PICTURES OF THE MONTH - March 2009

Diesel Electric Paddle Vessel Farringford

Built in 1947 for the passenger and car ferry service between Lymington and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, the Farringford was propelled by paddle wheels powered by electric motors with the electricity produced by Diesel generators. In a way it was a surprising choice, as her predecessor, the Lymington of 1937, was fitted with more modern Voith Schneider propellers. But perhaps that was the problem. The Second World War had prevented any spares or back up from the Austrian company for these then novel propulsion units so the Southern Railway management opted to play safe with the more convential arrangement. They were probably persuaded in this by a visit they made, before ordering the Farringford, to view the Firth of Forth paddle ferries, which were both reliable and effective.

Each of the Farringford's paddle wheels had its own electric motor so could be operated independently giving the lie to the much quoted opinion that passenger paddle steamers in Britain were never permitted to have independent wheels. Well, this one did, as did several others both in the UK and abroad.

The Farringford had quite a large car capacity for the era being able to put aboard thirty six average saloon cars at any one time plus more than eight hundred passengers. The saloon above the car deck was in fact two quite separate saloons with a gap which allowed lorries to drive down the middle.

The car ferry slipway at Yarmouth is at the shore end of the pier just this side of Yarmouth Castle in the entrance to the harbour. This never presented, or presents today, any handling difficulties for the Voith Schneider vessels with their ability to go sideays as well as ahead and astern but it did sometimes work against the Farringford. In strong south westerly gales coupled with a big flood tide, both going from bottom to top in the picture above, there was ever a tendency for her to land heavily on the berth. And, conversely, in easterly gales with a ripping ebb tide the other way, she tended to blow off if the ropes were not got ashore pretty smartly. There were some rare occasions when she was unable to berth at the ramp.

Displaced by newer tonnage on the route in 1974, the Farringford moved north to the River Humber as a replacement for the coal fired paddle steamer Wingfield Castle. She was altered to load cars through the side instead of over the bow and stern and, in the picture above, is seen coming into the pier at New Holland in a fairly hefty Humber slop. After the paddle steamer Lincoln Castle was withdrawn with a boiler problem in 1978, the Farringford soldiered on alone until the route was closed in 1981 when the new Humber Bridge opened. There was some talk that she might be bought by Western Ferries for their Clyde route between Hunter's Quay and McInroy's Point and perhaps she was but she never left Hull. After languising for nearly three years on the Humber she was eventually scrapped locally by John Hewitt in 1984.

As I write this, a new generation of ferries is just coming into service on the Lymington to Yarmouth route amid some opposition from local interests who think them too big. The Wight Light (pictured above) and Wight Sky arrived from their builders in Croatia last year but have lain idle since then except for trials. However, as these have all gone well and, with the Passenger Certificates of the existing and aged vessels about to run out in March, the new ferries started sailing around 24th February. This has much annoyed those who bitterly oppose the introduction of the new vessels but it is good news for residents of the Isle of Wight who otherwise might have ended up being a bit stuck without a ferry service at all!

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