Seawards the Great Ships

A crane swings over a dockyard on Clydeside and a rousingly scored sequence illustrates some of the great ships that have been built and launched around the city of Glasgow over recent years. It was here that the famous "Cutty Sark" was built in the Victorian era. Cargo ships, warships, liners, tugs - you name it and their types have been made here since. The designers draw and calculate how the ship will function. It's almost as if it were a 3D jigsaw puzzle, based on the architect's paper-based template. Those designs are then tested in tanks that can simulate benign - and less - sea conditions. Next, the steel plates are prepared and mangled before the welding, bolting and construction begins. These industrial processes are demonstrated with riveting machines and rollers forcing the metal into it's curved and moulded shapes. The prefabrication sheds do most of the preparatory work building the sections - sometimes 30 tons - before they emerge to be assembled, piece by gigantic piece. Some gentle banter from the workers gives an indication of the tough work and community spirit that thrived amongst the skilled characters who worked the metal amidst a constant racket that would have driven most folk to distraction long since. The day of launch arrives and what was inanimate is given a final dab of paint and then the champagne and the screaming chains. "British Trust" is born but she has still to be fitted, plumbed, wired and given an engine. Finally, under her own power another recently constructed ship "Regent Eagle" is tugged into the open water. I wonder what ever happened to that?

No wonder this documentary short won an Oscar, a first for Scotland. Beautifully scripted, beautifully filmed, this documentary records a bygone time, a time when sailors worldwide knew what 'Clyde Built' meant. From design to cutting the first steel, from construction to launching and on to fitting out, we see how a ship is made by man with all the marvel of his might - and brain, and creativity as well. The film has touches of humour, too, for these tough men on Clydeside were able to laugh while they constructed what they hoped would be a happy ship, often a beautiful ship too.

This film provides a wonderful record of shipbuilding and will be of interest to sailors and those in the shipping industry, to those who had a father who built ships and to many a Scot and Glaswegian.

It was a real privilege to join my last ship at Yarrow Shipbuilders, in Scotstoun, on the Clyde, in September 1985. She wasn't a ship with a name then, for she was known to all as yard number 1029, but she was to become the frigate HMS Brave - a truly beautiful ship, a very happy ship. This film brings happy memories and let me thank, indeed salute, those whose skilled work enabled Seaward to go the Great Ships.

I was really surprised by this film. I have no interest in ships or shipbuilding, but the visuals caught my attention immediately. The photography is dynamic, even poetic, as the camera explores a major shipyard in Scotland. The film documents the process of creating a large sea vessel in the twentieth century. Iain Hamilton's score is excellent.

I came across this film by accident. It was part of a VHS tape compilation of John Grierson's work. Sadly, the print they started with was not in good shape and the color is badly faded. I have no idea if it's available on DVD.

Seawards the Great Ships is a great film, multi-award winning culminating in an Oscar in 1961. It starts with the rudder of a ship as it slides down the slipway on launch day and moves to a montage of several launches. There is a wonderful shot from the keel to the tip of the mast. the film is full of movement and shipwright's humour. The shipyard on the Clyde is bathed in golden sunlight which they must have had to wait a long time to get.The music is very much of its time and jars a bit on modern ears but does seem to fit the pictures very well. A previous reviewer asked if a new print has been struck, yes it has and is available on DVD from a company in Scotland called Panamint Cinema