TAY QUEEN AD - 1981

From yesterdays royal visitor to the Tay, to todays royal worker on the Tay - the Tay Queen.

This ad, from a 1981 Courier, lets it be known that the Saturday evening cruise on this particular weekend, also included folk music.

THE TAY QUEEN - EARLY 80'S

The picture is of the Tay Queen arriving at the Old Pilot Pier in Broughty Ferry on 13th August 1982.

This pleasure boat, which had a fully licensed saloon bar, used to do return trips from the Ferry to Invergowrie Bay.

In addition, there were cruises to Perth on certain days of the month.

The timetable leaflets, from 1983, give you the lowdown on where to book and so on. You could even have your own private function on it, which sounds like fun!

However, the fun didn't last too long as somewhere between 83 & 85, the Tay Queen stopped it's cruises, and was replaced for a short while in 1985 by the Coral Star, details of which can be found in my March 2009 archive.

Click images to enlarge.

Big thanks to Neale Elder

CORAL STAR - UNDER THE 2 BRIDGES - 1985

In the summer of 1985, they began organising boat trips up & down the Tay. The folk behind this venture were Seaforth Hotel proprietors, Mr & Mrs Mann. The boat was called Coral Star and the cruise was titled "Under the two bridges". The boat left from Broughty Ferry harbour and went down the Dundee side of the Tay up to about Inchture where it turned around and came back up along the Fife side. A nice wee journey. The trips only lasted that one summer in 85, May to September.
Me and my brother went on one. He had his camera with him that day and took a few snaps.
I've stitched some of them together into a short slide-show below.

THE INN AT THE QUAY - 1982

Dundee's "floating pub" was a very short lived novelty. In business only for a few months in 1982. The Balmoral (the boats former name) was modified to become The Inn At The Quay around spring 1982 and it sat at Craig Pier, beside the Leisure Centre. It was a good wee pub to visit in the summer months because you could sit out on deck and take in the warm lighty nights. Everytime I was there it was always a young crowd on board and I'm fairly sure it had dj's on at weekends. The funnel had an image of a "key" on it which was a wee bit of visual humour - key/quay. You could say it was an INN joke..!!
I remember in August that year, I arrived back in town after a 4 week tour of France and as soon as I stepped out of the rail station, the Quay was the first place I headed for, then it was straight up to the Deep Sea for some proper food..a puddin' supper!
By winter the floating pub had shut.
Photo by DC Thomson.Tints by GG.