Arctic Penguin sets sail from Inveraray after two decades
ON A beautifully still, sunny Saturday morning, a sprinkling of snow on the hills around Loch Fyne, she quietly slipped away.
After more than two GHFDGHV DV D ¿[WXUH DW Inveraray Pier, the Arctic Penguin moved on to a new owner and a fresh start in the south.
The 400-tonne steel hulled schooner arrived at the pier in the mid 1990s and was established as a maritime museum while tied up at the stone quay, but her origins lie across the Irish Sea.
The ship was built for the Irish Lighthouse Service in 1910 as the ‘Penguin’ and served until 1966, when she was sold to become a youth adventure training vessel, renamed ‘Hallowe’en.
She changed hands again in the early 1980s and was dubbed ‘Arctic Penguin’ on conversion to a schooner. The Arctic Penguin famously sank in the Clyde in 1988 before being salvaged and laid up at Renfrew.
On her arrival at Inveraray in 1995, the maritime museum became a popular attraction but circumstances changed and the muVHXP FORVHG ¿YH \HDUV ago.
She was again advertised for sale by owner Archie McArthur in 2013 and, after a few false starts, Cheshirebased Viscount ChrisWRSKHU :ULJKW ¿QDOO\ bought the schooner.
A channel was dredged and the ship was moved in April last year to the end of Inveraray’s wooden pier, from where she was due to be taken to Ardmaleish boatyard on the Isle of Bute for refurbishment.
Those plans fell through and she lay at the pier until the weekend.
Under the watchful eye of Liverpool tug ‘Venture’, but under her own twin-diesel power, on Saturday March 25 the Arctic Penguin slowly moved away from her home for the past 22 years, her new owner at the tiller.
The Viscount was in chipper mood as they left on the tide, shortly before 9.30am, bound for Barrow in Furness for repair.
He said: ‘This is a big day and it’s been a long time coming. I’m just SOHDVHG WR EH ¿QDOO\ taking her for repair.’
Asked what his ultimate plans are for the ship, he joked: ‘I’m going to scuttle her off Tarbert’, before enquiring whether the newly-turning propeller was still attached to the vessel.
John Patrick, secretary of Inveraray Marketing Group (IMaGe), said: ‘The Penguin had not been an attraction for a number of years, and the pier has fallen in to a major state of disrepair.
‘The group is pleased the ship has a new owner and is off on a new life where it will see the investment it needs to remain productive for many years to come.’