So far so good - the ship was, in the public areas, in satisfactory condition considering the now fairly prolonged period out of use although of course there was little sign of her original interior fittings. Throughout there was a fairly strong musty smell, perhaps dampness, but certainly on the face of it nothing a decent airing and the circulation of clubbers coming and going wouldn't speedily resolve. The real fun of exploring both the TUXEDO ROYALE and the TUXEDO PRINCESS though is seeing behind the scenes, where there hasn't really been that much change in the last 20 years. Right forward on the car deck level for example is a section used for storage, where one can still find the green-painted deck with car lanes marked out. Opening one of the normally locked doors from the aft lobby, one enters an eerie, dark world where the ship is once again a cross-channel steamer, with Sealink-era signage advising passengers of the car deck level and staircase they are on, pointing up to the passenger spaces or down to the cabins below, beneath the car deck. Following the latter, we descended into the darkness with a warning from our host that rats were commonplace! Shining a torch against a sign on the bulkhead, a chalk-written notice wishes passengers a Happy Christmas from the crew and staff of Sol Lines! Generally though this was a dismal place to be, with the cabins essentially abandoned and left pretty much to rot. That said, it was not entirely dissimilar to some of the below car-deck cabins which have been ripped out or abandoned on some Southern European ferries.
We returned topside and made our way to the bridge. This is surprisingly intact, with much of the equipment still present, albeit in various degrees of disrepair. Given that only an external staircase and a low gate separated this from nearly two decades of drunken revellers, it is astonishing that the worst damage done to the various bridge telegraphs and dials is the smashing of the protective glass and perspex covers.
We left the TUXEDO ROYALE with mixed feelings - on the one hand it was a really gratifying experience to step aboard and see behind the scenes on a ship that could very easily have been scrapped twenty years ago at the end of her sea-going career. On the other, seeing any ship purposeless and essentially in long-term lay-up is quite sobering and one wonders what the future can possibly hold when she eventually leaves Middlesborough. Certainly there seems little likelihood of her re-opening in the present location and it is hard to think of anywhere else where such a nightclub could be a success. |
