Unbelievably, in 1972, the MV Mi Amigo was broadcasting again. A radio enthusiast had bought the ship from the scrapyard and, to cut a long story short, the ship was towed out to sea off Holland and completely refitted there by enthusiasts, including the daunting task of the erection of a massive aerial. Even the Radio Caroline organisation thought these people were mad, and kept their distance. When it first took to the air, the station called itself Radio 199, but having proved its capabilities the Radio Caroline identity was used once again. It managed to broadcast with a strong enough signal to be picked up in the UK and much of Europe.

There were other ships broadcasting from Dutch waters to the UK, too, the best known perhaps being Radio North Sea International. The difference with Radio Caroline this time was that because there was now so much pop music on the airwaves (and perhaps also because the ship was manned by a bunch of people generally branded as "hippies" or "drop-outs"), they took to broadcasting an amount of "progressive" rock music. Until the late sixties, pop albums were simply compilations of singles, with the appalling B-sides mixed between, but a new type of music began to emerge. Bands like King Crimson, Moody Blues, Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes were producing albums of music never designed to be released as singles. Over the years, dedicated album music has become known as "rock" music (don't confuse that with "Rock & Roll"!) but at that time it was something completely new. Only on Radio Caroline could you hear strange dreamy or heavy music never destined for the charts but beautiful to listen to.

Radio Caroline ran on a shoe-string. They were on and off the air, with all sorts of technical problems, and shortages of fuel and supplies. Air time was sometimes shared with sponsored Dutch or Belgian broadcasts which helped to pay the bills.

The Dutch authorities eventually followed the British lead, and changed their laws to eliminate offshore radio. But Radio Caroline was not prepared to be beaten. The Mi Amigo slipped anchor and returned to the UK coast. Whilst it was necessary to remain outside territorial waters, a shallow enough location for mooring was found off Frinton.

The Mi Amigo became a legend, and everybody thought that free radio broadcasting good music was here for ever.

Broadcasts continued until 1980, when in severe weather the Mi Amigo broke anchor (not for the first time!) and ran onto a sand bank. The ship took water and slowly sank.

Many plans were hatched to refloat the ship, which sat there for years with the tall aerial standing up from the water as a monument to offshore radio, but the ship had filled with sand and little could be done.

The mast finally collapsed into the sea in 1986, and the ship was subsequently blown up by marines as it was said to be a hazard to shipping.

The end. Or was it . . .

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