Megoran’s Musings

On Friday 15th May 1964 both Consul and Princess Elizabeth were undergoing the final preparations for starting their seasons running in competition with each from the Weymouth Pleasure Pier the following day.

At 2pm on the afternoon of Tuesday 14th May 1985 surveyor Mr Ahmed arrived to conduct the final running trials for KC which if they went well would lead to

Lord Elgin made her last crossing on the cargo service between Southampton and Cowes on Wednesday 11th May 1955 and moved under her own steam to the scapyard of Pollock,

Consul was the last of Cosens’s paddle steamers to be returned to service after the Second World War. Indeed given the state of her structure there was some doubt as

On Saturday 11th May 1916 at Holy Trinity Church Weymouth the funeral took pace of Cosens’s master Captain Philip St Barbe Rawle who had lost his life at Newhaven Harbour

On Monday 10th May 1937 P & A Campbell’s Waverley left Cardiff at 8am bound for Newhaven. She was followed at 10.15am by Glen Gower for Brighton. This long positioning run

After her refit at Lamont’s Shipyard at Port Glasgow in March and through to mid April 1964, Jeanie Deans returned to service on Saturday 9th May with a charter to

On Tuesday 8th May 1934 a press cruise was organised to show off the brand new paddle steamers Mercury and Caledonia which had been built for the London, Midland and

On Saturday 11th May 2011 Kingswear Castle ran a Thames Estuary cruise from her base at the Historic Dockyard Chatham. We were away at 11.05 with bacon rolls for sale on

With the arrival of the new purpose built car ferry Carisbrooke Castle for the Southampton to Cowes ferry service in May 1959, Red Funnel withdrew Princess Elizabeth and put her up for

On Saturday 5th May 1962 Cardiff Queen, under the command of Captain Leo Virgo, was rostered to run on the Cardiff/Weston ferry. Having started the day before Good Friday on

Ever wondered how the Dresden paddle steamers are slipped? Then take a look at this video filmed last week as PS Krippen was put back in the water ready for

VE Day on 8th May 1945 started to unlock the doors and focus minds on a return to peace time excursions. With their Gracie Fields sunk in the war and

On Tuesday 5th May 1953 Cosens’s paddle steamers Monarch and Embassy left Weymouth at the crack of dawn for Southampton where they entered the same drydock shortly after mid-day. This

On Monday 4th May 1953 Maid of the Loch ran trials on Loch Lomond under the command of Captain Donald MacDonald. Ordered from the Clyde shipyard of A & J Inglis

On Friday 3rd May 1918 Duchess of Devonshire was at her home port of Exmouth being prepared for her second season running a makeshift Cardiff/Weston ferry service for P & A

On Wednesday 2nd May 1934 Sandown was in the fitting out basin at Denny’s yard at Dumbarton having been launched the day before. She had been ordered on 30th November

On 1st May 2019 there was a paddle steamer parade on the River Elbe setting off from Dresden and sailing up river in consort. There was much blowing of whistles,

At her annual dry-docking in the run up to the 1936 season the Board of Trade started to make noises about the amount of work which would be needed to

On Saturday 29th April 1961 members of the London and Home Counties Branch of the PSPS visited Medway Queen on the grid at the Acorn Shipyard at Strood. They were greeted

On Sunday 28th April 1901 the freshly built Majestic was lying alongside at the shipyard of A & J Inglis (which 46 years later would build our own Waverley) with

On 27th April 1964 Consul left Weymouth under the command of Capt Cyril “Chum” Holleyoak, formerly of Consul (1961), Embassy (1962) and Princess Elizabeth (1963), for slipping at Poole but

On Tuesday 26th April 1927 P & A Campbell’s paddle steamer Waverley was scheduled to start the day at Newhaven before picking up at Brighton at 9.20am, Eastbourne at 10.50am

Having finally completed her overhaul by Cosens, Bristol Queen was moved out from the Weymouth Backwater and through the Town Bridge on Thursday 25th April 1963 with Capt John Iliffe

On Sunday 24th April 1960 Princess Elizabeth was raising steam alongside at the John I Thornycroft shipyard in Northam, Southampton in preparation for running trials in Southampton Water and the Solent

On Saturday 23rd April 1977 Waverley ran her first trip of the season leaving Glasgow at 10am for a day trip to Greenock, Kilcreggan, Dunoon, Largs, Rothesay and Tighnabruaich where she

On Thursday 22nd April 1920 Cosens’s paddle steamer Queen was sold to the Ardrossan Harbour Board. She had been built new for Cosens in 1883 with the hull constructed in Rotterdam

On Easter Saturday 21st April 1962 P & A Campbell’s Cardiff Queen, under the command of Captain Leo Virgo, was rostered to pack in a variety of trip options to

On Thursday 20th April 1961 Princess Elizabeth spent the morning raising steam and generally getting ready to leave her winter lay up berth at Dartmouth for her annual refit at

On Tuesday 19th April 1966 Embassy was out of the water on the Admiralty slipway at Portland for survey and underwater painting where she had arrived under tow from Weymouth on

On Easter Monday 18th April 1949 Bournemouth Queen was offering trips from Bournemouth Pier in balmy weather conditions with little wind and temperatures well up into the 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It

On the morning of Thursday 17th April 1947 Cunard’s trans-Atlantic liner Queen Elizabeth ran aground inward bound on the Brambles Bank in the approaches to Southampton Water in thick fog.

Waverley emerged from her annual drydocking at Dales in Greenock in the rain around 2pm on Wednesday 16th April 2025. She was then towed astern by two tugs the short