Two generations of a Belgian family
This story is told by Eddie Van der Stighelen whose father, Jan Van der Stighelen, was a Belgian national who served in the Belgian Merchant Navy from before WW2 until the war’s end. His parents had met during the war and were married in Glasgow in 1943, but after the war they returned to Belgium where their first two children were born.
Eddie’s begins his story, “In 1951 the family moved from Belgium to Glasgow and my father started working for the shipyard A&J Inglis at Pointhouse. Later that year work started on building the Maid of the Loch, and as foreman of the Engineers Shop, his skills would have been in much demand. The S.S. Leopoldville had a quadruple expansion main engine so the engine room of the Maid of the Loch would have been very familiar to him”.
“My brother (who is four years older than me) remembers being taken in my father’s van to Balloch presumably to the slipway where the Maid was constructed and launched into Loch Lomond”, said Eddie. And he added, “I am Jan’s youngest son and I was born in 1953 which makes me as old as the Maid of the Loch!”
For the last twenty or so years Eddie has run his own engineering business called Vantech Engineering Services Limited in East Kilbride, which specialises in Construction Industry tools and Industrial Plant & Maintenance.
Here is where the story spans two generations. Eddie made a fortunate connection via social media which highlighted an opportunity to be of some assistance in getting the Maid of the Loch back sailing, and was very keen to help.
Eddie said, “My first task has been to renovate the ship’s windlass required for handling the Maid’s mooring warps. It was in very poor condition and had to be dismantled, cleaned and inspected to ensure that it could still be made to work again. Thanks to the quality of the materials used and the robustness of the design the windlass renovation is almost complete”.
Enthused by this success, Eddie added, “After the windlass renovation I’m sure there are some more interesting engineering tasks to be undertaken – time will tell.”
The Loch Lomond Steamship Company, the charity which owns the Maid, can’t wait for the windlass to be installed once more on the Maid. An original piece of equipment restored to working order is another step forward in its aim of returning the historic ship to full sailing condition.
So the Maid has benefitted from the skills of this amazing engineering family with Jan the father as the shipbuilder and Eddie his son, almost 70 years later, the renovator.
