Historic ship rescue abandoned for virtual version

The "Virtual Viola" has been produced by Glasgow School of Art

Plans to return an Edwardian trawler to its home port have been abandoned in favour of producing a virtual version of the ship.

A trust had been set up to raise the £3.5m required to bring the Viola back from the South Atlantic to be restored and put on display in Hull.

The plan has now been cancelled "as a result of the escalation in costs", the trust said.

Instead a "Virtual Viola" has been created by the Glasgow School of Art.

The digital version will be housed in the city's renovated Maritime Museum when it reopens next year.

Paul Escreet, chair of the Viola Trust, said: "It will always be a huge disappointment that rocketing costs meant we were unable to bring the Viola home in her physical form, but we are all immensely impressed with the work of Glasgow School of Art in taking the contents of our substantial archive to create Virtual Viola.

"We are grateful to all the supporters of the Viola Trust whose contributions helped us with the overall project."

The ship was built in Beverley in 1906 and was pressed into service to help defend the UK during the First World War.

It later was used as a whaling ship and was eventually abandoned on a beach on South Georgia.

The vessel was the target of Argentinian scrap metal merchants in 1982, who landed on the island and raised their country's flag triggering the Falklands War.

The Viola lies abandoned on the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic

Former Hull Labour MP Alan Johnson, who is patron of the Viola Trust, said the ship's history was important to the city.

"There's nobody in Hull who doesn't know someone who is associated with the fishing industry – either they went to sea or they were involved in the processing," he said

"Viola epitomises all of that and is one more aspect of a proud heritage of a great city."

Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.

Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices