maritime Heritage Trust and a former Deputy Chair of the Maritime Trust said: “The Kathleen and May was the first major vessel saved by the Maritime Trust in 1970 and her historical significance to the Nation is paramount.”
Upon the success of the campaign, the custodianship of the vessel would transfer from the Clarke family of Bideford to the Kathleen and May CIC.
The Clarke family fully support the Kathleen and May CIC with their endeavours and say they are “excited for the next chapter in the life of the Kathleen and May and are proud and honoured of the significant contribution of her restoration in the 1990s by the late Steve Clarke OBE”.
Great Britain and Ireland once relied on its maritime trade. Coastal towns and villages received their bulk supplies by sea and their people owned and crewed the boats in this dangerous trade.
Thousands of ketches and schooners sailed the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland and ventured to Europe and overseas.
Out of thousands of vessels, only one unconverted wooden sailing schooner survives, the Kathleen and May.
Launched in 1900 at Connah’s Quay as the Lizzie May, she sailed from North Wales for eight years until she was sold to owners in Youghal in Ireland.
In the 1930s she was sold again to sail from Bideford trading in the Bristol Channel and beyond until 1960.
In the 1970s she was selected as a cornerstone of the Maritime Trust fleet by Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh and since then the Kathleen and May has been privately restored in Bideford and displayed in Liverpool.
In Gloucester, her working life has been recorded and there is an archive of links to people and stories over the last 125 years.
The vision for Kathleen and May is to honour the seafarers’ who made Britain’s maritime trade possible and recognise who they were, the families that supported them, and the owners, shipbuilders, suppliers and agents that supported the trade.
The sacrifice of the maritime trade in numerous small disasters and drownings was immense and we can recognise those lost at sea and celebrate a safer working environment today through this restoration.
A restored Kathleen and May, to be registered in the Port of Gloucester would sail in summer to every corner of Britain and Ireland for 20 years as a sailing educational, research and exhibition centre.
From the shore a graceful vessel will sail by, in harbours and seaports, the Kathleen and May will be a compelling visitor attraction, uner their plans.
Survey, repair and refitting work would be recorded to be the handbook of building and maintenance.
Her primary purpose would be to properly record and bring together the maritime history of the coastal trade working with family history societies, archives, libraries and museums.
Volunteers say the Kathleen and May, a cultural legacy of maritime transport, has one last chance to be rescued and restored to full operational sailing condition and embark upon one great last adventure to explore the nation’s maritime heritage as never before.
People wishing to support the fundraising appeal can do so by visiting this link.