Shipbuilding in Scotland

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik), language: English, abstract: Few years ago, in 1995, I had the chance to attend the world famous "Cutty Sark Tall-Ship Races". The regatta took us from Edinburgh in Scotland to Bremerhaven in Germany. We were sailing for nearly three days until we reached the finish in Bremerhaven. Although we had not so much good look with the wind conditions in the North Sea we, the crew and the trainees of the "Great Duchess Elizabeth" from Elsfleth in Germany, reached the 2nd place which was really good and everyone of us was really proud because famous sailing-ships like for example the "Alexander of Humboldt" known from "Beck's" - advertisements on TV also attended this regatta. The fact that this was the first time I attended a sailing regatta and the really tall sailing-ship where I was on board, it was about 65 metres long, impressed me so much I will never forget this. And now, as I was searching for a topic and material for my paper in cultural studies I found out that Scotland is famous for his ship-building industry. There was no doubt about writing this paper about ship-building in Scotland for me because of my memories of that great regatta. What I want to do is to show the development of the ship-building industry in Scotland during the 20th century. I will direct my attention on the shipyards situated on the river Clyde, which is one of the most important rivers in Scotland. The river is situated in the west of Scotland and is very important for the industry of the town of Glasgow because it flows into the Atlantic Ocean and offers quite good conditions for yards. Therefore, it can be used for exports and imports by merchant ships. I will make clear if the ship-building industry situated there suffered under the economic decline as many other industries in Scotland did. I also would like to point out what reasons there have been that caused the decline of ship-building on the Clyde. Finally, I will give some industry solutions for solving the problems of the shipyards on the Clyde.