"Westcliffe Belle" Pleasure Boat, At Her Mooring Just To The West Of The Pier.

i work on this excursion boat in the school holidays i.remember the owners name was Eddie I spent most of my time pumping ou water which leaked through the wooden hull boats bow end hit the beach whilst we were getting passengers

My stepdad owned the Westcliff Belle in the 80s. She was far from seaworthy at the time, and he spent a lot of time & effort on trying to restore her. Sadly, he ran out of money before the project was complete and sold her on. I don't know what happened to her after that.

I have a fond but scary memory of the Westcliffe Belle. Back in about 1961, aged 16, I had my first ever holiday on my own and became friendly with the lovely old guy who ran her. He took mail out to the lightship and carried passengers. From memory, she ran on parrafin.
Anyway, we went out in good weather, it was flat calm, but on the way back the electrics failed, engine still running. The skipper told me to take the wheel and hold her on the present course while he went below to sort out the electrics. The only thing I had steered before that was a pushbike, and the only control I had was the wheel, had no idea where the throttle was.
Anyway, he was gone for a very long time, a thick sea mist came up and I just stood there wishing he would come back. Eventually I saw what I thought was another ship, coming straight at us out of the fog, I steered away from it violently and he then came up, very quickly, and took over. It turned out that the course set was a bit wrong and we had very nearly hit the lifeboat station at the end of Southend Pier. He wasn't phased at all, nor were the passengers, who were mainly sitting on the one and only Carley float, I was terrified.