Dunoon - Holy Loch

Holy Loch

As the Cold War intensified, Holy Loch became internationally famous when in 1961 the U.S. Navy submarine tender USS Proteus (AS-19) brought Polaris ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protesters to the Firth of Clyde at nearby Sandbank, and Dunoon provided shore facilities. Holy Loch was, for 30 years, the home port of US Navy Submarine Squadron 14. In 1992, the Holy Loch base was deemed unnecessary following the demise of the Soviet Union and subsequently withdrawn. The last submarine tender to be based there, the USS Simon Lake, left Holy Loch in March 1992, leading to a major and continuing downturn in the local economy. In May 2012, Dunoon and Campbeltown were jointly named as the most vulnerable rural places in Scotland to a downturn in a report by the Scottish Agricultural College. The "vulnarability index" ranked 90 Scottish locations according to factors associated with economic and social change.

The US Navy base was the subject of the 1988 film Down Where The Buffalo Go, starring Harvey Keitel. Many of the scenes were shot around Dunoon and the navy base itself.

Holy Loch was also the location of the boat yard Alexander Robertsons, builders of the America's Cup challenger Sceptre, a 65-foot, 17-tonne yacht designed by David Boyd.