Welcome to 'The Crete Fleet'
An on-line encyclopedia featuring the Concrete Ships of World War I and World War II.
Welcome to 'The Crete Fleet'
An on-line encyclopedia featuring the Concrete Ships of World War I and World War II.
Index
Index / Page Links
There's a lot of information on this website, and so this Index aims to get you to where you want to get to as quickly and simply as possible ! It is in the footer and here...Or spend some time exploring the 'World of Concrete Ships'. The most detail is to be found in our Blogs...
About Us
Just so you know a bit about the authors and why we are interested in the subject of Concrete Ships, we have an About Us section. We also provide links in the About Us section to articles published by the authors
British World War I Era Concrete Ships
For me, this is where it all started, with 'Cretegaff', the last surviving floating example of a World War I British built concrete ship. For Erlend, it was 'Hans Martin' at Porsgrund, Norway, the oldest surviving floating concrete ship in the World. The section covers 'Cretegaff', 'Creteboom', 'Cretehawser', 'Cretetree', 'Cretefield & The Warrenpoint Barges'', 'The Wrecks', 'A.C.W. 10 & A.C.W. 11' & 'Violette & Molliette', complete with a photo gallery
British World War II Ferro-Concrete Barges
495 Ferro-Concrete Barges (mainly of 84 feet long) were built during World War II to assist the war effort. 294 were to carry cargo in an open barge and 201 'Petrol Barges' were built with a view to carrying fuel to support the D-Day landings. many, many survive today.
Sadly, much that is written about them is no more than Urban Myth, particularly the 16 on the Thames at Rainham Marshes. We aim to fix that, replace fiction with fact and bust a few myths along the way !
World War I U.S. Concrete Ships
We firstly researched, in great depth, the U.S.S.B. 'Concrete Ship Building' programme for the 'Emergency Fleet' and chronicled the Life & Times of the 12 concrete Emergency Fleet ships that were completed and launched in the U.S. between 1918 and 1920. You can visit the write up for each of the 12 ships from the button below. We went much further than just the USSB EFC ships - we covered the concrete oil barges, tankers, riverboats, Navy barges, car floats & water tankers. You'll find those in our Blog series.
World War II U.S. Concrete Ships
World War II saw a return to the same conditions that had motivated concrete shipbuilding in World War I - growing demand for ships, loss of ships due to the German U-boat campaign and scarcity of steel. The Maritime Commission contracted for quite a number of large, ocean going ships and barges, including 24 self-propelled concrete Dry Cargo Steamers that were built by McCloskey at Hooker's Point, Tampa, Florida. You'll find an overview on the page, and the full detail in a series of Blogs
Concrete Ship Blogs
To keep the sections of our website 'manageable', most of our new content is now presented in a categorised Blog format. We now write our Blog series with the theme of '10' - so 'Ten Floating Concrete Centenarians' covers 10 WWI era concrete ships from around the World that are still afloat and 'Ten World War I Concrete Ship Wrecks' covers, you guessed it, 10 WWi era concrete ship wrecks from around the world that are still visible. Over time, our Blogs aim to cover the entire world of concrete ships ever built, anywhere, always with the same theme of Why ? Where ? How ? When ? What ? and Where are they now ?
WWI U.S. Concrete Riverboats
This is a new section that we are only just beginning to build out. Right now we have focused on the last surviving 150 foot Riverboat, 'Colonel Frederick G Hodgson' now known as 'The Boat'
Concrete Ship Videos
A collection of videos that show concrete ships, including Vintage newsreels and modern day 'explorers' videos. We limit the videos displayed to one that do not spread Urban Myths with is what happens when they go to Wikipedia for their history !
Connect with Us
There are lots of ways that you can keep in touch with our research and the things we publish. You can subscribe to this website or just follow us on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter
'The Crete Fleet' - British World War I era Concrete Ships
This is the story of 'The Life & Times of The Crete Fleet'
In 1917, during some of the darkest days of World War I, The British Government commissioned the construction of 154 concrete ships - 24 powerful Steam Tugs and 130 barges, each of 1000 tons deadweight.
World War I thankfully ended before the programme was complete, but still, 64 'Crete Ships' were launched by the end of 1920.
The last surviving floating 'Crete Ship', 'Cretegaff', lies in Carlingford Marina, where I live in the Republic of Ireland.
When I first saw her, I had never heard of a concrete ship ! Why build a ship in concrete ? What is she doing here ? How did she get here ? How does she float ?
I became intrigued - I had to find out all about them. Little did I know that she had sisters and cousins - a family of concrete ships. I christened them 'The Crete Fleet' (because their names start with 'Crete' !) and set about researching them all. I also discovered that 9 other concrete ships of different design were also built in the UK in the same period.
This is the story of their Life & Times
FCBs - British World War II Ferro-Concrete Barges
WWII FCBs - Now launched !
When I had finished researching British World War I concrete ships, I discovered that in World War II, 495 concrete barges were built in the U.K.
As soon as I started my research, I discovered that much that is written about them is absolute nonsense - fiction, fantasy and Urban Myth - propagated, in particular, by Wikipedia.
Following a further year of research, I shared what I had discovered so as to provide an accurate history and to dispel the urban myths that surround these feats of British wartime concrete engineering !
Just to put the record straight, right from the start, the closest the 16 Petrol Barges at Rainham Marshes got to France, was when someone threw a baguette at one in 1998.
I'll also dispel the myth that the World War II FCBs had anything whatsoever to do with the Mulberry Harbours.