ScaleScenes Clyde Puffer conversions?

[KeithMacdonald]

I've downloaded and printed a copy of the ScaleScenes Clyde Puffer. So far so good. But I've been worrying it might not be "prototypical" to have one in a West Country dockside railway setting. Or the Rivet Police might have a go at me. Especially if I called it Vital Spark. So I was delighted to find this about VIC72:
 

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 GOVERNMENT SERVICE
 On Naval service until transfer to the Admiralty at Devonport in 1947. In 1967, one year before she was sold into private hands, she was converted to diesel power.  She has also had the classic "funnel to aft of the wheelhouse" conversion, probably done at the same time as the engine.
    
 When purchased by Archie McArthur at Inveraray, it was intended that she be renamed as "Vital Spark" in honour of the puffer of Para Handy fame. However, a fisherman had already registered that name for his fishing boat and so "Eilean Easdale" officially became  "Vital Spark of Glasgow". The vessel is currently powered by a 340bhp Saab engine which is believed to be that with which she was re-engined from steam in 1967.    She has been extensively restored and is now moored alongside at Inveraray Pier on Loch Fyne as part of the "Invererary Maritime Experience"  

 

Ref : https://puffersandvics.org/VIC72_eileaneasdale.htm

 

 

Should I reverse the locations of the wheelhouse and funnel, and shorten the funnel?

 

https://scalescenes.com/product/t030b-clyde-puffer/

 

 

 

 

[Georgeconna]

The puffers had all different quirks, Lots had Funnels in front of the Wheelhouse, Take a quick google look at images. A Talle Funnel Gives more character too.

 

Tis up to you, your model. Even give it a WC name!

 

[Nick Holliday]

It's certainly OK to have a Clyde Puffer in a Devon location. In Archive Magazine Issue 7 there is an article about Combe Martin and its port, and for over forty years, from 1897 to 1940,  the Irwin family from Combe Martin operated a Puffer, which they called "Snowflake". She plied her trade mainly on the Bristol Channel, carrying all sorts of goods including coal from South Wales and the Forest of Dean. I attach a very poor snapshot from a photo in the magazine, as a taster.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Nick Holliday
Wretched autocorrection corrected!

[KeithMacdonald]

@Nick Holliday

Thanks for that, it's reassuring.

 

It reminds me of a conversation with my late father-in-law (a Harbour Master). I was wondering why most Cornish metal ore (tin, copper, etc) was smelted in Wales. He explained : it took something like 11 tons of finest Welsh anthricite to smelt one ton of metal ore. So it usually made more sense to move the metal ore to South Wales instead of shipping coal for smelting to Cornwall. One trip instead of 11.

 

But the ship that had shipped the ore had to come back with something, like the coal you just mentioned. :-)

 

 

[KeithMacdonald]

More reassurance, and evidence to present to the Rivet Police when challenged (m'lud)
 

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Auld Reekie
On Naval service until April 1944 when she was converted to a water carrier. In January 1945 she moved to Antwerp and in 1947 she transferred to the admiralty, serving at Devonport
https://puffersandvics.org/VIC27.htm

 

Glenshira
In 1986 she was bought by Pounds Marine of Bedhampton, again the same year sold to D-Tect Security Ltd of Plymouth and the following year on to their sister company Decect Sea Enterprises. In 1990 she was bought by a Maurice Saunders of Yeoford in Devon. Finally, in 1993 she was acquired by Marine Charter Ltd of Southampton, who, as far as is known, owned her until she was scrapped at Holyhead in 2004.

https://puffersandvics.org/Glenshira.htm

 

Anyone else wondering why a security firm would want an old Clyde Puffer?

 

[KeithMacdonald]

@Nick Holliday

 

Moore on your Snowflake ;-)

 

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A familiar sight along the coast between Combe Martin and Ilfracombe, was the Snowflake, a steam powered Clyde Puffer; a class of boat constructed with a vertical boiler, to save on length, for navigating the Scottish canals. She was built in Glasgow in 1893 as the Maid of Lorn and was registered as 73.3 tons with a length of 66' (the maximum that could fit into the locks). She was wrecked off Iona in 1896, repaired, and sold to flour merchants Hoskin, Trevithick and Polkinhorne in Hayle, Cornwall, who renamed her Snowflake after their brand of flour. She proved too small for their needs and was sold to the Irwin family of Combe Martin in 1897. For the next 50 years she carried coal, building materials and even fresh produce, i.e. Combe Martin strawberries, along and across the Bristol Channel. This picture (left) is probably the Snowflake coming into Hele Bay in the 1920's. She went ashore at Lester Point in 1912 and it is said that after a visit to Hele in the 1920’s, when she was holed, she used Larkstone Beach for coal deliveries instead. She hit a rock off Little Hangman in 1936 and was beached in Watermouth Cove (below right). Her Captain then, James Irwin, is said to have remarked "I know every rock in the Bristol Channel; and that was one of them". She was sold by the Irwin’s in 1940 but remained in the area, working as a water supply boat for the Armed Forces, until she went to the Greek Islands in 1946. She was beached in 1953 in Piraeus but was still registered, in the former Yugoslavia, in the 1960's.

 

Only 67 years old!

 

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"Never was a more tubby, grubby, quaint and comic little ship. She is about 60’ long, slab-sided, with bow and stern, alike rounded, sitting down well aft. A tall mast, an enormous smokestack, a pile of superstructure, which after all is only meant to house the master at the wheel, and you have the Snowflake. Before 1914 she was ‘The Strawberry boat’, when every summer she used to run hard quick passages to Swansea to carry vast quantities of the world’s most delicious berries to the market....A famous trio of brothers, the Irwin's, owned and sailed the Snowflake...Says Cap’t Irwin at sea one day ‘I know every rock in the Bristol channel’; and then, as the Snowflake struck and bounced off -’That’s one of them’" (Boyle & Payne 1952 p 215-6)

 

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"Capt. J R. Pile gives the following stories: Captain Irwin was always a great one of getting in around the coast, dodging the tide when it was contrary. Coasters reckoned he had struck every rock in the Channel in the course of these exploits. On one occasion a sea lifted the Snowflake and dropped her stern down on to a rock over which the Captain had no doubt often sailed on calmer days. On this occasion the little ship had a propeller blade curled up and the tail of the shaft bent upwards insomuch that it could not turn. The Snowflake had to be towed to Appledore then. ... His nickname was "Tuttery", because he stuttered. Probably in calm moments he could say "Stop her!" or "Full astern!" without trouble, but once when coming in to Lydney Pier a little eddy or a twist of current began to take the ship bow on to the pier. The Captain applied his mouth to the speaking tube which led to his brother in the engine room, say ten feet way. "S - S - S - S" he stuttered, but couldn't get out the all-important "Stop her!" The Snowflake collided with the pier full-butt. The poor engineer was thrown violently on to his heap of coal and the Snowflake's bow got a great dent which she bears to this day. At that the Captain's tongue loosened and down through the skylight he said to his prostrate brother, "Bump-oh, you b .......!" VC Boyle, February 1950; Addendum from VC Boyle, 1951:

 

And to think that Neil Munro made up stories for "Para Handy".

 

Pictures here:

https://johnhmoore.co.uk/hele/coal_boats.htm