History of the Cervia

Whilst still known as the Empire Raymond the tug was employed with other tugs in the refurbishment of the Cunard liner Queen Elizabeth. This was to convert her back from her role as troop ship to passenger liner. 

During the working life of Cervia the main role that she was deployed in was as a towing and working as a salvage tug between ports in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. 

While based in Ramsgate Cervia helped free several vessels that had run aground on the Goodwin Sand Banks off of the East-Kent coast in the vicinity of Ramsgate and Deal. 

Her association with the port would continue for a respectable 60 years right up to the present time  

On 27 January 1969 Cervia was at work on the Thames when her owners merged with W.H.J. Alexander & Company Ltd to form the London Tug Company. The Company started to develop the  policy to phase out steam tugs in favour of more modern diesel vessels, as cervia was a steam tug, she would be among those to be scrapped. 

The modernization of the fleet went ahead at speed and by 1971 the Cervia was laid up at Sheerness. 

It was hoped a buyer could be found or the tug would go to the breakers. Eventually the Cervia was offered to a Michael List-Brain a potential buyer who wished to purchase her in order to preserve her. The Board of London Tugs agreed to her sale "as is, where lies", for the sum of £3,500, this meant it was down to Mr List-Brain to organise her refit and move. He purchased the ‘‘Cervia’’ in April 1973 and took possession at Poplar Docks, London where she had been laid up. The tug then was given a refit and was back in steam by the summer  

During her early time with Mr List-Brain, she was used on the River Medway for both for pleasure trips and for her new owner to familiarize himself with her. It was envisaged that Cervia would become a part of a new organisation to be called "The Medway Maritime Museum". This was the idea of the United Kingdoms foremost ship preservationists, Martin Stevens. Unfortunately by 1974, the plans faltered when the Medway Council proved to be unable to provide sufficient funding for the project and with having neither premises nor any money the original museum project looked like it would not come to fruition.

Eventually, due to the museum’s lack of income, List-Brain and Stevens decided that one solution was to put the Cervia back to work in the towing business. 

At this time exploration in the North sea for gas and oil was begging to pick up in pace so this provided an ideal opportunity for the Cervia to earn her keep again. She was contracted to a construction firm based on the Medway. 

The construction firm of Howard Doris needed all manner of craft to assist with oil rig construction projects and it was clear Cervia was up to the task. In November 1974 Cervia to towed a crane barge to the Humber. She completed the contract with no problems, but with the cost of a very rapid re-equipping and complete lack of understanding as to the economics of marine towage meant the net-profit from this first towing contract was only £7.00. Not much even back then. 

Following the contract with Howard Doris and the small profit, List-Brain and Stevens decided to put the business on a more professional footing. A professional crew was employed and throughout 1975 and several more successful towing contracts were undertaken by the Cervia all around the coast of the United Kingdom. During this time Cervia continued to prove her reliability working solidly for this twelve-month period except for a small period of time spent on essential boiler cleaning and maintenance. The new business was successful and with the increasing demands placed on it, a proper company was set up which was called International Towing Ltd. 

ITL, as the company was abbreviated to, added three more steam tugs to her books to keep up with demand. These’s tugs were ST Hercules, ST Hero and ST Goliath. 

Much Like Watkins before them, International Towing Ltd. decided to choose Ramsgate as their home port. This decision gave a welcome boost to the local economy of Ramsgate which saw a resurgence of commercial ship repairing in the harbour. Cervia and the three other tugs were kept very busy with a variety of jobs both in the North Sea and with coastal towage contracts. 

In early 1977 two of the tugs of ITL, ST Hercules and ST Hero were taken out of service and returned to the Medway Maritime Trust, under the guidance of Martin Stevens. 

ITL saw its business rapidly expand becoming an international operation all thanks to the reliability and hard work of Cervia and her sister tugs. 

To meet customer demands, Cervia and Goliath were joined further modern deep sea diesel powered tugs in 1978 and by the 1980s, ITL’s fleet had grown to include the two most powerful tugs in the northern hemisphere and the business was sold off to the Far East. 

Cervia carried on working for ITL until 1983. Her last contract was to act as port tug for the new cross-channel ferry service at Ramsgate. The contract was terminated when the ferry service failed to operate a regular service due to the difficult economic climate of the early 1980s. Cervia was mothballed alongside the East Pier at Ramsgate Royal Harbour.