A 100-year-old Thames barge will return to the waters after more than a four-year restoration project. The Raybel will be relaunched from Lloyd’s Wharf near Milton Creek, Sittingbourne, just a few hundred yards from where it was built and launched in 1920. Raybel Charters, a group set up to complete the restoration in 2018, started the project in August 2019 when it installed a dry dock at the Wharf. This became the barges’ home in November 2020 after she sailed from Heybridge Basin to Maylandsea, both in Essex before heading to Queenborough and then finally docking in Sittingbourne. While the…
