December 2024:
St Trillo

In February 1963 P & A Campbell bought the St Trillo and the goodwill of the business which went with her in North Wales where primarily she had run short trips from Menai Bridge and the busy seaside resort of Llandudno. Built in 1936 as the St Silio for this service she was the smallest of the three ships, including the much larger St Seiriol and St Tudno, which were owned by the Liverpool and North Wales Steamship Company. With an ageing fleet and a declining business they were in financial difficulties and closed down after the 1962 season.

On the face of it St Trillo seemed to make a good fit for P & A Campbell. She could continue to operate on her old routes in the peak summer season where there was still a significant demand for her short trips.

And at the start and end of each season she could be deployed on the Bristol Channel providing a more cost effective fleet unit to run at quieter times than the massive paddle steamers Bristol Queen and Cardiff Queen with their much higher fuel and crewing costs.

St Trillo was dry-docked in Birkenhead and set off for the Bristol Channel in early March 1963. Trials were run at Cardiff and Weston. She was repainted in P & A Campbell’s colour scheme and entered service on the Cardiff Weston ferry service on 11th April. Although primarily viewed as a useful asset on the ferry she did run down Channel and elsewhere including to Bristol according to rostering needs. She made her first call at Ilfracombe on Tuesday 16th April 1963.

Cardiff Queen joined St Trillo for the Easter holiday only before returning to dock. Bristol Queen started on 17th May with a most unusual three day trip trip down Channel to Ilfracombe, Penzance and on to the Isles of Scilly. Cardiff Queen returned to service again on 25th May releasing St Trillo to sail north in time for her north Wales excursions to start at Whitsun.

During her previous incarnation on the North Wales Coast St Trillo had mostly run short trips from Menai Bridge and Llandudno. For example starting and finishing her days at Menai Bridge in 1961 her summer programme from Llandudno consisted of one and a half hour morning trips viewing the Great Orme and Puffin Island, return morning trips to Menai Bridge, afternoon trips to Red Wharf Bay, afternoon return trips to Menai Bridge, hour and a half evening cruises and evening single trips to Menai Bridge with return “by Crossville Bus”.

What she offered in the ownership of P & A Campbell for 1963 was very similar.

However with the larger ships:

and:

………now gone P & A Campbell tested the water for other longer trips for St Trillo scheduling her for “Special Saturday Excursions” on July 27, August 10th, 24th and 31st 1963 including to Caernavon and around Anglesey.

St Trillo returned to the Bristol Channel at the end of the second week in September 1963 taking her place on the Cardiff Weston ferry until the end of the season on Thursday 19th October later than in previous years with P & A Campbell taking advantage of her lower running costs to milk the ferry for as long as possible into October.

Two days after finishing St Trillo sailed from Cardiff to lay up for the winter in Port Dinorwic in North Wales near Menai Bridge not that far from the home of her long term master Capt Owen Williams who could therefore keep a weather eye on her as she slumbered.

In the ensuing years St Trillo’s occasional day trips from Llandudno were expanded to include more sailings around Anglesey and a few to New Brighton when the tides were favourable.

In 1968, with both Bristol Queen and Cardiff Queen now withdrawn, St Trillo was rostered to run on the Bristol Channel for the whole season partnering Westward Ho, ex Vecta which P & A Campbell had bought from Red Funnel in late 1965. She was replaced on her North Wales routes that season by Queen of the Isles on charter which was not ideal as she had limited space out on deck for larger numbers of holiday crowds.

For the 1969 season P & A Campbell took Red Funnel’s Balmoral on long term charter so she partnered Westward Ho on the Bristol Channel releasing St Trillo to once again take over her old routes on the North Wales coast. Queen of the Isles was sent south to try to make a living on the Thames and Sussex Coast running longer trips including to the Continent but this was not a success and was not repeated in subsequent years..

1969 was also St Trillo’s last season. She left Menai Bridge for the last time on 17th September for Cardiff. By then, with Balmoral and Westward Ho in the fleet, St Trillo was no longer the economical ship of choice for the start and end of the season on the Bristol Channel. On her arrival back at Cardiff, she deputised for Balmoral on the ferry on September 19th and accompanied Westward Ho to Lundy on September 28th providing extra capacity on what was a very busy sailing that day.

After that she was laid up in Barry Docks and put up for sale at an initial asking price of £18K (£256K in 2024). She was subsequently scrapped in Dublin in 1975.

Tiny Point of Detail 1: St Trillo had a polarising effect amongst enthusiasts in 1963 not least because her arrival into the P & A Campbell fleet led to the displacement of the paddle steamer Glen Usk.

She was put up for sale in the spring of 1963 and towed away from Cardiff on April 29th to the breakers in Cork just as St Trillo was making some of her earliest trips on the Bristol Channel.

This did not go down well with some in the enthusiast community particularly those who hated with a level of passion verging on the virulent the very idea of a twin screw diesel motor ship displacing a paddle steamer. But there were others who welcomed her arrival thinking that St Trillo’s cheaper running costs might help to keep the coastal excursion trade going for longer in a declining market.

Opinions were strong and often heated. Tempers were sometimes lost. I remember one furious row in Bournemouth between two prominent and senior enthusiasts of the day back then which so terrified my eleven year old self that I fled wondering what on earth I was getting mixed up with.

In the end, and with no unanimity of opinion in sight, there were splits and divisions with dissenters going off to found rival organisations with different ambitions elsewhere. The world moved on as it always does. And St Trillo provided seven more years of service on the Bristol Channel and North Wales coast to the enjoyment of many.

Tiny Point of Detail 2: St Trillo’s master Capt Owen Williams left his long term command to become mate of Westward Ho in 1968 . Does anyone out there know the background to that?

Tiny Point of Detail 3: At the top of St Trillo’s steamer notices for 1963 is a rather grand list of the P & A Campbell fleet which was said to include Bristol Queen, Cardiff Queen, Glen Usk, St Trillo, Waverley, Devonia, Lundy Queen and Westward Ho. Hmmm one might think. Hadn’t Glen Usk just been sold for scrap? And whilst the name Westward Ho would be resurrected for Vecta in 1966 were not most of the others names of long gone paddle steamers from the distant past?

In fact it was not as fanciful a list as at first glance it may appear. P & A Campbell had a number of small launches used for tendering at Lundy, Clovelly and so on and these were given paddle steamer names from the past and so could properly be described as being part of the overall P & A Campbell fleet.

Tiny Point of Detail 4: Ships are built for a design life of about 25 to 30 years with the expectation that after that they will be scrapped. Of course that will vary from ship to ship. It will depend on how they are looked after, what sort of stresses and strains they are exposed to and any structural work undertaken on them during their lifetime. That sort of thing.

Many have shorter careers. For example in 2016 the average age of ships scrapped worldwide was 23 years old. Some have longer careers. For example CalMac have for a variety of reasons been slow to replace some of their now elderly fleet. In 2023 the average age of their ships was 23 with 38% of them being over 30. Isle of Arran built in 1983 is now over 40. But the difficulty of keeping elderly ships in service shows in the annual cost of maintaining and rebuilding them to a sufficient standard for them to retain their necessary certification year on year.

For example built in 1993 CalMac’s Caledonian Isles, which is now 31 years old, went off for her annual refit last January at Greenock in the expectation that she would be back in service several weeks later. The MCA discovered Issues with her. She was sent to Liverpool for major structural steelwork repairs. She was not back until this autumn after which it was found that there were gearbox, engine alignment and shaft issues. All this is said to have cost in excess of £5 million. She is not due back in service until March 2025.

Built in 1936 St Trillo was 33 years old in 1969 when she was withdrawn. Built in 1939 Westward Ho ex Vecta was 32 years old in 1971 when she was withdrawn. After that Bristol Channel excursions continued for another decade solely in the hands of Balmoral built in 1949 until she too was 32 years old in 1981.

As we all know Balmoral has had further new leases of life since then starting off in 1985 when taken on by the Waverley organisation. She is still with us today but only because very large sums of money have been spent on her in the interim.