July 06th, 2019

Members of PDB visited the SS FRESHSPRING in Bideford on Thursday 4 July. The FRESHSPRING, which was built in 1946, was the last of 14 'Fresh class' water carriers built through WW2 to supply Naval vessels with boiler feed water in harbour. She would have had a crew of 13 and could carry 200 tons of feed water. She has a three cylinder triple expansion main engine and a three furnace Scotch boiler. The main machinery is largely intact. The Steamship Freshspring Trust owns the vessel and an enthusiastic team of volunteers are progressively restoring her. One has to admire the volunteers as this job is like a never ending refit!! They have grand plans to restore the ship to a sea going condition and it will interesting to see how work progresses. It will, undoubtedly be an expensive operation both in manpower hours and financially. We wish them the best of luck.