Old ships up one slipway, new ones down the other: the yard that’s seeing off the last oil tanker

The yard has two ends. Up the left-hand slipway comes the Murky Mabel, the last oil tanker for miles, sold off by Percival Drip, who is opening a bike shop. First the good bits come off: press on the bell, the wheel or a brass porthole and pull, hard, until the bolts ping and it flies into the salvage crate. Then up in the cherry picker you cut her along the yellow chalk line with the torch, steady as you can, while the sparks pour off and the cut glows white, then orange, then red. Hold the button and the big gantry crane heaves the chunk free, swing it over the scrap bays and press Drop! It lands with a tremendous crash and bursts into plates and pipes in a cloud of rust. The engine room and the deckhouse go in the bay for fittings and cable, for the Recycling Centre.

Down the right-hand slipway go the new ones. The blocks come out of the big blue fabrication hall on a transporter, and the crane swings each one over its green outline: let it stop swinging, hold Lower, and the crew on the tag lines pull it the last little way into place. Weld the seam between the blocks, dragging the welder at just the right speed (too fast and the bead is thin, too slow and it is all blobs), or on the sail cargo ship, bang in each rivet while it is cherry red. Then roller her colours on, crane in the wheelhouse, the masts or the rotor sails, and pick her name.

Launch day brings the whole town to the quay. Pull the bottle of ginger beer right back and let go (too gentle and it boings off), knock out the timber shores with the mallet as it swings through the green, and she slides stern first down the greased ways into the estuary with a huge splash and a wave rolling out across the water. Toot her horn. Later come a research ship for counting puffins and a cargo ship with great spinning rotor sails for Big Rosa at the Container Port.