Ribchic’s “From Tar to Tartare, this boat has re-invented itself more Often than Madonna”
Ribchic's story begins in 1911, when she was built as Carbolate — a 65-ton tanker barge with a decidedly unglamorous cargo: crude coal tar.
Tar was a by-product of the old town-gas industry, and Carbolate carried it between William Butler & Co.'s works at Gloucester and Bristol, where it was turned into everything from creosote and pitch to oils used in paints and dyes.
It was sticky work in more ways than one: tar could be so viscous that storage tanks needed steam-heating to keep it fluid enough to pump.
Carbolate kept at it for more than half a century. Then the Severn Bridge opened in 1966 and road tankers made the river journey uneconomic. By 1967, the tar trade was over — but fortunately, Carbolate wasn't.
For years she carried passengers on pleasure trips along the Severn, but as demand for river excursions declined, the Stourport Steam company gradually reduced its fleet.
Carbolate was sold to the Danter family in Stourport and reinvented once again — this time as The Showman Pub.
Pints replaced passengers, and she remained a pub until 2014.
By 2017, the old girl had seen better days.
Quite a lot better.
The bilges were flooded, the engine was shot, the deck was letting in water and years of hard use had taken their toll throughout the boat. Before anyone could even start thinking about what she might become, there was the rather more pressing question of keeping her afloat.
First job: get the engine running. Not because anyone was planning a pleasure cruise, but because she needed to make it to dry dock under her own power.
Once there, the hull could finally be properly inspected, patched and repaired, scrubbed back, resealed and repainted. Then came everything else — decks, machinery, electrics, plumbing and an interior that essentially needed rebuilding from the bottom up.
This wasn't just a renovation. It was a rescue.
BORN TO WORK
FROM TAR BOAT TO SHOWBOAT
A DIVA IN NEED OF REHAB
Every plank and rivet tells a story of survival and evolution.
After more than a century of carrying tar, tourists and the occasional pint, she's been painstakingly restored and given another chapter.
Today she's moored in the heart of Gloucester Docks, bringing people together over seriously good food — aboard a boat that's had more careers than most of us.
She's changed a lot since 1911.
But then, after 115 years, who hasn't?
THE RIBCHIC PIRANHA - A TESTAMENT TO REINVENTION
FROM TAR TO TARTARE.
NOT BAD FOR AN OLD BOAT.
AND THIS IS WHAT SHE BECAME
1911
1960s - 2014
2017
Today
25 seats Below deck
25 Seats above deck
