McGruer & Co Ltd : About the Company ...
The McGruer name is synonymous with boats and boating worldwide. McGruers came to Britain with William the Conqueror, were granted lands in Scotland by the Normans around Inverness and became the standard bearers for the Fraser clan. There are references in Inverness Library to a McGruer building a wooden warship for a French nobleman in the year 1296 and by the late 1800s Ewing and Gruer McGruer had established a boat business at Rutherglen near Glasgow.
The heyday of McGruer boatbuilding spanned from the 1920s to 1990s in yards at Clynder and Rosneath with classics such as “Al Malika” for the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Gareloch One Design Class, royal barges for “Britannia”, and 8-metre Cruiser / Racers followed by light weight cold-moulded wooden IOR boats and highly successful pilot, patrol and survey vessels in GRP.
During both world wars production was given over to military craft including the 110 foot “HAM” class minesweepers and the high speed 72 foot HDMLs, which were delivered at a rate of one every six weeks.
The McGruer Hollow Spar Company in Lambeth made rolled hollow spars for the wing struts of British fighter planes during World War I and for the struts and fuselage booms of later bombers. Alcock and Brown made the first transatlantic flight in 1919 in a Vickers Vimy with McGruer struts and the Everest expeditions of 1924 and 1933 carried hollow McGruer ice axe handles. King George V’s yacht Britannia had a McGruer rolled hollow boom 84 feet long and 17 inches in diameter with a 3 inch wall thickness.
In the 1990s McGruer & Co established the largest Lloyds approved GRP mould shop in Scotland laying up hulls from 5 to 20 metres in single skin GRP as well as more sophisticated composite structures in epoxy / vinylester with carbon / kevlar re-enforcement. Alongside this work the company operated a 200 tons slipway servicing local ferries, fishing boats and MoD vessels and built workboats in steel and aluminium.
In 1998 a Technical Services division was opened with George McGruer and Fraser Noble in the key roles. New designs were produced for high speed landing craft and water jet powered RIBs, together with design alterations for sail training craft and the business began to undertake increased survey and consultancy work.
In 2000 McGruer & Co sold their Rosneath boatyard for development in order to focus on Survey and Consultancy business. The company surveys all kinds of marine craft for Owners, Operators, Buyers, Insurers and Finance Houses and examines commercial vessels for compliance with MCA Small Commercial Vessel Codes of Practice.
Expert Witness Services are provided to Law Firms, Owners and Boatbuilders to assist in Dispute Resolution and the company maintains a back catalogue of classic craft designs available to support refit of existing craft or new build.
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