Name Scorpio

Built in 1890 for the Wigan Coal and Iron Company and originally named HELENA, SCORPIO is a wooden dumb barge of a type known as a Liverpool sider. Her hull is carvel built of oak frames and planking with a pitch pine deck. She was bought by T. & W. Wells in 1920, rebuilt in 1948 and sold to John Parke and Sons of Litherland and renamed SCORPIO. Her area of operation was on the canals around the River Mersey and her primary work was the carriage of coal from collieries to power stations. Taken over by the British Fuel Company, she carried on working until acquired by the Boat Museum, Ellesmere Port in 1971. She was rebuilt by the museum in 1983 and is now exhibited afloat.