Paul R Tregurtha, (AKA “The Queen”) the world’s largest freshwater ship at 1013.5ft long, is back in action after being out of commission for four months due to major work on her ballast tanks and their support structures. The Lakes certainly weren’t the same without her! Those hoping for a grand departure were a little disappointed though, she left as quietly as possible with little fanfare, in the middle of the work day when few people could see her. Nobody could make them salute, not even the museum announcer, who seemed to be in an interesting mood lol. Apparently they didn’t hear the radio calls from the ship and didn’t know she was coming until they were lining up with the bridge, so they were a little bit flustered in there!“We’re doing our jobs, we swear!” (Actual announcement from before I started filming lol).

A bit out of character for this crew not to at least salute, but it’s possible they were still setting things up. In order to fit the ship under the Blatnik Bridge to get her out of the shipyard they had to remove a number of objects from the top of her superstructure, including her entire radio mast. They put the equipment back together in a hurry while they were loading at the dock, so it’s possible they still had some fixing to do! Also entirely possible that after the mad dash to fix the ship up the crew was just exhausted. But the bow horn should have worked regardless so not sure what was going on.

Whatever the case, we’re glad to have them back! Was very weird not having them on the lakes. Have a good 43rd season to the Paul R Tregurtha and her crew!