Blog at the Ballast

Today I started to scan in pictures in batches.  I've begun with the 'As' and the images that are in printed photo format rather than the negatives and slides.  The first of these is the ss Adrastus below. The Adrastus was built by Scotts Greenock in 1923 for the steamship company A Holt & Co.  The records of Holt & Co. are held...

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Today's cheeky chappy is the figurehead of the ss Davaar.  Built by the  London & Glasgow Engineering & Iron Shipbuilding Co. and launched in 1885 as a passenger cargo vessel.  She was owned by the Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Co. More details are available from the Clydebuilt database here. There are also plenty of mentions of the Davaar in this publication about Campbeltown Steamers...

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Today's photo is a little more abstract as it just shows the rigging and mast of the Magdalene Vinnen.  This was a four masted barque, built in Germany and launched from Kiel in 1921. Like the Padua, she was given to the Soviet Union in 1945 as war reparation and renamed the Sedov.  She is still in working operation today, used as a...

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First photo of 2010 and I've chosen the SS Charmer. This was an American built ship, originally called the "Premier" and built in 1887 in San Francisco for the the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company.  She was built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, and was two hundred feet long. She was renamed the "Charmer" in 1892 when she moved to Canada following a collision...

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Now that 2009 is over, I've been pulling together some statistics on this blog, our website and also our flickr pages for the year.  Overall, I'm very happy with how our online presence has developed over the year and I plan to continue blogging (hopefully more frequently), with more posts about the practical side of our work and participate in Flickr more actively....

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Today's photo is of the Isle of Skye paddle steamer. I liked the close up of the paddle wheel and the fact that you can see the detail of the people on board which makes a change from the usual remote image of a boat from afar. The Isle of Skye was originally launched as the PS Madge Wildfire by S McKnight in...

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