134 Severn Princess

134 Severn Princess
In June 1999 a vessel called the Severn Princess being towed from the west coast of Ireland to Chepstow needed to shelter in Swansea Bay.  The significance concerns the alternative route from South Wales to southern England for drivers to avoid the detour around Gloucester before the Severn Bridge was built: this was the Aust car ferry, the last of which was the Severn Princess.
The Beachley to Aust ferries in Gloucestershire were revived by Newport architect Enoch Williams, who formed The Old Passage Severn Ferry Company in 1931.   Passengers with bicycles and motorbikes were transported on a 40ft wooden ferry, until two larger steel ferries were added in 1934 and 1935, each able to carry 17 cars.  Each car had to turn sharply off the ramp onto the ferry, and then be turned by a manually operated turntable before being parked: the process was reversed for unloading.  By 1959 a third ship was ordered from the Yorkshire Dry Dock Company of Hull, and launched as the Severn Princess on 23^rd May 1959.  She was slightly larger than the other car ferries at 77ft x 28ft, with twin Leyland diesel engines to give a better performance.  With three vessels operating, the frequency of ferries was increased from every 30 to every 20 minutes, and it was estimated that up to 25,000 cars could be carried each month.
This could, however, be a challenging undertaking, with a 40ft tidal range and fierce currents, and the ferry could not operate at low tide or very high tides.  Occasionally a car might slither down the muddy slipways into the swirling waters of the Severn, but there were no serious injuries to passengers.  The end for the Aust ferries came with the construction of the first Severn Bridge, opened by the Queen on 8^th September 1966, whereupon the three ferries were laid up on their moorings on the River Wye, and later moved to Cardiff docks.  West of Ireland fisheries bought the Severn Princess, intending to use her as a ferry on the west coast of Ireland, but she was laid up at Limerick until sold in 1975.  She was then used for salvage purposes, carrying cargo across Galway Bay to the Aran Islands, and for engineering projects. 
By the 1990s the ferry was having frequent breakdowns, and when laid up in harbour in Galway in 1994 she was grounded by a severe Boxing Day gale.  Five years later she was discovered wrecked and abandoned by Dr. Richard Jones, grandson of Enoch Williams.  The Severn Princess Restoration Group was formed, and some enthusiasts travelled from Chepstow to the west coast of Ireland to set about cleaning and repairing the ship, and purchased her for a nominal guinea (one pound and one shilling) before the vessel could be scrapped. 
On 21^st June 1999 a tug from Penarth was towing her across the Irish Sea when they encountered conditions bad enough to cause the Fishguard to Rosslare ferry to be cancelled.  With difficulty they managed to reach Mumbles, where the Severn Princess was pumped dry before being towed up the Bristol Channel to Chepstow, and moored on the west bank of the River Wye.  Of course her home-coming was a considerably more low-key event than the 1970 return of SS Great Britain from the Falklands to Bristol!  With a Chepstow shipbuilding yard available, the Severn Princess was floated onto the slipway for a complete survey.  The first phase of restoration was completed in September 2014, with the aim to site the vessel as a permanent heritage display beneath Brunel’s 1852 tubular railway bridge.
The Aust ferry terminal can be seen in the background of a May 1966 photo of Bob Dylan, used as a promotional shot for Martin Scorsese’s film “No Direction Home”, about Dylan’s controversial 1966 tour.  The Nobel prizewinner might comment of the ferry that once sheltered in Swansea Bay “You ain’t goin’ nowhere”.