Blog at the Ballast

Today's photo is of the ferry Eilean Dubh built by James Lamont & Co., in Yard no. 375 in 1951 for the Kessock Ferry route. The Eilean Dubh was the first purpose-built vehicle ferry on the route. She was capable of carrying eight cars, with a small indoor passenger cabin. This photograph was taken at North Kessock in May 1959. ...

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Today's photo is a deck shot of passengers on board the SS Davaar, a passenger/cargo vessel built by London & Glasgow Engineering & Iron Shipbuilding Co. in 1885. The ship was used by the Campbeltown and Glasgow Steam Packet Joint Stock Company. There is a history of the company written by P Donald M Kelly available online ...

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Today's Friday photo is an image of a Midship Section plan that is part of the collection of plans we have for the British Corporation. We have scanned it so that it can possibly be used in our 25th anniversary publication which will be published by the end of the year. The plan is stamped A & J Inglis, Glasgow with a date...

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While hunting through the Bill Lind Collection, I found this lovely sequence of the vessel "Countess of Albane" being moved from Loch Awe to Loch Fyne where she made her way to the Clyde. The photos document every step of the process, from removing the deckhouse to turning the vessel onto the road in order to drive it to Loch Fyne. I've published...

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The Friday photo returns after a shamefully long absence! Things have been pretty busy recently with collections coming and going but we have a wonderful new volunteer who is going to scan in photographs from Bill's own collections which are an assortment of shipping and engineering images he collected.   The first batch come from a drawer entitled 'Clyde and West Coast' and...

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