Clyde Puffer Spartan

built in 1942 at J&J Hay's in Kirkintilloch on the Forth and Clyde canal she was VIC 18 (Victualling Inshore Craft) she was one of 100 built for the Admiralty as tenders to serve  convoys and warships
She was powered by steam and fuelled by coal carrying on the tradition of puffers so called because the early 19th C single cylinder engines exhausted steam through their funnels with a 'puff puff' noise.
Spartan a later type had a compound two cylinder engine which was converted to diesel in 1962. Typically she carried building materials and coal to islands and remote lochs in the Clyde and West Highlands often unloading on beaches because there were no piers or quays and would return to Glasgow with sand and gravel, slate, timber, fish and farm produce. Life for the four man crew was hard, dirty and cramped. Her working life ended in the 1970s when larger coasters replaced puffers and she was sold for £1 to what became the Scottish Maritime Museum Trust and she now lies tied up in Irvine harbour where volunteers ensure she is still a sea-going vessel