World of Ships – May 2018

8 I World of Ships I Paddle Steamers

OWNER Waverley Steam Navigation Company

BUILT 1947 by A. and J. Inglis, Pointhouse, Glasgow, for the

London and North Eastern Railway Co

TONNAGE 693 gross, 327 net

DIMENSIONS 235ft 5in x 30ft 2in (hull), 57ft 3in (over

paddles).

PASSENGERS 850-1,350 depending on Board of Trade

Certificate

MACHINERY Triple diagonal by Rankin and Blackmore,

Greenock, Scotland, producing 2,100hp; coal fired 1947-

1956, converted to oil fuel 1957, re-boilered 1981 and 2003

SPEED 18.37 knots trials, 14 knots service

Waverley, the world’s only sea-going

passenger paddle steamer, celebrated 70 years

of operation in 2017, but it proved an often

frustrating anniversary season, with sailings

and revenue lost due to mechanical problems,

bow damage in an incident at Rothesay, and

fairly indifferent peak summer weather.

Ordered by the London and North Eastern

Railway, who had secured a Clyde ferry and

excursion foothold from the rail-connected

Clyde north bank pier at Craigendoran

through the take-over of Scotland’s North

British Railway in 1923, Waverley was built

at the yard of A. & J. Inglis on the banks of

the River Kelvin at Pointhouse, Glasgow, now

the site of the Glasgow Riverside Museum of

Transport. She was officially launched by Lady

Matthews, wife of LNER chairman Sir Ronald

Matthews, on 2 October 1946, with the hull

then being moved to Greenock, where Rankin

and Blackmore installed a triple diagonal

engine producing 2,100hp.

LNER continued a tradition of giving vessels

names from the writings of Sir Walter Scott,

the new Waverley perpetuating the name of a

1900-built steamer that had been withdrawn

in the late 1930s, but which was requisitioned

to serve as a minesweeper in World War II,

before being bombed and sunk while carrying

troops from Dunkirk in May 1940. Government

compensation for her loss and that of the steamer

Marmion (1906), bombed and sunk at Harwich

in April 1941, made a major contribution to

the new vessel’s construction costs.

The present Waverley was the eleventh to

be built for the North Bank fleet by the Inglis

yard, although the LNER’s distinctive red,

white and black funnels figured only briefly,

buff funnels with black tops coming after the

railways were nationalised in 1948, before a

transfer to the Gourock-based fleet of former

rivals, the Caledonian Steam Packet Company.

As built, Waverley was a coal burner, due to

post-World War II equipment shortages, but

her conversion to use oil took place in 1957,

and two years later the black paddle boxes,

a Craigendoran fleet tradition, were painted

white. Waverley was placed on the Loch Long

service to Arrochar and was fitted with radar

in 1960. The following two winters saw the

original funnels replaced, before 1965 brought

the introduction of monastral blue hull colours

to the whole of the British Rail ferry fleet.

By 1969 it was back to black after CSP came

under the control of the newly created Scottish

Transport Group and with red lions rampant

added to either side of the funnels. Following

EXC URSION CLASSIC

WAVERLEY

Waverley dressed overall in LNER colours in an

early career view from 1948.

A move to Caledonian Steam Packet

ownership brought a monastral blue hull.

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