Cruising with The Waverley

In May 2006, when I visited England for the second time, my visit happened to coincide with one of their bank holidays. This meant more traffic on the freeways as weekend holidayers headed out of town. To bypass this extra traffic, my husband drove us around the smaller back roads. This turned out to be quite a good decision and landed us in quaint little towns that engaged the senses.

One such town was Hele Beach in North Devon. We parked in a small parking lot that was at the top of a small hill that we walked down to beach from. It was quite cold, drizzly and windy. My umbrella turned inside out and I looked ridiculous in my navy blue poncho, but I was determined to get down to the beach and take a few photos.

The picture you see below is of a ship off in the misty distance that caught my eye. I had no idea what it was or where it was going, but we soon found out.

Back in the car, cold, miserable and wet, we headed down the road again. This time we ended up in Ilfracombe. The pictures you see below are taken there. It was there that we discovered that the ship I had seen in Hele Beach was the PS Waverley coming into port at Ilfracombe. I took all of these pictures without knowing the significance of the Waverley until I came back home and did some research.

Once I returned home, I decided to do some research on the PS Waverley.

This particular Waverley was built in 1946 as a replacement for an earlier 1899 version. The earlier Waverly had taken part in WWII as a minesweeper and sunk in 1940 while helping with the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk.

This newer Waverley entered service in June 1947. The Waverley was withdrawn in late 1973 due to it being too costly to operate and in need of significant updates and repairs. The Waverley was then sold to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society (PSPS) to ensure it would get the needed repairs.

Listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, the ship underwent substantial revamping between 2000-2003 and it was restored to its original 1946 condition.

According to Wikipedia, the ship's operators claim the Waverley is "probably the most photographed ship in the world."

I was thrilled to find the YouTube video below that shows the exact Ilfracombe Harbour in my photos but from across the other side. The weather was obviously nicer the day of their video.