Clyde puffer
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Fascination with the puffers still continues. |
The
Clyde puffer is essentially a type of small
steamboat which provided a vital supply link around the west coast and
Hebrides islands of
Scotland, stumpy little
cargo ships that have achieved almost mythical status thanks largely to the short stories
Neil Munro wrote about the
Vital Spark and her captain
Para Handy.
Characteristically these boats had bluff bows, crew's quarters with table and cooking stove in the focsle, and a single mast with derrick in front of the large hold, aft of which the funnel and ships wheel stood above the engine room while the captain had a small cabin in the stern. When publication of the
Vital Spark stories began in
1905 the ships wheel was still in the open, but later a wheelhouse was added aft of the funnel giving the puffers their distinctive image. Their flat bottom allowed them to beach and unload at low tide, essential to supply remote settlements without suitable piers. Typical cargoes could include coal and furniture, with farm produce and gravel sometimes being brought back.
The puffers developed from the
gabbert, small single masted sailing barges which took most of the coasting trade. The original puffer was the
Thomas, an iron canal boat of
1856, less than 66 ft (20 m) long to fit in the
Forth and Clyde Canal locks, powered by a simple steam engine without a condenser so that it "puffed" with every stroke. As it drew fresh water from the canal there was no need to economise on water use. By the
1870s similar boats were being adapted for use beyond the canal and fitted with condensers so that they no longer puffed, but the name stuck. A
derrick was added to the single mast to lift cargo.
From this basic type of puffer three varieties developed:
inside boats continued in use on the Forth and Clyde canal, while
shorehead boats extended their range eastwards into the
Firth of Forth and westwards as far as the
Isle of Bute and from there up the length of
Loch Fyne, their length kept at 66 ft (20 m) to use the canal locks. Both these types had a crew of three. Puffers of a third type, the
outside boats, were built for the rougher sea routes to the Hebrides islands with a crew of four and the length increased to 88 ft (27 m) still allowing use of the larger locks on the
Crinan Canal which cuts across the
Kintyre peninsula. There were more than 20 builders in Scotland, mainly on the Forth and Clyde canal at
Kirkintilloch and
Maryhill,
Glasgow.
During
World War I these handy little ships showed their worth in servicing warships, and were used at
Scapa Flow, and for
World War II the Admiralty placed an order in
1939 for steamships on the same design, mostly built in
England, with the class name of VIC. After the war a number of VICs came into the coasting trade.
The
Innisgara was fitted with an internal combustion engine in
1912, and while puffers generally were steam powered, after World War II new ships began to be
diesel engined, and a number of VICs were converted to diesel. The coasting trade to serve the islands was kept up by the Glenlight Shipping Company of
Greenock until in
1993 the government withdrew subsidies and, unable to compete with road transport using subsidised ferries, the service ended.
The short stories which
Neil Munro first published in the
Glasgow Evening News in 1905 appeared in the newspaper over twenty years and achieved widespread fame, with collections issued in book form from 1931 still in print today. With the continuing popularity of these tales, the puffers became film stars in
The Maggie, and
Para Handy with his
Vital Spark was the subject of three popular
BBC television series dating from 1959 to 1995.
A small number of puffers survive as conservation projects, though most have diesel engines,
The
VIC 32 is the last surviving coal fired steam powered puffer, based at The Change House,
Crinan. Steam sailings have been available to the public from 1979, latterly as cruises on the
Caledonian Canal. Since 2004 she has been undergoing extensive refitting at
Corpach Boatyard at the west end of the canal near
Fort William, funded by donations and lottery funds, with a new boiler due for delivery by Christmas 2005 and hopes of being in steam again around March 2006.
VIC 27 renamed
Auld Reekie, which starred as the
Vital Spark in the third BBC TV
Para Handy series, is berthed at Crinan, but deteriorating due to lack of funds.
VIC 72, renamed
Eilean Eisdeal, continued in operation as the last of the true working "puffers" into the mid 1990s. She is now accessible to the public, alongside the
Arctic Penguin at the
Inveraray Maritime Museum, and continues to make sailings. The
Spartan, another diesel engined "puffer", is on display at the
Scottish Maritime Museum at
Irvine. The
Pibroch was built at
Bowling, Scotland, in 1957 as a diesel engined boat for the Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd, and since 2002 has been lying at
Letterfrack,
County Galway,
Ireland, in desperate need of restoration.
There have also been reproduction puffers built to a smaller size, most recently the
MV Mary Hill for tourist traffic on the Forth and Clyde canal.
*
Save the Puffer VIC 32 Puffer Preservation Trust
*
Highland Steamboat Holidays (VIC 32)*
The Puffer - Eilean Eisdeal*
*
facts
*
Ardmaleish (MV Mary Hill)*
The Light in the Glens (book review)
*
Clyde Puffers - Hand Carved Wooden Models*
Melbridge Dock - Clyde Puffers*Donald, Stuart,
In the Wake of the Vital Spark, Johnston & Bacon Books Ltd. 1994, ISBN 0-7179-4604-5 (ISBN 0-7179-4605-3 paperback)
*McDonald, Dan,
The Clyde Puffer, David & Charles (Publishers) ltd. 1977, ISBN 0-7153-7443-5
*Maritime Scotland, Brian Lavery, B T Batsford Ltd., 2001, ISBN 0-7134-8520-5
