MV Rock
Since 2002 Chris Wainwright and his wife artist Anne Lydiat have been living on a fully seagoing converted Medway Coaster, moored at Hermitage Moorings on the River Thames.
MV Rock is a 27.4 metre Medway Coaster designed by Richard Dunstan shipbuilders of Thorne in Yorkshire and was built by the London and Rochester Trading Company at their Quarry Yard in Frindsbury on the River Medway in 1961
A distinctive feature of the smaller coastal motor barge fleet built by the company was that all the vessels were given ‘RO’ names – Roan, Robust, Rodent, Roffen, Rogul, Rohay, Roina and Rock.
Rock was taken out of service on the east coast routes in 1990 and converted for charter and residential use. Although she has undergone some external changes she still retains a rare and well preserved Kelvin K4 engine and is one of a few remaining fully operational and seaworthy coasters left in the UK