THIS area’s residents are used to seeing sailing craft on the Clyde but not a replica of a vessel from the 16th century.

Some may not have believed their eyes one lunchtime in April, 1996. 

Passing Greenock on her way to Glasgow was a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s Golden Hinde. Crew members could be seen dressed as they would have been in Elizabethan times.

Drake changed the course of history by circumnavigating the globe between 1577 and 1580.

The full-size replica of the Golden Hinde was built in Devon – using traditional methods and materials - and launched in 1973. Like the original, she had sailed round the world.

Greenock Telegraph:

Sir Francis Drake and his men did not have taps or running water, heating, refrigeration or beds and the replica’s crew had to live pretty much to the same standards, sleeping in hammocks or on deck if the weather was favourable.

In April, 1996, the replica sailed upriver to Glasgow’s Yorkhill Quay where the public could visit her until the middle of May.

The Golden Hinde’s permanent home is now London’s St Mary Overie Dock, close to London Bridge.