One of the reasons why Dumbarton is a site for the Scottish Maritime Museum, apart from its shipbuilding history,  is the location there of a ship model experiment tank built in 1882 by Denny & Brothers to test new ship designs.

View of tank machinery:-

The day we visited there was no access beyond the doors:-

There was, though, a display of various bow types:-

The site still builds and tests wooden hull models:-

This poster shows two of the innovations Denny’s came up with, the steam turbine and stabilisers:-

William Denny & Brothers (known simply as Denny’s) was perhaps the best known Dumbarton shipyard and was a major employer in the town. When it shut down in 1963 it cast a palpable gloom over the town from which arguably it has never recovered.

The photograph below is of the shipyard in its heyday and along with the accompanying information (second below) is on display at the Scottish Maritime Museum building in Dumbarton.

Also on display there is a model of the shipyard in its location alongside Dumbarton Rock :-

The Dumbarton Football Stadium – home to the Sons of the Rock – now exists in the area where Denny’s fitting out dock lay. I’ll come later to the Denny Tank mentioned in the information below:-

The famous tea clipper Cutty Sark, now a visitor attraction in London, was built in Dumbarton, first at the yard of Scott and Linton but that firm went bankrupt before she could be completed and Denny & Brothers had to step in to finish the build.

There is a branch of the Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton and we visited it last June where the above information was displayed beside a model of the ship – as well as its cat’s head mascot:

It’s a pity that the Cutty Sark itself is on display in London* as it would be a great pull for visitors to Dumbarton if it were to be returned home.

*Not that it’s the original ship since a lot of it was destroyed by fire in 2007.

The Maid of the Loch is a paddle steamer which was the last largish vessel to cruise up and down Loch Lomond. It was apparently the last paddle steamer to be built in Britain, at the Glasgow shipyard of A & J Inglis.

For a while it had been tied up at a pier in Balloch at the foot of the Loch and trading as a floating restaurant.

Latterly it has been under refurbishment.

Last September various buildings and organisations in the West Dunbartonshire area held an open day. We took the opportunity to visit.

Access to the interior was by a somewhat precarious metal stairway. The inside was of course far from pristine due to the refurbishments. Some of the original fittings were still in evidence, though.

Ship’s Bell:-

Art  Deco style clock in saloon:-

There was a model in lego:-

And what I assume was an older model. However, I remember her colour as being totally white back in the day:-

One of the traditions of a cruise on the loch (or indeed “Doon the Watter” – see first paragraph in link) was a visit to “see the engines.” (The inverted commas are because some male passengers used this phrase as an excuse to go to a ship’s bar.)

Engines:-

I always find these ships’ engines fascinating especally when they are in motion and powering a ship.

One of the internal exhibits was the decoration of one of the ship’s paddle boxes:-

A bridge on the Neva (Troitskiy Bridge?):-

Sampsoniyevskiy Bridge on Bolshaya Nevka, St Petersburg:-

Building and Sampsoniyevskiy Bridge on Bolshaya Nevka:

Weaponry and, below, military vehicles, outside a military museum (of artillery.) Seen through rainy bus windows.

An old sailing ship alongside the Petrovskaya Embankment:-

The same ship from the Kutuzov Embankment across the River Neva. There is what looks to be a mosque in the background here:-

This is the Island Enforcer, moored off Kirkcaldy for a few days at the end of October. On the shipping websites she is described as an offshore construction vessel. She is not quite as Swiss Army Knife in looks as the Solitaire or Audacia of fond memory but still has some weird sticky out bits.

The first description I found of her was as a diving ship and I thought, “Isn’t that a submarine?” but she has been redesigned for offshore work.

More images of her can be found here.

Two more ships and an old favourite.

This is the cruise ship M S Rotterdam heading out of the River Forth last week en route to Invergordon! Apparently 100,000 cruise passengers dock at Invergordon every year, which is somewhat baffling. One of my work colleagues comes from Invergordon (as often as possible.)

This is the Rotterdam in the Netherlands six years ago (photo from Wikipedia.)

Just off Dysart is the rather rakish from of the cargo ship M S Troms Capella. She’s been hanging around for well over a week.

Here’s our old friend Solitaire from the same vantage point above Dysart harbour that I photographed the Troms Capella.

Behind her stern that’s North Berwick Law on the opposite shore.

You wait all your life to see one pipe-laying ship… and then two appear at once.

Solitaire has been joined by the Audacia. This was the pair of them yesterday afternoon.

Here is the Solitaire foreshortened.

And the Audacia aftshortened. (You can just see the Bass Rock in the background to the right.)

By this morning, when conditions were much hazier, they had swung around.

Here’s a close-up of Audacia from today.

The link to the Audacia above has a cracking picture of her as well as a couple of promo videos!

One of the interesting aspects of living in Kirkcaldy is the ever changing view out to sea. There are usually quite a few ships either at anchor or moving up and down the Forth.

For the last week one in particular has been prominent. Here it was along with another about a week ago.

As you can see the one on the left has a peculiar shape. The good lady remarked that it was the shipping equivalent of a Swiss Army knife what with all the bits hanging off it.

Here is a crop of the above.

The ship is still hanging around and I finally looked it up on a shipping movement website. It turns out it’s the Solitaire, the largest pipe laying vessel in the world.

I don’t know if it’s actually been laying any pipes.

This is a picture from the ships and harbours photos site.