JOHN MACLEOD: Doon the watter once again, 50 years since I first sailed aboard the Waverley...

Published: 19:29, 1 July 2026 | Updated: 19:29, 1 July 2026 'First day of the season,’ groans the attendant officer. It is not 90 seconds from our appointed sailing time, the gangways have just been hauled laboriously aboard – and a lastminute.com couple now walk purposefully down the quayside towards us. There are some interesting words in Polish, a gangway is manhandled again and roped fast, and the elegant pair step aboard as if they were just dropping by their chauffeur’s wedding. Moments later, with much wash astern, aided in careful turnabout before the Glasgow Science Centre by a small launch, the last seagoing paddle-steamer in the world is once more sailing down the Clyde. There is such a crowd, and the day is so fine, that one looks in vain for a deck seat, but there is a general air of contentment and adventure and, for the many older passengers – today’s contingent is practically an Ideal Home Exhibition of assorted walking-aids – a renewed taste of doon-the-watter days long ago. The paddle-steamer Waverley is the very last operational Clyde steamer and – launched on October 2, 1946, replacing an 1899 namesake sunk at Dunkirk – almost the last ever built in Britain. And on no account to be underestimated. She can still touch eighteen knots when necessary, she has at least twice circumnavigated Britain – there was last year a splendid snap of her off Stoer Head light – and, with generous Heritage Lottery funding a quarter-century ago, she was substantially rebuilt. Her Firth of Clyde season is brief – it’s really only viable during the Scottish school summer hols – but for decades now her wider programme has included spring excursions from Oban and Skye, time on the Bristol channel, a busy set of jaunts on the Thames, outings from the West Country, a bit of ferry-cross-the-Mersey and so on. The Waverley goes to Northern Ireland, has crossed the Channel to France and even visited the Outer Hebrides. That she is such a tough old duck is all the more remarkable when you consider she was expressly built for a regular and very sheltered outing, the ‘Three Lochs Cruise’ from Craigendoran. The Waverley paddle steamer makes its way up the River Clyde, with Dumbarton Castle in the background  The Waverley on the Kyles of Bute near the village of Tighnabruaich With calls at Blairmore, up Loch Long and Lochgoil to Lochgoilhead and finally Arrochar, passengers were then convoyed on the overland hop to Tarbet and a sail down Loch Lomond. Of all the piers involved, only Blairmore survives. And, back in the Fifties and Sixties, the Waverley wasn’t particularly rated. The general steamer-fraternity view was that she had been built with awful post-war scrap steel and was scruffily maintained. Should only one Clyde paddler survive for posterity, the 1931 Jeanie Deans or the stout 1934 Caledonia were far worthier contenders. But when Caledonian MacBrayne in 1973 decided the Waverley’s day was done, rather than sending her to the knacker’s yard for a new career as cutlery she was offered to the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. Who, to widespread surprise, determined to keep her going as a living ship, not a static museum-piece. From 1975, and save for 2019, the Waverley has battered round the Clyde every summer since. It’s been a struggle, there have been some serious knuckle-chewing moments and, such is the cost of fuel this season, she costs £13 a minute to run – but here she is this Friday morning, washing on as ever. It’s nearly fifty years since I first sailed the Waverley – a school charter in 1977 to celebrate the Silver Jubilee – and much has changed. That day, workmen waved at us from shipyard scaffolding. Today, we’re hailed from the balconies of new yuppie flats. At Govan and Renfrew, spanking new bridges hang open for us. The last cross-river ferries have gone. There is but the odd surviving dinosaur, like the Barclay Curle crane. On a brighter note, the Clyde itself is much cleaner – and, since 1982, the Waverley has had the cruising market all to herself. Her dramatic rescue over fifty years ago caught the public imagination and the press have eagerly followed the Waverley thereafter, not least for her precarity. Apart from the occasional high alarm as to her ongoing viability, she has a habit of bashing into things. The Waverley was fortunate to survive a bad grounding off Dunoon weeks after that 1977 outing and, in 2020, hit Brodick pier with such force that 24 people were injured. But you do not dwell on such things today, not when there is a bacon roll to enjoy and the sweep of Erskine Bridge to appreciate; a tall ship to admire and the Highland hills already beckoning. Most of the younger Waverley crew are Eastern European – in 1977, many were Hebrideans – with torsos like inverted triangles. As they labour with gangways at Dunoon – with no mechanical aids – you soon understand why: it is gasping, cursing work. Hundreds of passengers clamber off. A smaller contingent pours aboard. As we linger off Rothesay Bay – the CalMac ferry must be allowed out before we surge in – the hills of Bute, in lowering cloud, resound with thunder. And rain comes on as we search out the local tea rooms. Things dry off and the sun returns fitfully as we depart the Bute capital and retrace our steps. Time and again I drop below to admire the mighty engines – the leaping pistons, the rolling crankshaft, the moan of pumps, gleaming brass and the intoxicating scent of steam and hot oil. And back up the Clyde, dodging the Kilcreggan ferry, by Dumbarton and Bowling and Clydebank, waving graciously to our public as they hail us from untold riverside apartments. The Waverley making its way through the centre of Glasgow At the Science Centre, the back of six, the tide is now very low. The gangways are once more wrestled into position, tilting upwards like demented percentage-signs. To give the zimmer-frame brigade a chance we are all ordered to the port rail, minimising the starboard list and that gangway angle – ‘and if any of youse are thinking of jouking aboot, don’t…’ The Waverley appropriately tilts as we obey, even as dinging begins in the sponsons below: nuts on the paddlewheels (a lesson painfully learned in 1975; one cruise got no further than the Dalmuir sewage works) must be tightened after every voyage. ‘Eh, all that coffee and walnut cake came in handy, eh?’ ‘Ah should have put on weight especially, Maggie.’ ‘This happened last year. And there Ah wiz, the last person aff, and Ah wiznae jouking about…’ Slowly, painstakingly, hanging on to the handrails, we haul ourselves ashore, amid the faintest drizzle and by gleaming smiles. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. 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