SKARPOE and AMANDA

Two coasters lay at the 'Bravo' anchorage on Tuesday, each waiting to move not upriver, but into two of the nearby lochs. On the left, the Cypriot-flagged coaster SKARPOE, built in 2005 and operated by the German company Hermann Buss. This 90-metre long,4,508 tonne deadweight vessel was about to head for Sandbank, where she would load round timber. On the right, the coaster AMANDA had arrived a day or so previously from Barrow-in-Furness with a miltary cargo for Faslane. She is Danish-flagged, and was built at the Sietas yard in 1981. A little smaller than SKAPOE at 80.94 metres in length, she has a deadweight of 1,795 tonnes. Between the two, the Clydeport pilot cutter CLOCH, still standing in while TOWARD undergoes overhaul at Largs Marina.