VITAL SPARK, (ex-EILEAN EISDEAL, ex-ELSEDA, ex-VIC 72), was built by Brown's Shipyard, Hull, in 1944, and was sold out of naval service at Devonport Dockyard (where she had been a stores carrier) in 1968, and was then motorised and renamed ELSEDA, based at Troon as a cargo vessel. In 1972, she was bought by an owner based on the Isle of Mull, and worked around the islands dredging coal from sunken vessels. In 1984, she was sold to an owner of Easdale Island, near Oban, and was renamed EILEAN EASDEAL to run a inter-island cargo service around the Western Isles until 1994 (when the Scottish Office withdrew its subsidy for Scottish Shipping). In 2001, she was brought to the Inveraray Maritime Museum, where she still is, and in 2006, she was re-registered as VITAL SPARK, the name of the ficitional puffer that appeared in the Para Handy books by Neil Munro.
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