The 1924-built British paddle steamer Medway Queen,  which for years had been rotting away on the Isle of Wight and at Rochester on the Medway, has been saved by a £1.8m grant from the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund.

It is now hoped the vessel will be ready to float again by 2010, when the next task will be internal refitting.

Bristol-based boatbuilder David Abels is set to come to the rescue of the 1924-built Medway Queen, famous for saving around 7,000 soldiers from the Dunkirk beaches in 1940. A contract for reconstruction work on the ship is about to be signed.

The Medway Queen Preservation Society has worked to preserve the ship for 20 years and in 2006 won a £1.8m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

David Abels has been selected from a list of eight companies, hoping to undertake the reconstruction task.

A preservation group spokesman says 8,000 ft of new decking is in containers, waiting to be transported to Bristol once the contract has been signed.

Medway Queen, serving as a minesweeper in the 1939-45 war, made seven crossings from Kent to Dunkirk in 1940 for the rescue operation. It was taken out of service in 1963 ready to be scrapped, was saved, but has since then sunk twice before preservation work began by a team of volunteers.