The three boilers Nazarene Azzopardi referred to in his letter of May 14 are actually portable boilers (portable loco boilers, as they used to be called) which were utilised to provide steam wherever required in the shipyard.

They carry yard numbers 315, 351 and 318 and were first registered in the books of the then Malta Drydocks in 1946. It is likely that they were not new at the time but modified to suit the requirements of the shipyard.

Malta Shipyards has been in contact with Heritage Malta for a while and the process to restore these three boilers has already commenced.

The first step was to remove safely all the asbestos insulation; this was kindly carried out free of charge by Cape East Malta, who are experts in this field. The second phase of the plan is to transport these three boilers to the shipyard which has also offered to carry out basic repairs to the steel structure, blasting and application of a first layer of protective coating. The third phase will be to transport them to sites selected by Heritage Malta where more restoration and painting to original colours shall be carried out.

Definitely, once restored these three boilers should be quite an attraction and part of the industrial heritage of Malta.