During 1977 the late Earl Mountbatten of Burma instigated the first HMS Cavalier Trust to save the ship from being scrapped.
Cavalier was bought for £65,000 and towed from Chatham to Portsmouth by naval tugs on 11-12th October 1977. On Trafalgar Day, 21st October, she was formally handed over to the Trust and left Portsmouth under tow of commercial tugs for Southampton where it was intended for her to become a floating museum dedicated to the destroyers and men lost in battle during World War II. She was opened to the public in August 1982 but later sold to become the centre piece of Brighton's new marina. HMS Cavalier was next offered a new home with South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council. In 1987 she moved to Hebburn where she was to be part of a new museum celebrating Tyneside's long ship building history and the area's strong Navy association. Alas, the plans were never realised and Cavalier was left to languish in a lonely, derelict dry-dock...
The offer of a home in a Malaysian theme park was an improvement to the terrible fate she would have suffered at the hands of a scrap dealer. However, for Britain's last World War Two destroyer to finish up so far from home was unacceptable to many.
