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SMM DENNY TANK

DOORS OPEN ALL DAY
Saturday 10th September 2005

FREE ENTRY

Special tour of the Architectural Features of this unique Test Tank Building.
Guided tours will take place at 11am and 1pm to last 20 minutes approximately.
Museum open from 10am - 4pm

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PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION OF
OLD DUMBARTON

Denny Experimental Tank is hosting a Photographic Exhibition of Old Dumbarton and surrounding areas. The exhibition comes courtesy of West Dunbartonshire Council Museum and archive collection.

Open Monday to Saturday 10am - 4pm

Prices
Adult	£2.50
OAP's & Children	£1.50
Family	£5.00

Group rates available. Corner cafe for light meals, snacks, and drinks also open

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New exhibition at Clydebuilt


print off PDF for 50% of admission to Clydebuilt

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"The Clyde's Navy" - Opens Spring 2005

A new exhibition at Clydebuilt will chart naval shipbuilding and activity on the Clyde yesterday today and tomorrow. The exhibition will look at modern shipbuilding on the Clyde and the variety of vessels based at HM Naval Base Faslane. Using a variety of displays, inter-actives and computer graphics to tell the importance of the Clyde as a major naval area in both construction and position.

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Hms Ocean Visit is postponed but HMS Cumberland will fill her berth at KGV more details when avaiable.

The Royals Navy's largest ship will spend the weekend in the King George V Docks escorted by a small Navy flotilla. The impressive Landing Playform Helicopter vessel will be the biggest ship on the Clyde this year. Visits will be arranged from Clydebuilt during the weekend.

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Major Launch - 8 April 2005

This the current projected date for the launch of the last of the 4 new Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships RFA Cardigan Bay. This landing ship dock vessel has been constructed by BAE in Govan.

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HMRT Golden Cross RAFYC - June 2005

As part of its 50th Anniversary Tour this vessel will be moored at Clydebuilt in June this year. With the theme of water safety her display tells the story of Search and Rescue and explains who the Royal Navy, HM Coastguard work with the RAF to provide 24-hour search and rescue coverage.

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HMS Portland visit to Clydebuilt

On Saturday 21st February six crew members of HMS Portland visited the Clydebuilt to be given a tour round the museum. Brian Darroch and Allan Muir of Clydebuilt led the boys around the delights of the museum, and then took them out to the riverfront to show them where the HMS Portland was launched from in 1999 at Yarrows. HMS Portland very kindly presented Clydebuilt with a ships crest, which is now displayed at the reception area alongside various other crests that have been presented to the museum and staff.

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“The City of Adelaide” gets possible reprieve

What should have been the star attraction of the Scottish Maritime Museum - the former clipper ship “City of Adelaide”, once better known on the Clyde as “HMS Carrick” - has lain rotten on a slipway at Irvine Harbour for the past 11 years. During that period, the ship, which the museum planned to restore as a static floating display at a cost of £5.4 million, has had minimal restoration work done with all of the efforts being towards simply preserving what is widely regarded as one of the UK's most significant 19th Century ships still in existence.

Now, the ship, which was the subject of an unsuccessful request for a Demolition Order two years ago, might possibly be saved, and along with it, the seriously endangered Scottish Maritime Museum, thanks to a benefactor who has come up with the most ambitious restoration plan of all. For Mike Edwards, a businessman from the Midlands, wants to see the former clipper ship not simply restored as a quayside visitor attraction but returned to her former glory, fully seaworthy and under full sail on the ocean.

But such is the state of the ship at present that it is far from certain if this dream, possibly the ship's last chance for survival, can be achieved.

A specially commissioned feasibility study will determine whether the ship can be made completely seaworthy again, and, in the meantime, Mr Edward has taken steps to ensure that City of Adelaide does not deteriorate further by funding protective works to the vessel, including erecting a canopy over the ship as a further protection from the elements. The donation will also contribute towards some of the Maritime Museum's existing slipway costs.

Mr Edward' donation, which is already in place following agreement with the Museum's Trustees, gives precedence to his submission over any other proposals until 1st April 2005. The Trustees have readily agreed to this proposal, subject to any submission taking due consideration of the historic merits of the vessel, which is of international significance.

Should the feasibility studies prove positive, Mike Edwards' plan would mean that City of Adelaide, fully restored, would once more be seen on the world's oceans, as one of the few genuinely authentic and historic Tall Ships of the maritime world.

Said Lord Maclay, Chairman of the Scottish Maritime Museum Trustees:

“In truth, the “City of Adelaide” would have been long since gone by now for, conscious that the ship was deteriorating rapidly and with no substantial funding being forthcoming for its restoration, we sought a Demolition Order from North Ayrshire Council. That was refused because Historic Scotland had deemed “City of Adelaide” to be of such historic merit that it designated it as a Listed Building, the only ship in Scotland to be covered by such a designation.”

“However, while that decision may have saved the ship, it almost closed the national maritime museum, which was left with the storage and preservation costs but with no income to be derived. Recently, we had come close to the point where we would have been faced with no alternative but to have closed down the Scottish Maritime Museum if Mike Edwards had not come along with his imaginative - and quite novel - proposals.”

“After a very difficult two years Mr Edwards' generosity has provided a much needed boost to the Scottish Maritime Museum and its work. For the first time - for a very long time - we can also feel optimistic about the future of the City of Adelaide, which after all is one of the ten most important historic vessels in the UK.”

Two years ago, the international outcry over the possible demolition of “City of Adelaide led to two other major conservation projects being initiated - one from Sunderland where the ship was built in 1864, the other from Adelaide, the Australian city to which she sailed regularly until 1887. Each of these schemes is largely dependent upon substantial public funding and government support, neither of which, so far, has materialised in either case.

Both of these proposal involved moving the old clipper ship either to its birthplace or to the antipodean port into which she had sailed regularly in her heyday. Sadly, neither of these has moved ahead, so far, and in the meantime, what should have been a major attraction at Irvine has become largely a white elephant for the Maritime Museum.

Mike Edwards also learned of the plight of the City of Adelaide at the same time and, being a highly successful leisure industry operator, immediately saw the huge operating potential of such a vessel in a fully restored and seaworthy condition.

Said Mike Edwards, a founding director of Travelsphere Limited, one of the UK's largest independent operators of full escorted touring holidays, based in Market Harborough:

“I am delighted to have been granted two years in which to consider thoroughly the various option which may - and I stress may - exist to save the City of Adelaide from the threat of demolition, and what financial and operational issues have to be considered.”

“Meanwhile, we can ensure that there is no further deterioration and I am very pleased that this arrangement with the Scottish Maritime Museum has also helped to ensure that the Museum can continue its excellent work, a benefit which will remain even if, sadly, we eventually have to face up to the reality that the City of Adelaide is beyond help.”

“I am looking forward to working closely with the Museum on this exciting feasibility study, work on which will begin almost at once.”

4th July 2003 - ENDS

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“Cutty Sark”

The Cutty Sark was commissioned by John Willis, a Scots born businessman, in the late 1860s. The firm of Scott and Linton contracted to build the ship for a price of £17 per ton, a very low price even in those days. Scott and Linton were bankrupted due to the low contract price but not before they had completed and launched the hull and named it Cutty Sark, a name derived from the Robert Burns poem 'Tam O'Shanter' meaning 'short shirt'.

The hull was towed across the river Leven to William Denny and Bros, and was rigged ready to sail in only 12 weeks. Cutty Sark set saIl from London on her maiden voyage to Shanghai on the 16th February 1870 under the command of Captain George Moodie.

Neither Captain Moodie or John Willis could have known the fame she would win with her exploits or that she would be immortalised by her preservation as the only survivor of the mid 19th century clippers which are considered by many as the finest and fastest sailing ships ever built.

Clippers were built for use transporting tea from China. The first tea from a new seasons crop gained the highest price therefore speed was of the utmost importance. About the time Cutty Sark was built, the Suez Canal opened allowing steamships to reduce their journey by several hundred miles. As a result, Cutty Sark was used to transport wool and other products from Australia.'

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“Museum captures past in postcards”

The Scottish Maritime Museum (Denny Tank) is now providing a series of eight reproduction postcards. They include views of the Tank, what Denny's shipyard was like at its heyday, and one of William Froude, the Pioneer of ship model research.

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SEA CHANGES Captured in The Lithographic Art of Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton

Victorian artist Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton captured the essence of the nineteenth century at sea in his ship portraits.

From Sail and steam, opium smuggling, to tea races, warships and slave ships

Now you can share in this wonderful piece of maritime history which The Scottish Maritime Museum, in association with the National Maritime Museum, are bringing to life through a selection of his finest lithographs of Scottish built vessels to go on show in the new exhibition.

"Sea Changes, the Lithographic Art of Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton".

Born in 1819 Dutton was one of the most popular marine artists and lithographers of his day. Until his death in 1891 he produced lithographic prints from his own, and from other artist's originals.

By the mid nineteenth century his prints sold for as much as £1 10s - a weekly wage for most people.

Commissioned by ship builders and owners, he was asked to produce images of particularly successful vessels or prized yachts. He also created exciting images of newsworthy scenes, such as the final race between the tea-clippers Aerial and Taeping.

"Most of these pictures have never been on display before - and certainly not in Scotland" says curator Emily Cook. "It's a great chance to see some of the finest vessels produced by Scottish yards in their heyday, and to appreciate the quality of Dutton's artistry - they really are beautiful images".

The exhibition will be formally opened by Sir David Hardy, Chairman of the Trustees of The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on 12th July at 10-30 am. The exhibition will remain open until January 2002.

"Carrick" - "City of Adelaide

Last year a major Heritage issue was raised by the enforced application by the Scottish Maritime Museum to demolish "Carrick" - "City of Adelaide", Scotland’s only vessel of sufficient historic importance to be protected as an "A" Listed Structure. The application to demolish, generated objections from around the world. North Ayrshire Council have now formally rejected the application for the demolition of the vessel. We have no argument with the decision, it was the right one..

Regrettably the world wide interest enable us to raise no more than a few hundred pounds in funds to deal with the vessel. The situation with "Carrick" - "City of Adelaide" is, in essence, no further forward than a year ago and the museum still has the threat of a slipway rental payment, which it cannot meet, hanging over it.

The Museum Trustees have come to the conclusion that they are not in any position to make a break through and facilitate a solution for the vessel. They believe that this can only be achieved at a national level and with political involvement. To that end a letter has been sent to all members of the Scottish Parliament and to all Scottish Members of the U.K. Parliament.

Although heritage, listed structures and museums fall within the remit of the Scottish Executive we believe that the fate of this vessel has wider implications. Although the UK was a major maritime nation there are very few of the vessel of truly national significance that now survive. The National Historic Ships Committee Core Collections list, published in February, covers the whole of the UK. Many of the vessels on the list, such as "Carrick" - "City of Adelaide" have strong associations with more than one location in the UK. There is no policy for the preservation of Historic Vessels in the UK, a matter which was raised during the Select Committee hearing on HMS Cavalier.

The Trustee's welcome and support Irene Oldfather’s current motion to the Scottish Parliament that calls upon all relevant agencies to ensure that this historically important vessel is retained and restored for future generations. Ideally, because of the international importance of the vessel, the interested parties would include Historic Scotland, Scottish Executive, Australia, through the Australian High Commission and Agent General for South Australia, City of Sunderland, The Maritime Trust and English Heritage.

"Carrick" - "City of Adelaide" - A Brief History

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Press Release

History brought to life by the Glasgow College of Building and Printing and the Scottish Maritime Museum

There is to be a special ceremony on 21st August at The Scottish Maritime Museum exhibition situated at Clydebuilt in Braehead.

The Principal of the Glasgow College of Building and Printing, Thomas Wilson OBE, will
be presenting the five examination models built by the students of the HNC model making course to Lord Maclay. (Chairman of the Trustees of the Scottish Maritime Museum.)

The models all relate to the collections of the Scottish Maritime Museum. They were completed for the final examinations of this years course. The models are of such subjects as SV "Carrick", the Denny Shipyard, the first hovercraft, and the helicopter built by William Denny's yard before 1914.

Lord Maclay said "I am delighted that the college chose collections from the Scottish Maritime Museum for their work. I am very impressed indeed with the standard achieved. Some of the models would be joining the existing displays at the museums three sites immediately."

The museum's Director, Jim Tildesley said "Discussions have already commenced with the college for further work to be undertaken. I feel that there is great opportunity for further and more comprehensive joint activity.

The presentation of the models will take place at 2 p.m. on 21st August and many of the final year students will be present to witness the event.

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Press Release

Special Conference to discuss future of

"Carrick" - "City of Adelaide"

The special conference to discuss the future of "Carrick" - "City of Adelaide" is to be held in Glasgow on 19th September. It will be attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh who is President of The Maritime Trust. The speakers at the conference will include representatives of the National Historic Ships Committee, Scottish Maritime Museum, Sunderland Maritime Trust and the Adelaide Action Group. Organisations attending include The Maritime Trust, Australian High Commission, State of South Australia, City of Sunderland, Historic Scotland and Officials from the Scottish Executive and U.K. Government. The conference will be chaired by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, Chairman of the National Historic Ships Committee and the Maritime Trust.

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