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One of Bristol’s most historic ships is moving ‘back home’ across the Floating Harbour on Wednesday.
The MV Balmoral, which is thought to have visited more British ports than any other ship, is currently moored at Mardyke on the northern side of the harbour near the Grain Barge.
But at lunchtime on Wednesday, she is being brought back across the harbour to her more familiar location right in front of the M-Shed at Prince’s Wharf.
READ MORE: Farewell Archimedes, the superyacht that showed what Bristol was really like
The boat was moored next to Prince Street Bridge from around 2017, when she came in for refurbishment.
The Balmoral, built in 1949 initially as a ferry between Southampton and Isle of Wight, needs a lot of work to get back out cruising around the Bristol Channel and beyond, and that work was put on pause by the pandemic.
The 62-metre craft spent most of her years as a cruise ship touring the coast of Britain, and is said to be the ship which has visited the biggest number of British ports. Until 2017, she had been plying her trade mainly up and down the Bristol Channel, but an unfortunately rough crossing between Liverpool and North Wales made the headlines. Since she was moored up outside the M-Shed, she’s been something of a film star too, doubling up for passenger boats in post-war London, in the 2018 Lily James’ film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and then as a transatlantic ship bringing Laurel and Hardy to Ireland and the UK in the film Stan & Ollie.
The Balmoral moved in 2019 to make way for the STS Lord Nelson, a tall ship that had spent years as a base for the Jubilee Sailing Trust to teach people with disabilities to sail, but moved to Bristol to be mothballed.
The Lord Nelson spent the pandemic in the most prominent spot on the Floating Harbour, by Prince’s Bridge, but has now moved across the harbour, and at 1pm on Wednesday, the Balmoral will move back.
Dave Bassett, a trustee of the charity set up to preserve the Balmoral, said it was a case of ‘going home’.
“It’s nothing more complicated than the Balmoral needs power to keep the ship warm over the winter, so we really appreciate Bristol City Council and the Harbourmaster accommodating us over by the M-Shed,” he said.
“We’re just shifting berths, but we’re really pleased that we’ll be taking the Balmoral home,” he added.
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