God bless the Severn Sands and all who sailed in her

The Severn Sands and former skipper

It is with a hint of sadness that I have to report the demise of HMSD* Severn Sands the last vestiges of this fine vessel have been removed, all six hundred tons of them, from her final mooring place at Yelland and are now probably on their way in some rusting old tub to the scrapyards of India or China. To my mind this is a crying shame as with a little imagination a lot more could have been done to preserve this emblem of Barum's illustrious maritime past. Lest yee forget it was ships and men from the town that opened up the Newfoundland fisheries, bought tobacco back from Virginia and the Antilles by the hundreds of ton, sent men of war out to singe the King of Spain's beard, protected the channel from barbary coast pirates, supplied the Pilgrim Fathers and hounded the French at any given opportunity. I think it's ultimate owner  Mad Dog Murray the elder from South Molton was on the right track when he put forward his plans to restore the craft and have her fitted out as either a nightclub casino or  floating maritime museum. I think the latter was a bleddy good idea as I never ceased to be amazed by how little folk know about Barum's role as a seaport during the centuries of adventure and early exploration upon the high seas. Yes, all kids are told of the ships that went with Drake to fight the Armada but the town's role as a trading port in the early days of empire are forgotten by today's citizens. The fine buildings that remain in the town from this era are a testament to the wealth generated from such mercantile activities. Infact. it can be said that much of Barum is built on the back of beaver pelts and sheep fleeces going backwards and forwards across the Atlantic and cod oh and loads of loot captured from the French and Spanish by our counties noble privateers.
When the Severn Sands was first moored at Fremington Quay I chanced upon the scene as I was walking over from Penhill and looking down on the Quay from up there the ship looked quite majestic tied up there and really complimented the setting. Of course back then, in the charge of another owner, she was in the process of having a lick of paint and seemed to have a skeleton crew on board to ward off vandals i.e kids. To say as a disproportionate vocal few especially one self promoting Fremington Councilor who shall remain nameless did that she was an eyesore was completely wrong and an opinion which to go by the amount of interest her presence on the quayside generated, loads of folk turned up to have a gawp chatting with the crew and photos being taken, was not shared by as many as some would have you believe. I took the old boy down there one afternoon and he was waxing lyrical to all and sundry about his days in the merchant marine and eventually they hauled him on board to look at the engine room. This put his mind for days after to estimating the scrap value of what was apparently a marvelous piece of machinery.

However when the ship broke loose from this mooring after a winter storm and drifted across the harbour and found itself beached on Penhill point things started to go downhill. This situation created more ammunition for her detractors, the crew left and as the vandals clambered on board and wreckers stripped her clean. Whoever made off with the propeller undoubtedly found themselves a bob or two better off. Funny enough this coincided with the time that the Old Boy got new tyres for the 4x4. I still reckon he must have had something to do with it. Whatever, I never saw a penny of it. From this time the ship was doomed. Stories surfaced about her containing hazardous chemical waste, which considering she was a Bristol Channel sand dredger do seem a little exaggerated. Anyway, after a high spring tide the Severn Sands was lifted off the beach and embarked on her final haphazard journey, drifting this way and that way out in the estuary at one point her course seemed set for a collision with the Taw Bridge as the tide carried her upstream. To go by the crowds that gathered along the shoreline even in this rather sorry and dilapidated state the by now infamous vessel was still capable of generating a fair bit of interest and her drifting in the doldrums of the Taw estuary even made Spotlight Southwest. I guess in spite of everything us Devon folk still have a sense of the sea innately imprinted in our DNA. Eventually, once a tug managed to get a line on board she was manouevered to Ashford Strand, my neck of the woods, where once more she became something of a visitor attraction.  She was now bought to the attention of assorted agencies and once Mad Dog relinquished his ownership of the ship it was determined that she could serve no further purpose and would be broken up. So that was that.
As I say this is a sorry indictment of the fact that with a little imagination so much more could have done to preserve our maritime past and this along with so called cleaning up of Rolles Quay where all the historic sand barges were summarily destroyed and the so-called redevelopment of RGB's wharf illustrates the fact that in Brnstaple we tend to turn our backs to the river and the sea whereas in Bideford they remain proud to embrace them. I suppose one reason for this is that Bideford being built up as it is, high up over the banks of the River Torridge the good people of the town probably reckon  that at any given moment an act of god could tip them all into it.

* Her Majesty's Sand Dredger