AILSA TROON SHIP YARD
Revisiting the glory days of shipbuilding
Any industry that’s left in Troon tends towards the lighter variety.
Shipbuilding, on the other hand, was the heaviest of heavy duties. Generations of men toiled in the fabrication shop, the machine room and in plate- making at the Ailsa shipyard.
When they fired out at lunchtime or when the shift ended, Templehill was a hive of activity.
It wasn’t like a big Glasgow yard, but had the feel of a family business, even with its 350 workers spread over 15.5 acres.
After five different owners it shuddered to a halt 17 years ago after 115 years of boatbuilding.
Now, and until the end of July, an exhibition dedicated to the ships and the staff at Ailsa is running at Troon Library.
Photographs and old logs give a fascinating insight into the past, good times and bad.
It’s the third major exhibition at the library, an ideal site for showings in a town without a museum, which held events last year for The Open and old photos of the town.
Men built yachts – including four- masted sailing ships which needed 60,000 square feet of canvas – warships, car ferries, cargo freighters and a sewage vessel for Northumbrian Water.
One in particular became infamous, the 260 foot sanddredger, the Bowbelle, built in Troon in 1964.
The Bowbelle ploughed into the Marchioness party boat on the Thames in 1989, killing 51.
Staff have spent weeks getting the exhibition together, and Troon library supremo Annette Simpson said: “There were hundreds of shipyard workers in the town and if you didn’t work there somebody’s father, or brother or uncle worked there.
“We are delighted to put on this exhibition and hope as many people as possible will come in and see it.”
The library was assisted in the exhibition by Nan McFarlane, Laurie Sinclair, Frank McKee, Michael Holland, Robert Begg, Ronnie MacPherson, Donna Oates, John Melbin, John Handbridge, Douglas Graham and Janette Hunter.
Look out for the Spartan, the Ailsa- built puffer which has been restored and is now based in Irvine at the maritime museum.
Lady Guinness, of the brewing dynasty, turned out for the launch of the Lady Grania ( her first name) in 1951.
The big coaster was wrecked off California exactly 30 years later.
Around 600 boats were built at Troon, from larger vessels that needed chains to halt their plunge when they hit the harbour water, to smaller craft such as the well known pilot boat Cloch, launched by crane in 1967.
Some of the iconic Caledonian MacBrayne craft such as the Glen Sannox ( 1957) – the new Arran ship for service next year will also be Glen Sannox – and MV Saturn came off that Ailsa slip in 1978. Many of these ships are still at sea, changing guise and name and, in some cases, working off the sub- continent.
The yard went through a variety of owners including the founder, the 3rd Marquess of Ailsa, the gin manufacturer Gilbey’s and was actually nationalised in 1977.
Australian white knight tycoon Greg Copley took over in 1986 and changed the name to Ailsa- Perth, after his home city.
Final owner Cathelco had it for just four years before it shut down in 2000.
Shop steward Peter Crawford, chairman of the Save Ailsa Committee, said: “There was no consultation at all. It was despicable.”
The exhibition includes old documents such as the completion of the five- year apprenticeship of blacksmith William Kerr of Titchfield Road in 1965.
While the yard area is now largely a sawmill, many Ailsa boats are still at sea, passing like ghosts in the night.