LAST Tuesday, I told the tragic tale of the Greenock-owned coaster Ardgarry that was lost with all hands off the Cornish coast in December 1962.

She was built for P McCallum & Sons of Greenock at the Port Glasgow yard of James Lamont & Company.

My story about the Ardgarry was prompted by a recent photograph in the Clyde Shipping Gazette of the coaster Ardgarvel, which was constructed by Lamont’s for the same owners a couple of years after the Ardgarry disappeared.

The wreck of Ardgarry was not identified until 2006 and no bodies were ever discovered.

The Ardgarvel was herself the subject of a drama that, thankfully, did not have the same consequences as befell the Ardgarry and her crew of 12, of which two were from Greenock.

On Wednesday 30 October 1968, the Telegraph reported that the Ardgarvel had gone aground in rough seas off San Sebastian, Spain. She had been sailing from Bilbao to Pasajes.

First information that the vessel was in difficulty was a ‘Mayday’ message picked up by Peter Walker, the piermaster at Kilcreggan.

The message said: “We are aground and are being pounded onto a beach.” Advising that the message was remarkably clear, Mr Walker told the paper: “I thought at first it was actually in the Clyde until he gave his position.

“I suppose I heard the message because of freak conditions.” A two-day Board of Trade inquiry held in Glasgow the following April found the captain, who came from Banffshire, to be at fault for the grounding because while acting as officer of the watch, he failed to keep a proper look-out due to falling asleep.

The captain told the hearing: “I was too tired.

“I think watching the radar going round sent me to sleep.” The inquiry withdrew his master’s foreign-going certificate for one year.

Repairs to the Ardgarvel came to around £28,000.

After service with McCallum’s, the Ardgarvel had other owners before being broken up in Turkey.

The accompanying photographs show the Ardgarvel on trials and the building berths at Lamont’s Clyde yard in Port Glasgow. The latter picture was taken from Lamont’s publicity material kindly handed in by an anonymous reader.