Leith Ship & The Pirates

 

 

 

 

The Ex Wilson Line Leith Built MV SORRENTO as Al Marjan receiving assistance from the U.S. Navy in this old released photograph taken from USS Whidbey Island

The ex MV SORRENTO was to go on and have many different names over her life span of 43 years as a useful working vessel, same ship with a different name traded around some of the many smaller and somewhat less reputable shipping lines, she was sold on by the Gracechurch line to be re-named as Waybridge in 1983 next in line was the name of Five Stars three years later in 1986 only to change her name again six years on from being called Five Stars she then took on the name Sea Princes in 1992 to trade under this name before yet another name change this time in 1997 to be named as the MV ALBATROS, before she was to take her last and final known name of AL MARJAN in the year 2000.
As the Al Marjan she would end up captured by Somalia Pirates in 2007, read more about the amazing ships history at the Leith Shipyards website



 

 

 

 

 

MV ARGOS Shipwreck

The MV ARGOS was Ship No 216 from the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb Ltd, and we have just been sent some more information and photographs about her and her eventual fate in Argentina.

This was another one of the special ships built at the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb Ltd, she was of a design that the shipyard was becoming very adept at and for work on the Tidal Rivers of South America.

The MV ARGOS was destined for work on the famous River Plate in Argentina. Her owners were Compagnia Argentina de Lanches, Buenos Aires, which was the South American branch of The Forestal Land, Timber & Railways Company of London.

The wreck of the MV ARGOS


You can read a whole lot more about this shipwreck at the Leith Shipyards website

 

Best in Britain

Someone sent me this link to an article in today's Edinburgh Evening News and I just could not resist the temptation to have a wee playful dig at the rest of Britain.

Edinburgh Castle

This of course is not news if you are from this area of the country!

The best looking and best evolved people in Britain live in Edinburgh, Leith and the south-east of Scotland. Outrageous! How can you possibly say that! Biased? Not at all. Just a statement of fact – and a story that goes back 10,000 years.

Don’t believe me then read on in this article from the Edinburgh Evening News.

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/health/why-edinburgh-residents-are-likely-to-be-blue-eyed-1-3577755


One of the most striking inherited traits is massively present in Edinburgh and the south-east where a staggering 57 per cent of all people have blue eyes. That is the highest in Britain where the average is 48 per cent.


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But here is the other side of the coin so to speak!

The same might be true for the other dominant trait in Edinburgh and the south-east. Red hair. Nobody needs a DNA test to tell if they have red hair, just a mirror. But what is hidden is what causes children to inherit the glorious spectrum of tints from strawberry blonde to deep auburn. And that is the recessive gene variant, what both parents must carry if they are to have children with red hair.
In Edinburgh, the Lothians and the Borders, 40 per cent of all people carry it. It is the highest proportion in Britain, which itself has the highest number of carriers in the world per capita.

New York hotel deals Perhaps migration provides an answer. The Northern Isles, the Hebrides and the Atlantic 
coastlands saw significant Viking incursions and settlement after circa 800AD, and in the south-east of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons settled in numbers after circa 400AD. These in-migrations may have significantly diluted the red-hair variants present in the indigenous populations before those dates. And if that’s correct, then one of the most persistent bits of folk DNA about Vikings being redheaded will turn out to be wrong. And it may be significant that south-east Scotland appears to have had little Viking in-migration with comparatively few Norse place names and comparatively little ancestral DNA from Scandinavia.

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New Naval order for Clyde Shipbuilding

So we have some more good news on the shipbuilding front in Scotland at long last the steel is now being cut for the Royal Navy's new offshore patrol vessels, no mere small type of ships but the very latest in new technology at around 2,000 grt's they are not small ships and will be capable of deployment worldwide.
They should keep some of the workforce (the little that is left) working at the upper Clyde shipyard of Scotstoun working at least until the designs are finalised for the Royal Navy's new type 26 Frigates which will be built at the same yard. This may or may not be such good news for the shipyard on the other side of the river at Govan only time will tell, as they continue with work on the second of the Aircraft Carriers being assembled in Scotland.
Be sure to visit the new Shipbuilding Library to find all your shipbuilding books now in a convenient form for you to download direct to your reader.

Work has started on a £348m contract for three Royal Navy warships at BAE Systems' yards at Scotstoun and Govan on the River Clyde in Glasgow.

The offshore patrol vessels will be known as HMS Forth, HMS Medway and HMS Trent. The first will be ready by 2017.

See more at the BBC website

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-29569528

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