MV Yorkshire Belle (1947)

The MV Yorkshire Belle is a pleasure cruiser based in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. She was built by Cook, Welton & Gemmell as a replacement for the original Yorkshire Belle, that was lost in the Humber estuary during the Second World War after hitting a magnetic mine, sinking with all hands.

Summary
Yorkshire Belle weighs 70 tonnes gross and has a length of over 24 m, a breadth of nearly 6 m and a depth of 1.7 m. With two eight-cylinder Gardner engines each giving 152 hp she can carry up to 198 passengers. The ship was fitted out with her diesel engines in 1951 and is the last of six pleasure boats from Bridlington that operated between the 1920s and the 1950s.

She is fully licensed with a lounge bar and is equipped with a public commentary system for pleasure cruises and sightseeing tours along Flamborough Head and the Yorkshire coast. As well as cruises to Flamborough Head, there are also special extended cruises to the Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve offering close-up views of the cliffs, lighthouse and caves.

She was bought in 1982 by her current owner Mr Peter Richardson, who complained in 2007 about the UK's implementation of EU law restricting the Yorkshire Belle from sailing to Scarborough from Bridlington. Under the EU ruling, trips for Class C vessels were not allowed to go more than 15 mi from a point of refuge, but the UK implemented it as no more than that distance from their home port. Richardson stated that the ship had regularly sailed between the two Yorkshire ports for the a period of 15 years up until the ruling.

Awards
In 2008, she won Winner of The Sunday Times Best Boat Trip in Britain and was highly commended in the Remarkable East Yorkshire Tourism Awards for 2017.