Britain's sinking maritime heritage

This video shows the moment that the historic tug Deepwater, moored in Brentford, London, starts to sink.

Built back in 1910, it was one of the last remaining riveted steel harbour tugs that gradually fell into neglect, as described in this news post.

The article blames the council that took over the Deepwater at the start of this month, but it is hard to accept this disrepair happened so quickly.

Historic old boats are wonderful, but equally expensive. There are other examples of boats on the creeks, rivers and canals around Britain slowly rotting away. I know of another tug which is rumoured to be concreted into a flooded dry dock to keep it upright.

How is their maintenance all to be funded? Some can get grants from organisations like Historic England (and the equivalent for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) while others could enter the National Maritime Museum's collections.

But some, like this, will fall between the gaps, which is huge shame.