THE threat of the dreaded axe is again hovering over the River Clyde's dwindling shipyard industry.

BAE Systems, which owns the only Glasgow yards remaining on the river, announced recently that one of its bases would close.

That pits the historic yards at Govan and Scotstoun against Portsmouth.

But although the glory days of Clyde shipbuilding are long gone, there are still reminders throughout the world of what made the river famous.

From the waterways of Europe to the largest lakes of Africa and South America; from the great rivers of America to New Zealand and the Far East, ships built in Glasgow, Clydebank, Dumbarton, Paisley, Port Glasgow and Greenock are still playing their trade.

Many others, including liners such as the Queen Mary and the QE2 and former Clyde steamers, such as the Maid Of Ashton, have been converted into floating hotels and restaurants.

The people living in the remote towns and villages on the shores of Lake Malawi can thank the MV Ilala for getting them from A to B.

Built at Yarrow's, it has operated continuously on the lake since 1951 and has featured on stamps of Malawi and the former Nyasaland.

The lake has also been home, for more than a century, to the steamship Chauncy Maples, now the oldest ship afloat in Africa.

She was built in 1899, at the Alley and McLellan yard at Polmadie and was originally a floating church and clinic for the Universities Mission To Central Africa. She then served as a ferry and is now being restored as a clinic at the port of Monkey Bay.

On Lake Victoria in Africa, two vessels built at Yarrow's in 1965, the Umoja and the Uhuru, offer vital transport to residents.

The steamship Delta Queen is now classified as a US National Historic Landmark. In the course of her long career on the great rivers of America she has carried three presidents, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter.

Now a floating hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the vessel, built at the Denny yard in Dumbarton in 1924, has presidential dispensation to save it from the scrapyard.

Its sister ship, the Delta King, is also a floating hotel in Sacramento, California.

Thousands of miles further south, on Lake Titicaca on the Peru-Bolivia border, the oldest surviving ship built at the Denny yard is still in operation – now as a restaurant.

The Coya was assembled on the Clyde, then dismantled and shipped in parts to Peru, where she was reassembled and launched in 1893.

She plied the lake as a ferry for decades before being grounded in 1984. She was then rescued and restored and is now a floating restaurant.

Guyana has been the destination for a number of ferries built on the Clyde.

The MV Lady Northcote, built in the Ferguson yard in Port Glasgow in 1937, still sails from the Guyanan capital Georgetown.

Drama surrounded the MV Makouria in Georgetown in 1963. The Ferguson-built ferry was boarded by anti-Government saboteurs who exploded 12 sticks of dynamite on board, causing damage but failing to sink her.

The Makouria is still in service and has featured on Guyana stamps.

In 1936 the luxury yacht Nahlin was at the centre of one of the century's biggest stories.

The yacht, built at the John Brown yard in Clydebank, had been chartered by Edward Vlll for a cruise in the Adriatic with Wallis Simpson. It was her presence on board that alerted the world's media to the impending abdication crisis.

Nahlin was later bought by King Carol of Romania and is in Liverpool awaiting restoration.

Closer to home many ships built in the 19th century are still sailing. The Sir Walter Scott plies Loch Katrine, while the steamships Lady Of The Lake and Raven still sail on Ullswater, Cumbria.

The paddle steamer Sudan, built at the Bow McLachlan yard in Paisley in 1921, was used for filming the movie Death On The Nile, and now offers Nile cruises.

Brown Owl was one of the Dunkirk Little Ships. Now privately owned, she took part in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations on the Thames.

The floating crane Hikitia, built in Fleming and Ferguson, Paisley, in 1926, is still working in Wellington Harbour, New Zealand, and is considered one of the country's maritime icons.

On the Thames in London, the former Clyde steamer Maid Of Ashton, now called the Hispaniola, is a floating restaurant, while the former Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve ship HMS President is a conference venue.

The SS Samuel Green, built in 1919 at the George Brown yard in Greenock, is a naval trawler, converted into a floating restaurant on the Water Of Leith, Edinburgh.

And the De Buffel, which was launched in 1868 at the Robert Napier yard in Govan, is now a landmark at Rotterdam Maritime Museum.

There are many more, but the saddest story must belong to the former Mersey ferry Royal Iris. In her heyday, in the 1950s and 60s, the Royal Iris "crossed the Mersey" between Liverpool and Wallasey. The Beatles and Gerry And The Pacemakers were among the acts that performed on board.

Built in 1950 at the Denny's yard, she left the Mersey in 1993 to be a floating nightspot at Cardiff. But the plan fell through for financial reasons and the vessel was taken to the Thames.

That's where it now sits, a derelict rotting hulk of what was once a proud Clyde-built ferry.

iain.lundy@ eveningtimes.co.uk