As everyone was taking photos from onboard the PS Waverley this week, we decided to go and visit the remains of the PS Ryde.
PS Ryde was commissioned and run by Southern Railway as a passenger ferry between mainland and the Isle of Wight from 1937 to 1969, with an interlude during the Second World War where she served as a minesweeper and then an anti-aircraft ship, seeing action at D-Day.
In 1970 she was purchased by two Isle of Wight entrepreneurs, cousins Alan and Colin Ridett, for £12,000. After a two-year refit costing £60,000 and involving the removal of her boiler, she was fitted with eighteen luxury cabins, a restaurant, bar and dance-floor, and was renamed the Ryde Queen Boatel by Miss Great Britain 1971.
