Cleaned-up workboat saves Clyde Charters with day trips

A change of direction – inspired by social distancing – meant a change of boat for Clyde Charters, and now the Greenock-based company is reaping the unexpected benefits.

Owner Ronnie Doolan told the Greenock Telegraph that his business was suffering due to Covid-19.

Traditionally, Clyde Charters offered private luxury days out on its motor yacht. But Covid-19 guidelines made it impossible to provide day trips as the yacht was too small for effective social distancing.

Doolan decided to clean up the company’s workboat and see if that could be utilised.

“Tonka is an open boat and it is easy to social distance and she can accommodate 12 passengers,” Doolan told the Greenock Telegraph.

His plan was to use Tonka – an ex-army landing craft – to visit Captayannis, a Greek sugar-carrying vessel which sank in 1974.

The company advertised brief trips to the Island of Little Cumbrae and out to the sugar boat wreck at the Tail of the Bank, and were stunned by the reaction.

“I had hoped we would get enough interest to generate some income to help see us through the winter months,” Doolan says.

“To my surprise we were instantly flooded with enquiries.

“Our first two days providing trips for a total of 96 visitors to Little Cumbrae sold out in the first day.

“We then started taking bookings for our sugar boat trips and received over 2,000 applicants in two days.

“We operated for seven days straight departing on the hour and taking up to 12 passengers.

“The volume of messages, emails and telephone calls we are receiving is incredible, it’s just non-stop.

“We seem to have stumbled across something that the people of Greenock are really interested in.

“People of all ages are coming out with us to see the wreck up close and get a selfie with it.

“The kids just love the fact that our boat is bright yellow and called Tonka and goes along quite fast.

“We see them standing on the quayside to get their picture taken with Tonka in the background and they love it.”

The response has inspired the company to make the trips a permanent feature for the future.

MV Captayannis, is known locally as The Sugar Boat.

The Greek cargo ship loaded with sugar, sank in a violent storm on Monday, January 28, 1974 just off Ardmore Point, near Cardross, according to the Dumbarton Reporter.

She lies impaled on a sandbank on her port side, starboard sticking three or four metres out of the water.

Captayannis’ fate began on Sunday, January 27 as she sat anchored outside Greenock, waiting to offload her cargo.

She was heading for the James Watt Dock from Laurenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa.

Gales of 60mph lashed the coast that night and, in the early morning darkness, Captayannis dragged her anchor and drifted for three quarters of a mile.

Captain Theodarkis Ionnis tried to power her towards the Gareloch for shelter.

But she collided with the huge anchor chain of a twenty-three-thousand-ton BP Tanker, British Light, which ripped a hole in her port side below the waterline causing water to gush into her port-side tank.

The captain sent out a Mayday. Labrador, a tug from the Faslane naval base, was first on the scene and the ship was re-anchored between Ardmore and Rosneath Point.

But the ship’s power failed, the pumps could not cope with the large volume of water and she began to list.

Labrador was given the task of pumping water out of the damaged tank and into the starboard side to stabilise her but the storm was too fierce to attempt it.

The Greek and African crew members were rescued by a Clyde Marine Motoring Vessel motorlaunch, the Rover, and taken to Greenock.

She settled at a 90 degree angle to the water where she has remained ever since, according to the Dumbarton Reporter.