Coasts of Clyde

The following embedded links take you to YouTube versions of the classic British Transport Films' promotional documentary 'The Coasts of Clyde'. It is loaded in three parts (presumably due file size, bandwidth or some other restrictions). If interested you can buy higher resolution copies of this film on DVD.

I think this film demonstrates why there is still a band of 'steamer enthusiasts' that have kept the last of the Clyde steamers, Waverley, going for the last 35 years (the ship has now been in operational preservation for significantly longer than it was in commercial service - 27 years). Those of us on the wrong side of 50 can still recall with some fondness the days when there was a fleet of steamers on the Firth of Clyde. Waverley has been the sole survivor of the breed since 1978. The film includes views of the Clyde paddle steamers Jeanie Deans, Caledonia, Jupiter and Waverley and a brief clip of Maid of the Loch, which is currently statically preserved at Balloch on Loch Lomond. There is a very brief glimpse of three passenger steamers alongside Rothesay pier at the same time, something that most certainly will not happen again (at 3 mins 35 seconds in part 2). (The nearest that you can get to the Clyde steamer fleet feeling nowadays is to visit the paddle steamer fleets of the Lakes of Geneva and Lucerne in Switzerland - but you don't get the open sea feel there). The Rothesay clip depicts part of the paddler Caledonia at the Craigmore (near) end of the pier, the turbine steamer Queen Mary II berthed at the middle berth (Berth2), on one of her regular 'Doon-the-Watter' sailings from Glasgow Bridge Wharf to the Kyles of Bute, and the Waverley berthing at the Ardbeg end of the pier, a berth that she has recently started to use again following the significant remodelling of Rothesay pier. There is some 'artistic licence' at work in the making of the film e.g. the sequence describing the passage through the famous 'Narrows' of the Kyles of Bute involves two different paddle steamers - the first part shows Jeanie Deans entering the narrow channel from the East Kyle (at 4:41), the Jupiter passing through it (at 4:50) and back to the Jeanie Deans exiting the Narrows and turning to port to head down the West Kyle to Tighnabruaich (at 5:04).

Incidentally, I think the Cunard Line vessel at the start of Part 1 is the liner Media, which was a product of the John Brown shipyard at Clydebank in 1947, the same year that the Waverley was built by A & J Inglis upstream at Pointhouse. The Media stayed with Cunard only to 1961 when she was sold to Italian interests. In 1989, by which time she was named Lavia, she was gutted by fire at Hong Kong (07/01/1989) while undergoing renovation (an uncanny repeat of the fate of the famous Clydebank-built Cunarder Queen Elizabeth in 1972). Lavia was towed to shallow water where she heeled over onto her side on a sandbank. She was righted and towed to Kaohsiung in Taiwan, arriving 17/06/1989 for demolition. This was around the time of my first visit to Hong Kong by I didn't see her there.


Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



It was in those days that my enthusiasm for the Clyde and its ships and shipyards and particularly its excursion steamers was born. It was an advantage, undoubtedly, that my best pal at the old Burgh Primary School in Rutherglen at that time was Robert Dalgleish, whose grandparents lived in Dunoon. We became juvenile members of the Clyde River Steamer Club in the mid 1960s and I am still a member of the 78 year old club. The picture below shows Rab and myself enjoying a sail on the paddle steamer Caledonia, leaning back on the hatch covering the companionway down to the crew accommodation, right up near the bow of the steamer. The date was the 18th May 1968 and the Caledonia was on a special charter that day to the Rutherglen West Parish Church where Rab and I were members of the 38th Glasgow Scout Troop. The sailing had started at the Bridge Wharf in Glasgow and visited the Kyles of Bute and Loch Riddon. Many years later, as a final year undergraduate, Rab based his degree thesis on a study of the economics of operating steamers on the Clyde. Sadly, the Caledonia was withdrwn from service at the end of 1969, an event that encouraged the formation of the Scottish Branch of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. Although it proved impossible to keep the Caledonia operational theBranch members were successful in preventing her demolition and, in 1972 she began a new career as a static bar and restaurant on the River Thames at the former Savoy Pier just upstream of Waterloo Bridge. She continued in that role until badly damaged by a fire in 1981. Unfortunately the prospect of returning her to the Clyde for restoration as a possible running mate for Waverley could not be brought to fruition. She was replaced on the Thames by another Clyde Steamer, none other than the turbine steamer Queen Mary that also features in the film. She remained in the role until 2009. The vessel is currently being transferred to La Rochelle in western France for use as floating hotel.

Robert Dalgleish and me on PS Caledonia, 18th May 1968

Stuart Cameron

Cowal Games Berth - and the 'new' Engineer.

The 'Cowal Games' at Dunoon (or the Cowal Highland Gathering to give the event its proper title) is always one of the busiest days in Waverley's year. In recent years it has begun with a direct Glasgow to Dunoon sailing followed by the ship doubling back to Greenock to pick up her normal Saturday excursion, albeit at later times. In 2009 Waverley used the side berth at Dunoon breakwater for the first time, rather than the end berth where she had been damaged following a heavy landing due to awkward weather and currents. The views below show her arriving at and leaving the 'new' berth on Saturday 29th August 2009. (Click on individual pictures for larger, sharper versions) Waverley departing from the inside (or RoRo) berth at Dunoon Breakwater, where she had called for the first time on Friday 28th August 2009. The two navigation buoys in the background between Waverley and the Cloch lighthouse mark the position of the substantially intact wreck of the Swedish bulk carrier Akka which was inbound to Glasgow in April 1956 with a cargo of iron ore for the Lanarkshire steel making furnaces when she hit the nearby Gantock Reef, ripping a gash along her side and causing her to sink quickly on the Dunoon Bank - sadly three of her crew were lost and three others subsequently died in hospital in Greenock. The wreck of the Akka is probably the favourite of divers on the Clyde. Departing Dunoon light (almost) to pick up her normal Saturday itinerary at Greenock Customhouse Quay. A view of the World's Last Seagoing Paddle Steamer passing the classic buildings on Dunoon's Victorian steamboat pier. At one time a viewing balcony spanned the two pier buildings - a good vantage point, sadly missed by Clyde steamer and ferry photographers. All the shipping services to Dunnon are busy on Cowal Games weekend - in this view Caledonian MacBrayne's ferry Saturn (left) had forsaken her normal Arran duties to accompany her quasi sister ship Jupiter and the passenger catamaran Ali Cat on the Gourock-Dunoon service while one of Western Ferries McInroy's Point - Hunter's Quay ferries can be seen on the extreme right. A very distant view of Waverley, 3-4 miles distant rounding Roseneath Point, heading back to Dunoon after picking up passengers at Greenock and Helensburgh, the latter town can be seen in the distance behind the paddler. Possibly with the lever of the main steam valve cotrolling the flow of steam to the high pressure cylinder of her triple expansion engine at a mark or two 'above the E', Waverley steams steadfastly back towards Dunoon for the second call of the day. In the background is the town of Gourock, its suburb of Ashton and Tower Hill. One of Waverley's main attractions is her triple expansion reciprocating engine, which is open to full public view. The engine was constructed by the firm of Rankin & Blackmore at the Eagle Foundry in Baker Street, Greenock and fitted to the ship at the Victoria Harbour in Greenock in the early part of 1947 after the new ship had been towed down the Clyde from the A & J Inglis shipyard at Pointhouse on the River Kelvin. With an indicated horsepower rating of 2,100, Waverley's engine is one of the largest and most powerful engines to be fitted into a British esturial paddle steamer. The low pressure cylinder is 66 inches in diameter and the stroke of the engine is 60 inches. The shipbuilders, A & J Inglis, built many paddle steamers in their 100 year history, supplying not just British coastal fleets but also substantial paddlers to fleets as far afield as South America (the Mihanovich and Entre Rios Railway fleets on the River Plate), Australia (Bay Steaners of Melbourne) and China (Swire's Yangtse River fleet). The engines for most of these paddlers were supplied by Inglis from their engineering workshops in Warroch Steet, which runs perpendicular to Anderston Quay in Glasgow and from the engine shops in the Pointhouse shipyard. After Inglis' amalgmation into the huge Harland & Wolff shipbuilding group, the Warroch Street works was part of H&W's large Finnieston Engine Works. By the end of World War II Inglis had stopped building reciprocating steam engines and, for its last few paddle steamers, subcontracted the manufacture of the engine to Rankin & Blackmore of Greenock, which continued to build that type of engine up to those supplied to Ferguson Brothers of Port Glasgow for the South African Railways & Docks steam tug J R More in the early 1960s. Coincidentally, Daniel Rankin and Edward Blackmore had set up their engineering business about the same time as brothers Anthony & John Inglis has set up their firm in the mid 19th Century. Similarly, the Greenock firm was taken over by a larger company, Lithgow's of Port Glasgow in their case, in the post WW1 rationalisation. Lithgow's was the largest family-owned shipbuilding company in the world about that time. Waverley's engine achieved a speed of 57 rpm, driving the ship at a speed of over 18 knots, when she ran trials over the Skelmorlie Measured Mile in the first few days of June 1947. Nowadays, the engine is normally run at a more economical speed of 40-44 rpm, giving the vessel a through-the-water speed of about 13-14 knots but, since the vessel's major rebuild in 2003, the engine has run at close to its original speed on a couple of occasions.

The following video shows Waverley's engine at high speed - the video is reproduced courtesy of Iain McCorkindale, one of the longest serving members of Waverley's engineering team. After serving for many years in the ship's boilerroom and as donkeyman, this week (Aug 2009) 'Corky' attained the qualifications to enable him to serve as Second Engineer. A great day for Corky and for the Waverley - I am sure than many of the ship's supporters will join in the congratulations.

In the evening, after returning from Tighnabruaich and Rothesay to Dunoon, Helensburgh and Greenock, the paddler heads back to Dunoon to pick up th large complement of passengers that had come down river from Glasgow in the morning. She is about to pass the large cruise liner Crown Princess, berthed at Greenock Ocean Terminal. Normally visiting cruise liners depart from Greenok between 18:00 and 20:00 in the evening but in August many of the departures are delayed to allow passengers to take in a performance of the world famous Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle. On this occasion Crown Princess departed from Greenock at 02:00 on Sunday 30th August.



Stuart Cameron