The Lydia Eva is moored on the South Quay and is the only surviving steam drifter of the fleet that once made Great Yarmouth one of the busiest fishing ports in Britain. She is preserved and open for visits, and climbing aboard gives an immediate sense of how cramped and hard the life of a North Sea herring fisherman actually was.
The engine room is the highlight — the triple-expansion steam engine is the same one that drove her through the herring grounds for nearly a decade. The wheelhouse, the fish hold, and the crew quarters are all accessible. It is a small but genuinely affecting piece of maritime history, and the volunteers who look after her are knowledgeable and enthusiastic.