The Burntisland Shipbuilding Co Ltd was founded in 1918 by Amos and Wilfrid Ayre. In its lifetime of just over 50 years, the company built 310 ships. Please see below for links to lists of the ships built and other information.

The main collection of Burntisland Shipyard records is held by the National Archives of Scotland. For general and specific research on ships, the Lloyds Register Historical Research Service provides access to rich sources of information. Also please see the Bibliography page.

Burntisland Shipyard closed in 1969, after a long and chequered history. The 1960s were difficult times for Scotland's long established shipyards, but the yard at Burntisland was, on the face of it, doing reasonably well. However, problems over one contract were to come to a head in 1968, and were to prove insurmountable.

The ship in question was the 'Ohrmazd', a fast cargo liner for the East & West Steamship Company of Karachi, Pakistan. This ship was effectively being paid for by the British Government, as part of its foreign aid to Pakistan. But its construction was plagued by wrangles over the specifications and contract terms between the shipyard and the shipowners. These led to serious delays in completing the ship. The delays in turn led to the incurring of punitive financial penalties by the shipyard, which it was simply unable to cope with.

The ship was completed in November 1968, but the damage had been done. Burntisland Shipyard went into liquidation the following month.

The 'Ohrmazd' was not in fact the last ship to be completed at the yard. The 'Christiane Bolten' was completed in April 1969, and the 'Helen Miller' in July of that year.

The late Alex Mackinnon, former shipyard worker like his father before him, recalled an interesting episode about the launch of the 'Helen Miller': "The ship refused to budge when the chocks were removed and despite lighting fires to warm the tallow on the slipways it still would not go and the launch was postponed. It transpired that the actual slipways were not parallel so we had to re-prop the ship, taking the weight off the slipway, realign the runners and then lower the ship down into position again. The launch then went without a hitch." Alex also remembered that, despite the fact that the workforce were working themselves onto the dole queue, they completed the 'Helen Miller' ahead of schedule and received a £20 bonus per man for a job well done.

The shipyard site is still in use for the fabrication of major structures , under the ownership of Burntisland Fabrications Ltd.

My thanks to Johnston Wood, Iain Mackinnon, Sarah Petrie, Jimmy Stuart, Milton Bell and James B Anderson for providing me with material on the shipyard. 

IAIN SOMMERVILLE
E-mail: iars@fife40.freeserve.co.uk