Clyde puffer

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.

Characteristics

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.

History

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.

Puffers in fiction

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.

Surviving puffers

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.

References

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

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Characteristics

History

Puffers in fiction

Surviving puffers

External links

References