h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There's no success like failure and failure's no success at all

The oldest-'surviving' Isle of Wight ferry is the PS Ryde, a paddle steamer that came into service with Southern Railway in 1937. Like many ships, including her older sistership PS Sandown, she was commandeered by the navy during the Second World War, becoming minesweeper HMS Ryde, serving on D-Day. (PS/HMS Sandown was so successful a minesweeper that in 1988 the Royal Navy launched HMS Sandown, first of the Sandown-class minesweepers, named after her. The ship was granted the freedom of my hometown of Sandown in the late 1990s but inexplicably failed to take advantage of the right to sail along the High Street, mind you it is quite a steep hill… HMS Sandown still exists as the Estonian navy's Admiral Cowan while PS Sandown was scrapped in the late 1960s).

After the war PS Ryde returned to life as a ferry between Pompey and Ryde until 1969, when she was replaced. Renamed the 'Ryde Queen', she became a nightclub in 1970, which suffered fires in 1977 and the early 80s and since then has been left to rot and rust and sadly nowadays looks like a pile of scrap metal. She frequently has been on the brink of a final voyage to the scrapyard her over the years.

There have been various attempts to restore her to her former glory, which is conservatively estimated as costing £10 million. These have been hampered by high restoration costs, high mooring costs, everything being filled with asbestos and the ship's deteriorating condition. However yesterday another attempt began.
Most people seem to believe that, regrettably, this is doomed to failure and that the ship is too far gone. My head I'm afraid agrees with them. But there is a chance – ah, that small, microscopic, yet still present chance! – that maybe, just maybe, it might succeed.

The way I see it, there are two possible outcomes. Either they succeed, in which case they have achieved an amazing accomplishment.
If they fail, well at least PS Ryde goes out in a blaze of glory. It is better for her to see an end where there was an attempt to save her but is just too late than an end where she is scrapped completely uncared for. And if she fails in a blaze of glory, at the very least it means that it has brought ship enthusiasts together to talk to each other, share their memories and experiences. Maybe people wanting to restore her will learn new skills and in turn later pass on their knowledge to others. Maybe skills learnt on the paddle steamer will be able to be used to save a steam locomotive.

Even failure can be of benefit and lead to an alternative triumph – all people have to lose is time and money.

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Good analysis of the two possible outcomes

I'll keep you updated here.

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I'm not expecting any exciting news or updates anytime soon, though. These things take thing…

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