Irene of Bridgwater @ Appledore Pool, Devon

Irene of Bridgwater is one of the last two West Country trading ketches still in existence (the other vessel is Bessie Ellen).  She has plied her trade across the Atlantic many times and had two major restorations in her long life time, the last being completed in 2008.
She is fitted close to her original rigging but with the addition of a powerful engine. 
Irene has had many different careers since her launch in 1907 in Bridgwater, Somerset, Built by F.J. Carver and Son, she is a “West Country trading ketch,” a fine seagoing ship designed to be beached along riverbanks so loads could be easily transferred to carts drawn by horses; goods were then sent off to small communities up and down the river valleys. Irene carried bricks, clay and tiles between England and Ireland. At some point she was fitted with an engine and then a different duty called. First in World War I (WWI) and then in WWII she was made a part of the British fleet of Merchant Ships.
By 1960 Irene was retired and resold several times. Within five years she had been abandoned and forgotten.
In 1965 Irene was in a severe state of disrepair, but not without the ability to charm at least one person. Dr Leslie Morrish bought her for an amount that would barely buy you a second hand car today and spent 15 years restoring her, eventually making her initially  into a houseboat of sorts for his family in Middlesex, England.
For much of the 1980s and ’90s Irene was a media darling. Having been lovingly restored to her former glory, she was often booked for fashion shoots, commercials and even movies. She portrayed the Flying Dutchman in the epic film about composer Richard Wagner. Irene appears briefly somewhere behind Johnny Depp in the film Pirates of the Caribbean.
 By the ’90s Irene was doing exclusive charters, crossing the Atlantic and hosting guests such as Mick Jagger and Pierce Brosnan. But in 2003 all that changed. She was anchored at Marigot, St. Martin on the night of May 22, when a fire started near the stern, It quickly spread to the entire ship, climbed the rigging and consumed the masts. The fire raged for eight hours, a fire vessel attended to her, but eventually Irene sank right to the bottom of the Marigot harbour.
An underwater survey showed the fire had taken the decks, the deck beams, the frames and inner planking. Certainly insurance-wise she was a total write-off. There was very little hope she would ever sail again.
But Dr Leslie Morrish  had her raised from the seabed and had a temporary plywood deck fitted to hold her together. This made it possible to tow her back to England in the Lynher river where she was rebuilt over the next 4 years. 
She made another Atlantic crossing in 2012.