2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all
2012 promises to be a very good year if you are a shipbuilder, so keep checking back to see the latest news

KATHARINE MITCHELL-UPDATE

KATHARINE II renamed KATHARINE MITCHELL

Yet more of the history of this fine old vessel continues to unfold with the latest story from one of her old Captains, telling of a life at sea in this old converted ex-Army ship doing the dangerous work of transporting explosives across the North Sea (Although you would never think it to read the Skipper and the Mate's stories)
you will be able to read them soon in the new books on the Leith built ships to be published soon.

ABEILLE NO 8-Update

ABEILLE NO8 seen here on a tow (right) with the tug Abeille No22 towing a floating dock in 1939



ABEILLE NO8 Ship No 226

This order from the famous French towing company Comp.De Remarquage & De Salivatage, was built to help the two new "Cunard Queens" manoeuvre in the port of La Harve before they took of on there trans Atlantic voyages.

Built and launched in 1936 only three years before World War II was to start, once the port had been over run by the Blitzkrieg of the German advance into France in 1940 this modern powerful tug was taken over as a war prize by the Germans and used by them in the war against the British, but 2 years to the day that she was commissioned into the German navy she was sunk by Allied war planes who bombed the port and any shipping in the port.

It would seem from photographs that I have received that she may have been salved after the end of the war and she went back to work. For more on ABEILLE No8 visit the Leith Shipyards website.
Now seems that she was not so lucky and she was indeed destroyed by bombs.

Should you know different then please get in touch with the website and we will bring her history right up to date

TENNYSON-Update

Builders Plate Ship No 449

The plate above is from the M.V.TENNYSON launched from the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb 1956

More at the website about this ship and lots of other updates on the ships built at Leith and more.

Update-THE MILLER

Ship No 194 THE MILLER is an old coaster which is thought to be a preserved ship so is she still around?

Seen here at Fowley, England in this photo from 2007 (Photo by Alan Faulkner)
Does anyone out there know if she is still around as the old ship looks pretty good in the photo above, she was launched from the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb in 1932 so is getting on for 80 years.
This little coaster is a little bit like the more well known Clyde "Puffers" that were/are around from the same time, for more on THE MILLER go to the website by clicking on the highlighted name.

M.V.SANDPIPER-Update

The M.V.SANDPIPER seen here during her trials in the Firth of Forth flying her Henry Robb flag.

M.V.SANDPIPER


Thanks to P&O Heritage we now have some photographs and information that was not previously available on some more of the ships built in the Leith Shipyards at Henry Robb

As you can see from the postcard above the SANDPIPER was a very nice looking vessel, built and launched in 1957 as Ship No 458 for the P&O subsidiary company of the General Steam Navigation Company Ltd, she was to serve with GSN Co Ltd until sold to a French shipping Company in 1966.

Tramp Ships The tramp ship was the taxi of the seas. With no regular schedules, it voyaged anywhere and everywhere, picking up and dropping off cargoes, mainly bulk cargoes such as coal, grain, timber, china clay and oil. It was the older and slower vessels that tended to find their way into this trade, hence the tag 'tramp', though new tramps were built, often with the owner's eye on chartering to the liner companies. In this new book by the well-known author Roy Fenton, their evolution is described over the course of more than 100 years, from the 1860s, when the steam tramp developed from the screw collier, until it was largely replaced by the specialist bulk carrier in the 1980s. An introduction looks at the design and building of tramps before going on to describe the machinery, from simple triple-expansion turbines to diesel engines. Their operation and management and the life of the officers and crews is also covered. The meat of the book is to be found in the 300 wonderfully evocative photographs of individual ships which illustrate the development of the tramp and its trades through the last years of the 19th century, the two world wars, and the postwar years. Each caption gives the dimensions, the owners and the builder, and outlines the career, with notes on trades and how they changed over a ship's lifetime. Design features are highlighted and notes on machinery included. This will become a classic work, to inspire all merchant ship enthusiasts and historians.

The M.V.SANDPIPER was to continue sailing for different owners until broken up in 1989 in the ship graveyard that is Gadani Beach, Pakistan

More about SANDPIPER on the website at http://www.leithshipyards.com/ 

KATHARINE II Ship No 160

KATHARINE II

KATHARINE II was a an order from the then known as “War Department” which is of course now known as the Ministry of Defence or MoD for short.


She was in fact the very first of many ships built for the services by the shipbuilders at the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb.
This ship was not for the Navy but was an order for the Army who had ships in the branch known as the Royal Army Service Corps.

KATHARINE II was to serve throughout the 6 years of World War II and she no doubt had many adventures supplying clandestine operations against the coasts of mainland Europe and perhaps landing Commando’s in strikes against the might of the “Third Reich”

She was used by the services for a further 14 years after the war and was then sold to Government contractors for further work.

Find out more about KATHARINE II on the website by clicking on the highlighted name.