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Lydia Eva steams again!

A unique survivor of the East Anglian herring fishery industry has thrilled all her supporters by steaming back and forth for an hour and a half on trials in Lowestoft’s Lake Lothing and Inner Harbour. Further basin trials and a sea trial are imminent – a fitting celebration in her 80th year.

Lydia Eva, registered at Great Yarmouth as YH 89, is the last surviving complete steam drifter in the world, and is listed among the Core Collection of Historic Vessels by the National Historic Ships Committee.

The agreement with the Heritage Lottery Fund was that she would be steaming by 31 March – and she made it with a few days to spare! There had been some concern as the Trust had needed to urgently appeal for a volunteer steam engineer when their own engineer had to stand down for personal reasons.

Bob Adams was selected for the role, and enjoys the challenge of keeping the vessel running successfully. He has great experience of steam, spending much of his time at Bressingham, and says that this is his first steam job on a ship as opposed to land-based engines. Traditionally, the chief engineer of a steam fishing boat was always known as the ‘driver’, and the second engineer the ‘stoker’.

Ship’s husband, Tony Furlong-Osborne, told Old Glory that “the manoeuvring trials went exactly as hoped. She moved quietly and slowly away from the quay and the engine and steering worked perfectly. The handling in a stiff cross-wind confirmed what we’d suspected – that several tonnes more ballast was needed. The lengthy trials had been completely successful.”

Built in 1930 by a King’s Lynn shipbuilder at their West Lynn yard, Lydia Eva was fitted out at Great Yarmouth and given a Crabtree triple expansion steam engine, which was also built in Great Yarmouth.

Engineer Bob Adams points out that this is a top-quality steam engine. “It’s the original, and has stood the test of time extremely well. You only have to look at it,” he says, “to see that it was built by real engineers. Not built for economy or any kind of mass production, but built by craftsmen to give maximum efficiency, quality and longevity.”

The vessel was named after the owner’s only daughter, who insisted that although she had been the ‘launching mistress’, she was never even allowed onto the deck of the boat because one of the many fishermens’ superstitions included women on board bringing bad luck. The owner was Harry Eastick, one of a well-known family of drifter owners based at Gorleston-on-Sea.

An innovative design feature of the vessel meant she had a bigger than usual degree of ‘sheer’ to the foredeck and her bows were high out of the water. Although this was entirely intentional in design, it proved to be less than successful, and with the bigger rise of the bows when hauling, nets were often damaged unnecessarily. Huge amounts of extra ballast were introduced, but the problem remained.

Her first fishing trip was to Castlebay, where she spent seven weeks herring fishing off the Scottish coast and then returned to Yarmouth for the ‘home fishing’. Lydia Eva’s typical annual itinerary would be the home fishing each autumn and trawling during the summer months – with west coast herring fishing in between. She had been built as a drifter/trawler and did most of her trawling in the Irish Sea although occasionally in the North Sea. It was a simple matter to change over from drifting to trawling work, as the after gallows were usually left in place constantly, while the forward gallows were re-installed when necessary. A winch for the trawl warps was positioned just forward of the wheelhouse and could either be removed or left in place when returning to drift fishing – commonplace among East Anglian fleet.

Lydia Eva had a relatively short life as a working drifter. Although she was rather bigger than many of the existing drifters, and could therefore carry more nets, steam home a bit faster with her catch and hopefully be more profitable; she was built at a time when the herring fishery was already in decline.

It was an important feature to be able to beat the other drifters into harbour after a night’s fishing, as the earliest landings were more sure of fetching the highest prices at auction. Later landings might well go for fish meal prices or, in a glut, might even be dumped.

Prices at that time were low and owners were having difficulty in surviving. However, she was often mentioned in the press as having good catches and one year she came very close to winning the coveted Prunier Trophy, but was beaten at the last moment by a Scottish boat.

This trophy was presented for landing the biggest catch of fish from one night’s fishing, and was originally given by Madame Prunier, the daughter of a French restaurateur, who was impressed by this fishery.

Harry Eastick eventually sold his two remaining drifters, Lydia Eva and Herring Searcher, in 1938, with ‘Lydia’ being purchased by a local company and then sold on to the Caernarvonshire Yacht Co, which had a boatyard in Pwllheli, North Wales.

This company had a contract with the Air Ministry to supply a vessel for the maintenance and servicing of their buoys at a nearby Bombing and Gunnery School. Lydia Eva underwent some substantial alterations to enable her to carry out this work, such as a heavy duty mast and lifting facilities. But, of course, she still looked like a drifter. You can’t alter the appearance of a drifter unrecognisably.

Eventually, she was requisitioned for wartime service and remained on contract to the RAF, doing similar work from various ports, mostly on the west coast. Later, she was actually owned by the Air Ministry, who had taken her over for a small token sum. Later, now renamed Watchmoor, she worked for many years on salvage duties all around the UK coast, eventually coming under the control of the Royal Navy. So when she was finally laid up in 1969 as being no longer required, she had spent something like 30-odd years in direct or indirect military service for the RAF and the Royal Navy.

It was while Lydia Eva was lying in Milford Haven, for sale, that the first thoughts of restoration emerged. The Maritime Trust realised that she was the sole complete survivor of her type, and that her continued existence was important to our maritime heritage.

With support and sponsorship, the vessel was overhauled and returned under her own steam to her home port of Great Yarmouth. It was  a voyage fraught with minor difficulties, but she made it and then had to be re-converted from a wartime vessel to a herring drifter once again. Heavy lifting gear had to be replaced with authentic fishing gear and the wheelhouse had to be rebuilt, as her military owners had fitted her with a much higher wheelhouse.

By 1973, she was on show at Great Yarmouth as a reminder of the great days of the herring fishery voyages.

She did a few short voyages, including a courtesy visit to her build town of King’s Lynn. The Maritime Trust decided, though, in 1978, that ‘Lydia’ should join its other vessels on public display in the Historic Ships Collection at St Katherine’s Dock in London.

She left Great Yarmouth with honour, as she preceded the Tall Ships Race contestants on their journey to sea down the River Yare. All manner of ships were sounding their sirens as she passed them. A couple of Russian ships, discharging timber at the quayside, whose crew probably had little idea of what was actually happening, were hooting like crazy.

I was privileged that day to see her on her outward journey.

However, after another eight years, the Historic Ships Collection was disbanded and ‘Lydia’ was stored for some time in another London dock.

This was about the time that the Lydia Eva Charitable Trust was formed to restore her and bring her back to her home area once more. In a deal with the Maritime Trust, a peppercorn sum of £1 was handed over for the Lydia Eva at a ceremony attended by the late Lydia Eva Cox. (nee Eastick). Members of the Trust had donated 10p each towards this token figure. The vessel needed constant care and attention, and by now the engine was not running, but she alternated between Yarmouth and Lowestoft, having to be towed by a tug, as a reminder of the herring fishing years and was open to visitors whenever possible.

On one of her dry dock surveys at Lowestoft in 2000, the hull was found to be severely corroded and she was considered unsafe to be towed to Yarmouth and back any more. She was again laid up – this time on a Lowestoft quayside. In recent years, the diligence of the Trust paid off when they finally won a grant of £839,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund. So, after seven years of being laid up again, she was taken up on to the slipway in 2007 to begin more surveys and reparation. It was a massive job renovating her once more. Something like 60 per cent of the steel hull plates had to be replaced; new decking was fitted; a new funnel made; crew cabin refurbished; the boiler overhauled and re-tubed; the fish hold converted to a more substantial museum exhibition and much, much more.

Lydia Eva has had an eventful past and her supporters are now looking forward to a long and successful future as a fully functional herring fishery museum. All her trustees, staff, helpers and attendants are volunteers and many individuals, companies and other bodies have generously donated both finance and services to help to get her where she is today.