General info about Puffers
PUFFERS
"PUFFERS", small steam-powered cargo ships, were a much loved sight around Scotland's coastline for over one hundred years, particularly on the Clyde and around the Western Isles, where communities were dependant on them for regular supplies. SPARTAN (ex-VIC 18) was one of these vessels, and became the first ship in the Scottish Maritime Museum fleet.
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The Puffer developed out of two very different craft which served the coastal towns and villages in the 19th century. The SMACKS were sailing cargo carriers, single-masted with Sloop or Cutter rig. Some were fine, fast ships based on Revenue (Customs) Cutter Lines, and later developing to the appearance of the classic Victorian yachts. Many of the smack skippers were racing yacht skippers in summer, and drove their ships hard. Other smacks were small and poverty stricken, "Parish rigged" (as if by a Charity!) and slow. There were also GABBERTS, which had a similarity to Humber KEELS and Mersey FLATS and Thames HOYS. Box-shaped and bluff bowed, with a simple Gaff rig, these vessels were slow and more difficult to sail than the smacks, but had a greatly increased cargo capacity.
The dimensions of a GABBERT or a large Smack were dictated by the Locks on the Forth and Clyde Canal, which had opened for trade in 1790. They could be a little more than 66 feet by 18 feet wide by 6-foot draft to fit each lock and lift to a higher level. Like the canal SCOWS (barges without sails or engines) they could carry about 70 tons of cargo, far in excess of the average Smacks 35 to 40 tons. Gabberts, Smacks and Scows were towed by horse on the canals, the sailing vessels taking their towropes high up the mast to clear obstructions. Sail was sometimes set, although the use of sail on the canals was usually discouraged. Steam Tugs were used later in the 19th century, and by the 1860's engines were being tried in iron hulled vessels with the same box section and round ends as the Gabberts. Because the simple steam engines discharged straight into the funnel with a loud "puff", "Puffers" they became and remained, even after the development of more sophisticated and efficient engines with no discernible "puff'!
Two distinct types came under that early "Puffer" definition. One was the Puffer as we accept her now, the other a low-lying, larger vessel which could not use the canals. KYLES, built at Fullerton's of Paisley in 1872 and in the Scottish Maritime Museum collection, was of this type, but later built up and diesel engined. An illustration of KELPIE, 1868, shows how these river steamers (registered as "Steam Smacks" and rigged, like the early Puffers, with two sails) would have looked. Unlike the Forth and Clyde Canal, where all the bridges would lift or swing open, the mighty and elegant bridges of the Upper Clyde were fixed. Therefore these larger lower ships would have funnels and masts which lowered for up-river work, the mast resting across the wheelhouse, the funnel tilted to about 45 degrees.
In layout, most of the Puffer was cargo hold, the large space covered by Hatch Boards so that the area beneath could be partly or completely uncovered for the loading or removal of cargo. This area made the profit. The next vital space was for the Boiler and Engine Room, and it was only in the uneconomic, bluntly pointed ends of the ship that the crew would be housed, two dark simple spaces reached by vertical ladders. There might be four bunks and a folding table, a coal stove and a locker. Here lived Skipper and Mate, Engineer and Deckhand - and the
"Deckie" was also, as usually the youngest on board, the messenger and cook! Newspapers were used as tablecloths, and enamelled tin mugs and plates saved breakage's. The coal stove was kept going day and night, with a large pan of water on the boil rather than a kettle.
Stepped at the foot of the mast was a Derrick, a simple crane which could be "topped up" to the necessary angle to reach cargo anywhere in the Hold, and then swung over the side by hauling on "Vangs", so that the cargo could he lowered onto trucks or carts on a beach at low tide, or at a pier or quay. The Derrick could also be used on the canals to drop the Deckhand on the towpath so that he could help with Locks and Swing Bridges a fully loaded Puffer was often so deep in the water that she could not come alongside the towpath without running aground. The Derrick also helped launch the small Dinghy (or "punt") carried on the hatch.
Puffers also used the Crinan Canal, which enabled them to avoid the dangerous passage around the Mull of Kintyre, and saved 150 miles on a journey from Greenock to Oban. The Caledonian Canal running through the Great Glen, meant that Puffers could work up into the Moray Firth. In the First World War, Puffers regularly worked from the Clyde up to the great naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. The Puffer's cargo could be of coal, bricks, gravel, cement, farm equipment, household goods, whiskey, potatoes, wood, slates, livestock, explosives, ammunition, torpedoes. They carried complete households on "Flits", delivered motor vehicles, and on at least one occasion returned a crashed aircraft. Their flat bottoms allowed Puffers to use the tides, running up a beach just after one High Tide, and "drying-out" on the sand until the next tide arrived to float them off. Working the tides like this over a day or two, a Puffer could load and unload at an Island with no harbour.
The traditional Puffer funnel was Red with a Black top, "like a Wee Cunarder" (the Cunard Steamship Company owned the "Queen Mary" and the "Queen Elizabeth"). This tradition began when the funnel colour indicated the engine maker, and many early ships had engines by Napier (Cunard, and the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company used identical funnel colours for this reason). A better guide to a Puffer's ownership was her name, for Ross and Marshall of Greenock ended their ships names with "light", G.G. Hamilton began their Puffer name's with "Glen", and Hay of Kirkintilloch used "tribal" names for their ships. STARLIGHT, STORMLIGHT, SKYLIGHT, SEALIGHT, CLOCHLIGHT ... GLENFYNE, GLENCLOY, GLENARY... SAXON, DANE, BOER,TEXAN, KAFFIR, SPARTAN. Of these, only SPARTAN is still afloat and "in commission'' while SKYLIGHT, an Irvine owned Puffer, lies in the mud of Bowling Basin under her later name of SITKA.
Modem ferries and improved roads and bridges killed off the puffer trade, but the Second World War brought about a revival of sorts. Remembering the usefulness of the Puffer as a supply vessel, the Admiralty commissioned the "Vic" design. Using the traditional Puffer lines and layout, The "Victualling Inshore Craft" were built in yards from Scotland to Yorkshire. The Scottish Maritime Museum's "SPARTAN' was built in 1942, at Hay's yard in Kirkintilloch on the Forth & Clyde Canal, as VIC 18. She was to be the last- Scottish built Puffer to survive.
Two "Puffers" still work under steam in the Western Isles and on the Clyde, looking very much as they did when they were built, but with a slightly raised imitation Cargo Hatch covering accommodation for twelve passengers. Both AULD REEKIE and VIC 32 were wartime Admiralty vessels, built in Cheshire and Yorkshire, but they continue the Puffer tradition and routes, giving people a unique holiday experience. Small coasters still have work to do, and fleets operate the world over, but on the Clyde, and in the Western Isles, only the Glenlight Shipping Company, which amalgamated all the remaining Puffer owners in 1968, still operates. SEALIGHT, POLARLIGHT, GLENETIVE, and GLENROSA are larger than their Puffer predecessors, carrying three times the cargo with about the same crew size and fuel costs. They no longer use the two surviving canals, can keep the sea in all weather, and trade as far as the Irish Republic on regular contracts. Improved piers and harbours mean that they need never beach to unload, and modern navigational aids make them better and safer timekeepers. They serve the Highlands and Islands well.