Concrete Giants of Ardyne Point (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798345501009)

This is the story of Ardyne Point, an oil fabrication yard in the west of Scotland that enjoyed a brief period of success during the early years of the North Sea oil boom in the 1970s. Established by Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons Ltd, it stole a march on its competitors, securing multi-million-pound contracts to build three massive concrete gravity platforms, Frigg TP1, for Elf, and Brent Charlie and Cormorant Alpha, for Shell/Esso. From dry docks carved into the shoreline of Loch Striven, on the Cowal peninsula, the mighty leviathans quickly rose, an army of up to 3000 men working around the clock pouring concrete, first in the docks and then out on the open waters of the loch. In its heyday, the remote Firth of Clyde yard was the largest of its kind in the world and, upon completion, the Cormorant Alpha was briefly the largest moveable manmade structure ever built. But the yard's life was short and, after the last of the platforms left the loch and was towed out to the North Sea, its demise was as rapid as its inception. Plans to redevelop the site with a marina and luxury hotel failed to come to fruition, as did a controversial proposal to dismantle nuclear submarines in the yard. Today it stands abandoned and derelict, a sad reminder of an ambitious and pioneering project and a forgotten chapter in Scotland's industrial heritage.
Illustrated with black and white images of the yard in operation.


Author: James Carron
ISBN-13: 9798345501009
Publisher: Independently Published
Language: English
Published: 11/04/2024
Pages: 82
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.27lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.17d