While the shipbuilding boom was reaching its peak in mid-century it might have been difficult for shipping interests to realize that the Industrial Revolution was a two-faced friend. Before the end of the century the arrival of the railway and later the internal combustion engine started to darken the outlook but there were still some bright intervals.

In 1855 each of three Rye shipyards was given an order for a £7000 mortar boat destined for the Crimea and all three were launched between February and March 1856. Not long afterwards, the shipyards started to receive contracts for the building of lighters which for the next 50 years were needed to carry caissons made from Rye Harbour shingle to build the new outer arms of Dover Harbour.

Between 1882 and 1890 there was a decline in the number and tonnage of vessels entering the Port attributable to the partial blockage of the harbour mouth which in turn had created a crisis in the Harbour finances. It was therefore an act of faith in the future that induced John Symonds Vidler (Chairman of the Harbour Commission) and a number of friends to pay for a small fleet of Ketch- rigged barges to keep the Rye-based coasting trade alive. Each of five ships ordered was built at the yard of G. and T. Smith in Rock Channel and the enterprise proved commercially successful. Some ships had up to 40 shareholders but nobody who retained his shares until the outbreak of war in 1914 suffered any loss.