MEDITERRANIAN

Ship No 503

She was to be the final ship to be built from the huge order from Ellerman Wilson Line.

The M.V. MEDITERRANIAN was another single screw diesel cargo vessel with a slightly less gross registered tonnage of 1459, with the same overall dimensions of her sister ship ATHENIAN at an L.B.P. of 280 feet, but she was 2 feet broader in the beam with a breadth of 47 feet and a design draught of 26 feet. This was the boom years for the shipyard owners.

She was launched into the waters of the River Forth on 20th of October 1968.

In what was to mark (unknown at the time) the last of the large ship orders for the Leith shipyards of Henry Robb. The famous Ellerman Line was being re-organised. You will be able to read a whole lot more about all the Ellerman Wilson Line ships built in Leith on the new website, online soon.

It was in this year 1968 that the Henry Robb Shipbuilding and Engineering Company took over the Caledon of Dundee shipbuilders to form an enlarged Company to be called Robb Caledon Shipbuilders Ltd. (Was this a wise move? Only time will tell) this was to give the combined company the largest shipbuilding capacity outside of the Clyde based shipyards in Scotland, employing around 3,200 skilled shipbuilders in its hay day.