Name Yorkshire Belle

Built in 1947 by Cook Walton & Gemmel of Beverley, YORKSHIRE BELLE is a passenger vessel used for pleasure trips and based at Bridlington. She has a riveted and welded steel hull and two Gardner diesel engines 8L3 models built in 1951. She is the last remaining Bridlington pleasure boat of the six that once operated from the 1920s to 1950s. Belle was launched on 22nd May 1947 and sailed to Princes Dock in Hull (where the Princes Quay shopping centre is now) for fitting out and finishing. She has 4 watertight compartments. these are the forepeak, saloon bar, aft cabin, and aftpeak. Any two of these compartment can be flooded without compromising the safety of the ship, due to exceptional reserve buoyancy.She carried out sea trials in the River Humber and arrived in Bridlington for the summer season. We are not sure what date she sailed to Bridlington, but the story goes that as soon as she arrived, she loaded up with passengers and sailed up to Flamborough Head on her first public trip

In 1951 her two six-cylinder Crossley Bros. Engines were replaced at Beverley by twin eight-cylinder Gardner Engines. Previously unavailable due to high demand after the war, the Gardner engines gave more speed and they are still in situ today.  In 1969 the ownership changed to John Cross Pockley (Jack) and Thomas Marshall Needham.

Mr Jack Pockley was skipper and part-owner from 1947 until he retired in 1973. 

In 1982 the association with the RSPB began when the Scarborough and District local group organised a bird watching cruise as part of their “Springtime is Birdtime” campaign. It also gave the Bempton reserve warden a chance to survey the birds nesting lower down the cliffs with much closer views than from the cliff tops. The cruise was obviously a great success as we continue to work closely with the RSPB, the Bridlington group and RSPB Bempton reserve and they organise around 20 special trips a year to view the breeding seabirds, in particular the puffins and the spectacular Gannets, the largest British sea birds (and the only colony of gannets on the mainland of England)