Name RML497

WESTERN LADY III was originally ordered for the Royal Navy on 27 August 1941 from Southampton Steam Joinery Ltd, Southampton, and was completed as RML 497 in July 1942 with a Fairmile B hull type. She served with the 62nd ML Flotilla at Portland until January 1944, when she was transferred to Kirkwall on anti-submarine target towing duties, and in August 1944, she was sent to Appledore.

She then joined the 69th ML Flotilla at Felixstowe and was eventually sold at Itchenor in 1947. Although she never fired her guns in anger, she was involved in a commando raid on the Channel Isles following D-Day. Her main duty was to rescue downed aircraft crew, especially if the weather conditions were too rough for RAF Air Sea Rescue launches.

She entered service with the Western Lady Ferry Service, as WESTERN LADY III, in that same year. She was withdrawn at Torbay, but returned to service from Swanage for Fairmile Classic Cruises in August 2007 running five cruises along the Dorset coast daily, apart from Tuesdays when a she took a day trip to Yarmouth (Isle of Wight). She only operated there for one season and by Jun 2009 had been impounded at Poole. She was then purchased by the Greenway Ferry Company, for service in south Devon and returned to Brixham on 26 June 2009.

After a refit at Polruan, Cornwall, and renamed THE FAIRMILE, the vessel started a service in July from Brixham and Torquay to Dartmouth and Greenway, after a very substantial refit. The decision to rename her FAIRMILE is to honour her origins and pedigree as a vessel of the Royal Navy seeing service during the Second World War as RML 497.

In October 2018 it was announced that planning permission was granted for the vessel to be located at The National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool. She will be barged approximately 400 nautical miles by sea from Southampton Water, arriving at Hartlepool marina where she will then be carefully craned into place alongside the National Museum and placed into a temporary building. Her relocation is in anticipation of a conservation programme to get her on permanent display telling the rich naval story of the coastal forces in the North Sea.

In June 2022, NMRN Hartlepool announced a major expansion project, taking over the adjacent retail park and developing it into brand new visitor galleries.  These will include a permanent dedicated home for RML 497.