The Clyde has seen it all before. Yards, great names, rescued again and again before succumbing to what seemed like an inevitable death.

There were some, acknowledges Jim McColl, who thought that would be the fate of Ferguson Marine when he bought it from administration last year. His bid, after all, came just days before an independence referendum in which the old industry of shipbuilding had played a cameo role. It was greeted with all the razzmatazz of a major political announcement.

"At first people were looking to see if what we are doing was a flash in the pan and all talk," the billionaire told The Herald. "Well, it will become evident with the improvements we are making that we are there fore the long term."

Mr McColl re-employed all the seventy or so workers made redundant when the ferry maker went in to administration.

He added: "We are now at 134. And that is within nine months. We have a couple of bids for which I am very hopeful which would mean we would have to take that number up to 400.

"We are the last full-facility yard in the British isles. We can do everything. We have a machine shop. We can do all the carpentry work, the plumbing, the pipe work. the electricals and the welding. We have all the skills on the site.

"We have just agreed to increase the apprentice intake this year as well."

Some workers from Inverclyde are currently travelling across to Babcock's dry dock in Rosyth - Britain's second biggest - where two Royal Navy carriers are being assembled by a consortium including BAE Systems. They too may be interested in work closer to home.

He said: "There is a big enough pool of skills. We are looking to up our training but not just for apprentices coming out of school but we are also taking people in at 24 and 25."

Mr McColl, meanwhile, stressed that his current expansion at Port Glasgow would be completed next year. Manufacturing facilities will be upgraded by the spring, new offices by the autumn.

And, like the most competitive yards in Europe, Mr McColl ultimately intends to build under cover.

He said: "We are building a significant addition to the fabrication shed so we can build it in large sections. We are also looking at having a covered area as we bring the sections out."