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Helensburgh Shoreline and The Sugar Boat

On this fascinating boat trip, you will enter a whole new world as you motor along from Rhu Marina to Helensburgh Pier, viewing the sights and the buildings in town from a completely different perspective – you may not even recognise the new swimming pool!  Then the boat will circle round the Sugar Boat wreck, and you will see it up close as you hear all about the history of this iconic feature. There’s a chance to see local wildlife, such as seabirds, seals, porpoises and if we are very lucky, dolphins.

We have a very comfortable, spacious & stable boat with a choice of indoor or outdoor seating for all passengers, a toilet, and complementary tea, coffee & local Helensburgh tablet.

Watch our drone Sugar Boat Tour

Cloch Lighthouse & The Gantocks

This boat trip will take you from Rhu Marina across to the south shore of the Clyde Estuary and then to the Cloch Lighthouse opposite Dunoon. As the water is very deep here we can take you in close to the Lighthouse, providing wonderful photo opportunities, and the chance to see this building, now a private home, from the sea. Then we will motor across towards Dunoon, to the Gantock rocks, where seals and seabirds can usually be spotted, and we will fill you in on the history of both the Cloch and the Gantocks. Here you will be able to look northwards, right up Loch Long, and southwards right down the Clyde Estuary, and savour the magnificent scenery on all sides.

The American Connection

This boat trip with a difference tracks the links between this area and America. We look at what was happening in World War 2, and visit Rosneath, which was a US Naval Base from 1942 to 1945, with 6000 US troops living in the surrounding woods and a US Naval Hospital just over the hill behind.

Then we voyage across to the Holy Loch – a US Navy submarine base from 1961-1992 during the Cold War, and learn about the huge floating dry dock in the centre of the loch, and the Cadillacs and Chevrolets in the nearby town.

We return via Greenock, which at its peak had 14 sugar refineries operating, with around 400 ships arriving annually from Brazil and the Caribbean. Then finally, before returning to Rhu we get up close and personal with the wreck of the Sugar Boat, an iconic local feature which even has a local restaurant named after it.

Arrochar, at the top of Loch Long

Departing Rhu, this one day boat trip takes you along the Kilcreggan shoreline before turning right into Loch Long. The journey then takes you all the way up Loch Long, passing Loch Goil, the ammunitions depot at Coulport, the fuel depot at Finnart, and Glen Mallan Pier, where aircraft carriers berth right next to the shore.  Arriving in Arrochar, you will disembark onto their new pontoon from where you can walk into the village for lunch. After a couple of hours ashore, your boat will depart Arrochar for a gentle meander down Loch Long and back round to the Gare Loch whilst you relax, sipping a glass of prosecco.

1-12 people. Private Trip rate £950

• 09:30 – Depart Rhu
• 11:45 – Arrive Arrochar
• 11:40-14:00 – Time ashore
• 14:00 – Depart Arrochar
• 16:30/17:00 – Arrive at Rhu

Four Piers Boat Trip

In the era of the Clyde steamers in the 19th century, before the invention of the internal combustion engine, people used piers the way we use bus stops.  Piers would spring up all over the Clyde & the Clyde sea lochs, often in competition with each other, and sometimes even two in the same village.

On this trip you will visit four of the remaining piers – Helensburgh, Craigendoran, Kilcreggan and Blairmore – and learn a bit more about this amazing period in our history, which started when Henry Bell of Helensburgh invented the Comet.