RADIO Caroline is silenced, but not sunk.

The legendary pirate radio station ceased offshore broadcasting on November 5 1990, on the eve of the 1990 Broadcasting Act. The legislation was a broadside that sank Caroline more effectively than any hurricane ever managed. Piracy died that day. A station called Radio Caroline continues online, but it is legal, land-bound, and respectable. It will never shiver anyone’s timbers.

Caroline, though, was a ship as well as a station. Many people assume that the Caroline vessel, MS Ross Revenge long go went to the breaker’s yard. Not so. She is still very much afloat, and now basking in a promising future, as well as that legendary past. In August [CHECK], Ross Revenge moved from Tilbury Docks to a permanent mooring in the Blackwater Estuary, a mile off the Bradwell shoreline. It was here that I was given a guided tour.

Something has happened to the ship in the quarter century since the last regular DJ walked away from the studio. She has turned into a floating museum piece. The Ross Revenge is a time warp, a Mary Celeste of music.

The broadcasting studio is preserved in aspic, as is the immaculate library of vinyl LPs – the DJs’ housekeeping was often quite chaotic, but the records were handled and catalogued with veneration. Bridge, cabins, engine room, saloon, are all unchanged since the days f piracy. Even the kennel, home to the ship’s dog Raffles (a stray fished out of the water) is as it was in days of yore.

It suddenly hits you. The Ross Revenge has turned from maverick bad girl of the seas into living history, a monument to one of the most powerful legends of the Swinging Sixties. The most striking factor of all, is her survival. After all she has been through, she is still afloat.

Her state of preservation is thanks to a dedicated team, the Radio Caroline Support Group. Their members range from maritime experts like Andy Wood, of Leigh, who used to run a tugboat company, to Peter Smith, from Maldon, who joined the Caroline crew as a teenager, and has “just sort of stuck around like a limpet ever since.”

Preserving a ship is an expensive business but the group has never lacked for funds. “People just keep giving us money,” says Peter. “The name Radio Caroline makes some sort of deep connection to people. Everyone wants to see her looked after.” Even the policeman who led the 1989 armed raid on Ross Revenge has privately confessed himself a fan, and made a contribution.

The Ross Revenge certainly does exert a certain magic, even from a distance across the water, and it is not just because of her colourful history. As Andy’s boat approaches the old ship at her Bradwell moorings, he draws attention to her visual appeal and the graceful way she rides the water. “Her lines are so beautiful. She feels right.”

Beautiful maybe, but it is not a frail beauty. The Ross Revenge, originally a deep sea fishng trawler, was built to stay afloat, whatever. She had to have the structure to withstand the open seas of the north Atlantic for months on end.. Even the most rumbustious DJ couldn’t compete with those waters n terms of his ability to inflict damage on a ship. “She was built to last and last is what she did,” says Peter.

Built in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1966, the ship took her title from her original owners, the Ross fisheries company. In 1983 she was sitting in a breaker’s yard in Scotland – the first of a number of near-death experiences – when she was snapped up to become the third Radio Caroline ship. Her predecessor, the MV Amigo, had foundered in a storm in the North Sea.

Her adventures in the following years, witnessed at first hand by Peter, included riding out the 1987 hurricane (Ross Revenge lost her 300ft mat to the wind), stranding on the deadly Goodwin Sands, and an armed police raid during which key broadcasting equipment was removed.

All these adventures helped to swell the Radio Caroline legend, and to turn the Ross Revenge into one of the most famous ships in the world. The old girl has one hell of a past.

But she also has a future. Andy may be drawn by her beautiful lines, but the feature that most landlubbers will notice is the brand new 100ft radio mast rising from the Ross Revenge’s decks. Like so much else, the mast is a gift from an admirer. “The company which built the mast gave it to us for free,” says Peter.

The mast is a visible declaration that Radio Caroline will soon be back in the offshore broadcasting business, albeit from quiet Essex river estuary rather than the North Sea. She still has to face a sea of red tape. “There is a lot of bureaucracy in the way, but we will get there,” says Peter.

Free from storms natural and political, offshore Radio Caroline could finally become a permanent fixture. The mooring belongs to another outfit with a name from the past, the Tollesbury and West Mersea Native Oyster Company.

“We have this mooring indefinitely, for as long as we behave ourselves,” says Peter. “And it’s a good place to be. Essex always was the traditional heartland of Radio Caroline.”

Radio Caroline: Timeline:

1964: Pirate radio ship MV Amigo, renamed MV Caroline, begins broadcasting from international waters off Felixstowe. The aim is to break BBC and record companies’ grip on popular music. DJ Simon Dee is the first voice heard.

1965 Ten million people listen to Radio Caroline every day 1966 Caroline loses anchor and runs aground on Frinton beach 1966 Radio Caroline director Oliver Smedley tried and acquitted for gunshot murder of his partner Reginald Calvert 1980 Radio Caroline ship Amigo sinks in storm, without loss of life.

1983 Broadcasts begin from Ross Revenge 1987 Caroline loses mast in hurricane 1989 Police raid removes or destroys vital broadcasting equipment, Caroline caries on broadcasting, using hidden spare parts 1990 Final offshore broadcast.

1991 Ross Revenge loses anchor and drifts onto Goodwin Sands, but is salvaged.

2007 Ross Revenge docked at Tilbury 2014 50th anniversary of Radio Caroline. Ross Revenge gains permanent moorings in River Blackwater.