Sir James, originally VIC 82, is the third of my 80ft ex-VIC 80 puffers, and very much the darkest horse of the three,
since there's precious little documentation and just a single known picture. The very few facts available about her life
include the detail that her third civilian owner was the firm of I A Dutch in Perth on the River Tay, which makes her
one of the puffers which must have passed within sight of where I live at least once (on her way up the Firth to her new home)
and very possibly quite regularly, since she was bought as a sand dredger, and River Tay sand is highly prized
(and still to this day used for bunkers at the world-famous Championship golf course just down the road here at Carnoustie).
The single available image is in monochrome and generally accepted to have beeen taken in her River Tay days,
but it's safe to assume that she'd been repainted after leaving the Hays' fleet (where her sister SS Celt remained a few years longer),
since even in back and white, it's easy to spot that she has no lining, sports a light-coloured panel at the top of her bows,
that her funnel has a white band, and her wheelhouse is darker and has yet another variation of window arrangement
Like my other puffers, it has limited roll function, so that you can replicate the various settling angles depending on her load.
Тип: scenery