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Loch Shiel (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Seile) is a 17 1⁄2 miles (28 km) long freshwater loch, 120 m (393 ft) deep, situated 12.4 miles west of Fort William in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland. Its nature changes considerably along its length, being deep and enclosed by mountains in the north east and shallow surrounded by bog and rough pasture in the south west, from which end the 4 km River Shiel drains to the sea in Loch Moidart near Castle Tioram. Loch Shiel should not be confused with Glen Shiel, 40 km further north in Skye and Lochalsh, which contains a longer River Shiel and a much smaller Loch Shiel. The surrounding mountains are picturesque but relatively rarely climbed as none quite reaches the 3,000 ft (910 m) required for Munro status. The area is well wooded compared to the many Highland areas that have suffered from overgrazing, and much of the shore is designated a Special Area of Conservation. Uniquely for a major loch[citation needed], the flow is not regulated. Boat trips for tourists have recently started on the loch. Loch Shiel is only marginally above sea level and was in fact a sea loch a few thousand years ago when sea levels (relative to Scotland) were higher. A ruined chapel can be found on the largest island said to be the first home on the Scottish mainland of St. Finan, a teacher of St. Columba. Acharacle, at the south of the Loch, is the site of the 1140 battle in which Somerled defeated the Norse to found the ruling dynasty of Lord of the Isles. During these times, the loch had strategic importance as a communications route through the mountains, as the short River Shiel was easily navigable in ancient times, however is no longer navigable as the depth drops to less than a foot. Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair, the poet and supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, was born and raised in the area. In 1745, after disembarking at Moidart, Bonnie Prince Charlie was rowed the length of the loch in order to raise his standard at Glenfinnan. Loch Shiel is the location of the fictional Black Lake near Hogwarts in the film versions of the Harry Potter series. It is also the fictional birthplace of Connor and Duncan MacLeod from the Highlander franchise as well as the actual location of the boat scene with Ramirez in The Highlander (1986). The loch was also used in the filming of the movie The Master of Ballantrae starring Errol Flynn.

PS Maid of the Loch is the last of a long line of Loch Lomond steamers that began about 1816, within four years of Henry Bell's pioneering passenger steamboat service on the River Clyde. In 1950 the British Transport Commission, owner of the newly nationalised railways, made the decision to replace the Princess May and Prince Edward with a new paddle steamer, to be the largest inland waterway vessel ever in Britain. Maid of the Loch was built by A. & J. Inglis of Glasgow, launched on Thursday 5 March 1953, and entered service later that year. She is a "knock down" ship: that is, after assembly at the shipyard she was dismantled, and shipped to the loch (by rail to Balloch at the south end of the loch), and there her sections were reassembled on a purpose built slipway. Her tonnage measures 555 grt, and the length is 208 ft (63 m). Her two-cylinder compound diagonal steam engine is less advanced than had become usual on steamers such as the PS Waverley, but was considered suitable for the limited area of operations. Maid of the Loch was painted white with a buff funnel. She was operated by the Caledonian Steam Packet Company. She provided a service from Balloch pier, initially to Ardlui at the north end of the loch, but later her last call was a few miles short of this at Inversnaid and she would cruise to the head of the loch. She was transferred to the Scottish Transport Group in 1969; then in 1973 to Caledonian MacBrayne. As with other steamers, cost pressures led to her being laid up after a last commercial sailing on 31 August 1981. One problem was that some of the piers on the loch would become unusable, either because of poor state of repair, or silting making the area around them too shallow; some of these piers had not been built to take a vessel as large as the Maid of the Loch. A series of attempts to bring her back into service under a succession of owners was unsuccessful, and she presented a sad sight gradually deteriorating at the side of the loch. In 1992 Dumbarton District Council bought Maid of the Loch and restoration work started. In 1995 the Council supported a group of local enthusiasts in setting up a charitable organisation, the Loch Lomond Steamship Company, to take over ownership and carry on restoration. She became ready for static operation with a cafe/bar and function suite in autumn 2000. The key to the restoration was the repair and refurbishment of the slipway adjacent to the pier at Balloch. There not being any connection to the sea it was not possible to take the ship to a dry dock for repairs to the hull so a slipway with a steam-operated cable-hauled cradle had been built. This had fallen into disrepair by the 1990s and eventually a Heritage Lottery Fund grant was awarded along with assistance from local and Scottish governmental organisations.This enabled the paddle steamer to be lifted out of the water on 27 June 2006. The Maid of the Loch is open to the public every day Easter to October, and weekends only through the Winter. She has a new livery of red, white and black, the funnel now red with a black top. Repairs and servicing are now earnestly underway to bring her back into steam operation.

IONA was the first of a new, second generation of major car ferries completed in the 1970s for the Scottish Transport Group companies. She was also the first drive-through RO/RO ferry built for the fleet and in fact would be the only drive-through ship laid down for the Company until 1983. Fast and extremely versatile, she would enjoy a far-flung career and inaugurate more endloading linkspans than the rest of the fleet put together. For much of her career her galley was reputed to produce the best food in CalMac and her crews always praised her as an excellent sea boat.

MS Albatros is a cruise ship, operated by the Germany-based travel agency Phoenix Reisen. She was built in 1973 by Wärtsilä Helsinki New Shipyard, Finland for Royal Viking Line as Royal Viking Sea, and has also sailed under the names Royal Odyssey, Norwegian Star, and Crown. She is the second Albatros for Phoenix Reisen as she was the replacement of the original SS Albatros.

MV Isle of Mull is one of the larger Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited ferries operated by Caledonian MacBrayne from Oban on the west of Scotland. MV Isle of Mull was designed for the route between Oban and Craignure on the Isle of Mull. After being launched on the Clyde in 1987, she entered service on the 11 April 1988, in place of the older and slower MV Caledonia. However the new vessel was seriously overweight – by more than 100 tons - due to both design and Steel Supply, British Steel had installed a new Computerised Gauge Control at its Dalzell Plate production unit, and during the initial production of steel plate after its introduction it tended to produce plates still within the allowed manufacturing specification, but at or near the upper gauge allowed in the tolerance - resulting in the steel tending to be heavier than designed. In late autumn 1988 she was taken out of service for two weeks and sent to Tees Dockyard Ltd in Middlesbrough to be lengthened by 5.4 m (20 ft). The extent of this implant can most easily be observed when climbing the stairs from the car deck to the passenger accommodation. These stairs used to be a single flight, but now have a level section halfway up. The new length of hull made the vessel better both in terms of vehicle capacity (taking it to around 80) but also in that she handled better at sea with her overall speed increased slightly. In the late 1990s she underwent internal refurbishment. Her cafeteria was redecorated and the serving area modified – setting the standard for the rest of the fleet. The shop was moved to a more prominent position in the entrance concourse and she received new seating covers etc.[ The Isle of Mull underwent another major refurbishment in 2005. The cafeteria was redesigned with a new service area layout, including self-service tea and coffee machines and was renamed the Mariners Cafeteria. A coffee bar was installed in the viewing lounge at the after end of the ship opposite the doors leading out to the open deck which overlooks the rope handling area of the ship and is named the Coffee Cabin. The bar has also been renamed The Still.

Launched in August 1963, this steam tender vessel was the last ship built by the Blythswood Shipbuilding Company, Glasgow, and was previously the Northern Lighthouse Board's (NLB) tender Fingal. At some time after she was launched, a flight deck was added, which required the mizzen mast to be moved forward. She was Leith-registered but spent most of her NLB service working out of Oban for 30 years, followed by her last six years in Stromness, Orkney. When she retired from NLB service in 2000 she was sold to a private owner who fully maintained her, moored on the River Fal in Cornwall for the next 14 years until she was acquired by Britannia (The Britannia Trust) in 2014. At nearly 73m long, FINGAL was both big enough to convert into a commercially viable small hotel and not too big to be beyond the Trust's budget, so when the deal to acquire her, or Windsor Castle as she had been renamed, was completed the ship went into Falmouth dry dock for an insurance survey to ensure she was suitably seaworthy to be towed to Edinburgh. FINGAL was safely towed to Leith, arriving in August 2014, and the detailed designs for the conversion could begin. The Pedley Group's £5m 'design and build' conversion took the best part of two years to complete and had a soft-opening in January 2018. It is being managed by Britannia's trading company; Royal Yacht Enterprises.

USS Missouri (BB-63) ("Mighty Mo" or "Big Mo") is a United States Navy Iowa-class battleship and was the third ship of the U.S. Navy to be named in honor of the U.S. state of Missouri. Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the United States and was best remembered as the site of the surrender of the Empire of Japan which ended World War II. Missouri was ordered in 1940 and commissioned in June 1944. In the Pacific Theater of World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the United States Navy reserve fleets (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of the 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in January/February 1991. Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on 31 March 1992, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until her name was struck in January 1995. In 1998, she was donated to the USS Missouri Memorial Association and became a museum ship at Pearl Harbor.

FM213 - airworthy with the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum out of Hamilton, Ontario as C-GVRA. Built at Victory Aircraft in Malton, Ontario, in 1945, this aircraft didn't see combat in Europe before the end of the war. It was later used for Search and Rescue operations under Maritime Air Command) before being retired from service on 6 November 1963. It was displayed in Goderich, Ontario from 1964 to 1977 then stored at Dunnville, Ontario. FM213 had 4,392.3 hours on the airframe when it was handed over. It would probably have been sold for scrap metal except for the intervention of The Royal Canadian Legion branch in Goderich, ON. The aircraft was acquired by Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in 1978, underwent a 10-year restoration, and has remained airworthy since 1988. The aircraft is flown in the paint scheme of KB726 coded VR-A, depicting the aircraft of No. 419 Squadron RCAF in which Canadian Andrew Mynarski won the Victoria Cross. It has thus been named the "Mynarski Memorial Lancaster", but is known colloquially as "Vera". C-GVRA departed Hamilton, Ontario on 4 August 2014, to take part in a series of events in the UK in formation with the world's only other airworthy Lancaster, PA474, during August and September. The North Atlantic crossing included en-route stops at Goose Bay Canada, Narsarsuaq Greenland, and Keflavik Iceland before arriving at RAF Coningsby, home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. This was purported to be the first Atlantic crossing by a Lancaster since 1975.