What it's like on board Waverley as it sails from Shoreham in West Sussex to circumnavigate the Isle of Wight
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00:00After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:07The city was flooded with water.
00:14After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:21The city was flooded with water.
00:28After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:35After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:42After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:49After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
00:55After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:02After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:09After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:16After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:22After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:29After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:36After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:43After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:49After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
01:56After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:03After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:10After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:16After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:23After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:30After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:37After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:43After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:50After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
02:57After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:04After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:10After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:17After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:24After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:31After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:38After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:47After the storm, the city was flooded with water.
03:55She entered service on the 16th of June 1947 for the London and North Eastern Railway Company,
04:02operating as an excursion steamer out of their Cregendorren base on the port of Clyde.
04:08And here she remained in service for LNER, which then became BR upon nationalisation in 1948.
04:15And she operated under the Caledonian Steam Packet Company,
04:18until they were merged with David McBrain to form what we know as Caledonian McBrain in 1973.
04:24The operators of ferry services in the west of Scotland to this day.
04:281973 was Waverley's last year in service under this company.
04:34She was then withdrawn at the end of that season and offered to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society for £1.
04:42In fact, she was given over for £1 50 years ago last month, on August 8th 1974.
04:49And she's been operated in preservation under the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society
04:54by Waverley Steam Navigation and Waverley Excursions since May 1975.
04:59She first came to these parts in April of 1978,
05:04and indeed paid a visit to New Haven, Worthing, Hastings and Southampton,
05:11as well as Wright and other areas around the south coast and the Thames.
05:16And she's been a regular visitor back ever since, only exception being 2019, 2020 and 2021.
05:24She was withdrawn from service in 2019, owing to two boilers,
05:28which had to be replaced for the cost of £2.3 million following a successful fundraising campaign.
05:34And due to Covid, she was unable to return until 2022.
05:402023, of course, being Waverley's first sailing from Shoreham.
05:44But she has been a fairly regular visitor to these parts since 1978.
05:51This is the Queen Elizabeth, you'll notice that she's showing on the traffic,
05:57as Prince William, so it's a little bit of a neat one there.
06:01That's it, we've just got to get one back.
06:06Now I mentioned the Bembridge ledge buoy, it's coming up now on our southbound bridge,
06:14and it's a little bit of a challenge to get it off the bridge.
06:18It's a little bit of a challenge to get it off the bridge.
06:21So I'm going to have to make some adjustments to get it off the bridge.
06:24And we'll do it.
06:26Now I mentioned the Bembridge Ledge buoy, it's coming up now on our starboard bow.
06:37It's a cardinal buoy, painted black and yellow, and once we've reached the Bembridge Ledge
06:44buoy, this is the eastermost point of the round the island sailing, we will alter course
06:52and head down towards the white cliffs that you can see ahead there.
07:02A little symbol on the top of the cardinal buoy,
07:08there's a cone pointing up and a cone pointing down, indicates that there is danger
07:14to the west of that point. Shallow water only, Bembridge Ledge.
07:22Now yesterday when we were on Broadway, I believe, we had a fantastic cruise down
07:26on port to the city, and my colleague who was doing the commentary,
07:31and subjects have identified coastal erosion. The average
07:42clifffall, the average retreat of cliff edges, even where it's chalked, is now around 15
07:49centimetres in the air. Think about this, the island is continuing to erode and get smaller.
07:59And this is Sandown Bay coming up ahead on our starboard side is Sandown,
08:06a bit further along, you can see a very distinctly white cliff lift.
08:19So
08:49okay
08:56okay
09:02um
09:19Up to 2018, it was possible to visit the lighthouse,
09:23and indeed climb right up into the vent at the top of the lighthouse.
09:31Three light cliffs, the densely vegetated coast that we followed from Shackland down to
09:39Newcastle changes dramatically, and we turn now to the island's southwest coast,
09:45and it's a far distance there, it's 14 miles, is the headland of the Needles.
10:00So
10:20which once linked the island to the mainland in Dorset, some 14 miles away.
10:27At the end of the last ice age, and that's only 12,000 years ago,
10:31up came the sea level by over 200 feet, 250 feet, and the line of downs which once ran
10:39westwards from here to link up with the mainland in Dorset, gradually were eroded.
10:45And what you've got left are these stacks, these chalk stacks, as I say they are remnants
10:52of a line of chalk down which once linked the Isle of Wight with the mainland of what is now Dorset.
11:02Something else of interest before we get to the Needles is this dell of grass
11:07that you can see on the cliff edge, and you might notice a concrete encasement around the top
11:14of the dell. Well in the 1950s and 1960s that was the site where static tested the
11:22Black Arrow and Black Knight rockets were tested, not fired, but they were static tested on that
11:29site. They were brought by low loader from Cowes to the Needles headland and
11:39put through their paces there in what is now the site. And that program of course
11:46of rockets of the Prospero satellite program abandoned by the Heath government in 1971.
11:54The odds of that partly in between block number one and block number two coming out from the
11:59headland was a narrow pinnacular block called the Needles, and this block collapsed in a great
12:06storm in 1764. The lighthouse was erected there in 1859, now fully automated,
12:18no lighthouse keepers, all operated from the city house.
12:23Um
12:25So
12:27Controlled
12:49Stack it with sandwiches, cheese, ham, jam,
12:53any filling you like, and then turn that thing through 90 degrees.
12:59Well that's what the land movement has done here in the Needles.
13:07That was that for a few days in December of 1648, King Charles I was kept there,
13:16uh imprisoned on his way to London, and his trial, and of course his uh execution.
13:25But anyway that is Norris Castle.
13:31A filth husband, they were a young couple in their 20s. I think they were 26 or 27 when they
13:37first came to the island, and uh the queen wrote in her journal the delights of sea bathing.
13:44And guess what? She went into the sea using this bathing machine which was lowered into the briney.
13:52The queen then splashed about, and her modesty was protected by the fact that she had gone into the sea.