By John Aitken It was planned by the Coaster Construction Company Limited to launch the collier Southquay from their new shipyard on Rossie Island, Montrose on the penultimate Saturday of January, 1921. As it happened the weather intervened with a strong tidal surge in the River South Esk and the arrangements were put back to the following Tuesday afternoon. A Read more...

By John Aitken On Saturday, 22nd January, 1921 an unforeseen mishap occurred in Montrose caused by a fierce gale and a subsequent tidal surge.  Some estimates put the rise in the river at 20 feet, almost two feet above prediction, the result being that the initial launches from the Coaster Construction Co. Ltd.’s shipyard were aborted.  Much interest had been Read more...

By John Aitken A shipbuilding business was opened on Rossie Island, Montrose by the Coaster Construction Company Limited in 1919. Its embryonic origins however had begun late the previous year, a few days prior to the end of World War One, when a large piece of land on the east side of the Island consisting of “13 acres, 3 roods Read more...

For close on one hundred and fifty years, Scurdie Ness Lighthouse has stood sentinel as a fixed aid to navigation at the mouth of the River South Esk, guiding mariners safely past the shoals and rocky shoreline of the north Angus and Mearns coast. A petition from 74 local inhabitants in November 1860 complained that both strangers and regular users Read more...

By all accounts there must have been more people at the harbour than for many a day when the London “beat-the-strike” vessel Velazquez sailed for Grimsby for dry docking. Estimates of upwards of 300 bystanders were reported in the vicinity of the Wet Dock when she eased through the narrow entrance. The crew had made many friends in the town Read more...