A new dawn for Egremont?

I jumped the gun when I wrote that the Egremont was about to leave the Harbour. The trustees are apparently on the edge of securing new funding to tackle the interior of the Egremont as well as the outside, and delayed the refit.

So what are the new plans? First, that sums of money not unadjacent to £1m seem to have been secured to refit the outside and, now, the inside of the ship. She will leave for Penzance either in May and return in July; or in July and return in September. The season is important on two grounds: first, it is too dangerous to tow her through the Harbour during the very busiest months of the year – too much traffic and too many moored boats. But, secondly, in the past, Egremont has been repainted during the winter, when it is damp and the paint has not adhered very well. The hope is that, if she is repainted in the summer, the paint will stick better and she will look prettier for longer.

The money for the interior seems to have been secured because she will have a new life. The plans are that, during the week, she will return to being a sail training centre for children, young and old. But at the weekends she will become a venue for “fine dining”. This will necessitate removing the accommodation block on her stern and replacing this with en suite bedrooms – and, presumably, upgrading the kitchens, bar, dining room &c. The bunk bed dormitories on the lower decks for little people will, however, be retained.

These changes go along with some environmental upgrading (sorry, sewage again, but you would expect me to mention this). Egremont has a biodigester but it is big and needs constant, regular feeding – which it doesn’t get, so fails as a result. The new arrangements will use her massive fuel tanks, which are apparently in good condition, to hold black water and feed a smaller biodigester continuously. She should not, therefore, discharge anything unpleasant into the Harbour including – believe it or not? – no phosphates (yes, I confess I bent their ears on that!).