Blog at the Ballast

The full programme for Renfrewshire's doors open days weekend is now available to download from the doors open days website here.

This is a screenshot of our entry in the programme:


The eagled eyed among you will note that we are said to provide a resume service for business archives!  This  looks to be another example of the pesky autocorrect at work and should of course read rescue service.

We are preparing our own leaflet to circulate locally and hope to welcome many people into our offices on the 11th.

The steamer Queen Mary is up for sale today in an online auction by Capital Boats, sale details here.  She was built by William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton in 1933.



There's a news article on STV about it here and in the evening times here.

The National Maritime Museum is looking for help with its Warship Histories Project.  They are looking to harness the knowledge their users have about their collections to enhance the existing information they have on over 20,000 British warships from about 1500 to 1950. This information includes:

The data includes the name, type and launch date of almost every British warship in the time period concerned. For many ships there is also data on the shipyard which built a vessel, and details of the service history and captains of the ship concerned. For some ships further technical details (for instance, construction materials or dimensions) are available.

However, it is not complete and they are going to work with wikipedia to capture knowledge from experts in the wider community.

You can read more about it on their blog.

Specification details are available from the Clydebuilt site here.

I think she now operates as a static leisure venue at Anderson Quay, known as The Ferry.

Today's photo is of the Rosslyn, a bucket dredger built by Lobnitz and Co. of Renfrew in 1912.


A bucket dredger is equipped with a bucket dredge, which is a device that picks up sediment by mechanical means, often with many circulating buckets attached to a wheel or chain. Very detailed information on bucket dredgers, how they work, their history and plans is available here.

Specification details are available from Clydebuilt database.