SEPTEMBER 1, 1970, was a good day for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. It announced orders for four ships worth £14 million, completed the delivery of a £4 million cruise liner, Blenheim - and launched, from its Govan yard, a £2 million bulk carrier, Temple Bar, above.
The orders were from two of Glasgow’s oldest shipping companies, Lyle Shipping and H.Hogarth and Sons.
Since January, UCS had booked orders for 25 ships - eight for its Clyde class and 17 for bulk carriers - worth about £67 million. The launch of Temple Bar was its seventh in the past eight months, another four were scheduled to follow before year’s end.
The carrier (above), of 22,000 tons deadweight, was built for the London shipping company, Lambert Brothers, and was the first of two sister ships on order for them. It was completed in April 1971, when this photograph was taken.
UCS’s subsequent problems have, of course, been endlessly chronicled; but what came of Temple Bar? Useful shipping-related websites, including Scottish Ship Management, narrate its history, which featured a number of new managements and owners, and new names (Lake Nipigon, Laketon, Algonorth). In 1977 it began service on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence seaway in Canada.
Finally, in 2012, as Algonorth, it was broken up.
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