M/V Kyles - oldest surviving Clydebuilt 'puffer' to return to Braehead

[shamrock]

THE oldest floating Clydebuilt vessel in the UK is to make a grand return to the Clyde.

The MV Kyles will leave the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine on Friday after two years of repairs and essential maintenance.

The diesel-powered 'puffer' will return to the Clydebuilt museum at Braehead.
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The MV Kyles was launched in March 1872 at John Fullerton and Co in Paisley.

In 1984 the Scottish Maritime Museum became her 24th owner and she was retired to become a boardable exhibit at Clydebuilt, a few miles from where she was launched.

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http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.2519829.0.puffer_goes_back_to_clyde.ph p

[JimC]

Hi Ally!

Read the report. Diesel powered? surely not. I understood these old ships were coal burners.

Jim.

[Volunteer]

If she don't puff, she isn't!

[Stoneroad]

As I understand the description, 'Puffer' refers to the steam powered coasters that toured the Clyde and Western Isles, picking up cargo here and there. They were an improvement on the sail only gabberts for this trade.
Subsequently, diesel power replaced the steam engines - which did away with the characteristic "puff". Some were built diesel engined to start with, and others converted. However, the 'class name' remained, a bit like a lot of people calling any vacumm cleaner a 'hoover' even when made by another maker!

[gil mayes]

She certainly did 'puff' for many years. Puffers were so called because lacking a condenser, exhaust steam was ejected via the funnel much as in a steam locomotive. No make-up feed water was carried and boilers were primed with sea water, this practice required regular salinity checks, blow downs and removal of salt deposits. KYLES (67971) was owned in many ports in UK and ended her working life at Sharpness, as a dredger, latterly as an effluent holding tanker but previously dumping in the Bristol Channel. Her last owner was Capt Peter Herbert of Bideford.
Gil.