Legend and reality
Legend has it, that the Selkie came from the sea, rising from the waves to live on the shore, making the land their own along the rivers and the lakes. Many of our myths and legends, fairytales and stories have the sea as one of the main actors.
Two of our main Gods of the Cults, Ladra and Lodan Lir, are Gods of the Sea and those, who work there. Their servants are regular guests at our facilities.
The sea always played a vital role for the Selkie, both as a protector, a source of food and as a way of transporting goods to foreign lands.
Silverport and its docks
Silverport is one of the oldest cities within the Free Lands. Sitting, where the Iron River meets the Silver Bay, it has always been a major hub of trade and shipbuilding, one of the Five Cities, as historians call them: One of the mightiest cities of the land, by wealth, cultural influence and power, the other four being Inis, Leuda, Scilly and Fortham.
Much silver was traded there, hence the name.
As trade picked up, shipbuilders came and began to practice their crafts in the small harbour, repairing ships and building new ones. It is in these times, in the 10th century, where the the Cathlong Family's pennon, the silver banner, with a black hammer and a black drawknife on it, first appeared in an armorial about the influential families of merchants and craftspeople. Their trace is lost somewhere in the 15th century.
During the Dark Ages, Silverport evolved into a bustling metropolis with own walls, citadels and a sphere of influence, with traders, merchants, travellers and others arriving from all corners of the earth. The shipbuilding 'industry' evolved further, descriptions of the time say, that the ships built there rode the waves like horses on green field in the warm summer sun.
With experience handed down from generations and good materials, Silverport prevailed in the Turbulent Age, the cities warships keeping the sealanes, vital for all factions, clear. This changed with the advent of steel and steam ships, where centuries upon centuries of experience became worthless overnight.
Switching wasn't as easy as it sounded and only a few yard-owners, amongst them a Glynn Cathlong of the Tribe of Antrim of the Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company, made the jump before the start of the 20th century. The University of Silverport and their Faculty for Naval Engineering were elemental in this transition.
The Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company was later one of the companies responsible for building the Rhiannon-class Light Cruisers. They neither had engineering offices, they only built - and they did that very good, as the three ships stayed in service and operational until a storm wrecked them in 1996.
In the 1960s, an economic crisis led to the downfall of Silverport's shipbuilding industry, by then specialized in freighters and cruise liners. In 1969, the Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company closed - one of 101 shipyards closed during this time.
But while this was the end of the Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company, a young businessman named Tyran Cathlong of the Tribe of Cork founded a new shipbuilder with two of the old yards in 1983: Silverport Dockyards Limited.
Silverport Dockyards Ltd.
Silverport Dockyards Ltd. was founded in 1983 by Tyran Cathlong of the Tribe of Cork.
At first, it was mostly a repair and maintenance yard, gathering funds for modernization and expansion. Yard 1, one of the original two shipyards, is a museum nowadays, displaying pictures and memorablia of work back in the day as permanent exhibition, while Yard 2 is a training centre for students of the University of Silverport.
Although repairing ships was our main business until 1997, the new shipyard company began to build vessels under license very early, mostly for the domestic market.
With the SDF-Navy's request to build new corvettes, the small Sciath-class Corvettes, in 1992, Silverport Dockyards Limited had its first grand order. The odd yacht or freighter to be built for foreigners was a good extra income, but did not become main business until much later.
While Tyran Cathlong was an old engineer, studying and training back in the last decade of the Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company, his daughter Nora was a businesswoman, who joined the company in 1987 and rose through the ranks at a steady pace.
Disaster struck in 1996, when a storm not seen in centuries came over the Free Lands, destroying much, amongst them an amphibious assault ship of a friendly nation passing through the Exclusive Economic Zone, being wrecked by the storm. The Captain, not wanting to risk his ship and his crew, made Silverport a port of call, requesting the services of Silverport Dockyards Limited in checking up and, if needed, repairing his ship.
Yard 23 was made ready and received the 40,000 tons of warship.
During an inspection of the keel by a group engineers, parts of the ship's crew and a representative of the next consulate, the drydock's holding mechanism gave up - thirty people lost their lifes as the amphibious assault ship literally fell onto their heads. This, despite the men wearing hardhats, remains the single greatest loss of life and work accident in Silverport Dockyard's history by a wide margin.
In 2009, Tyran Cathlong retired in favour of his daughter Nora, who began to expand rapidly, soon encompassing not only yards in Silverport, but also in Leuda, Wembury and on Farpoint Island, but also opening research and development facilities in Laclan, Bodmin and Tipa. Furthermore, strategic partnerships with companies in the Free Lands were formed, chiefly among them Ironcastle Ironworks Limited and Gabha Blacksmiths Limited.
Not only that, but Silverport Dockyards Limited also expanded abroad, building yards and drydocks in foreign lands, far away from home. Most of these yards build merchant ships and other civilian vessels, repair and maintain them.
2010 saw the establishment of the Office for Prototype Development, a.k.a. Yard 15, formerly a yacht-building yard.
It was Yard 15, which developed the most productive designs of Silverport Dockyards to this day, amongst them the
Sealgaire-class Helicopter Carrier and the
Scoth-class Corvette, all requests for prototype development and shipbuilding studies are handled there, while the other yards, 64 in Silverport alone, handle production of vessels.
In 2017, during Nora Cathlong's pregnancy, her father Tyran and her daughter Gwen took over as temporary CEOs from Decembre 2016 for one year - due to the tragic end of the pregnancy, with the loss of the child, Nora began to return to her duties in late Novembre, slowly but surely. She remarked, that her daughter and her father did an excellent job as SDY's CEOs, making her hope for the future.
After Cathong's return, SDY began with gradual expansion projects, amongst them to Avisronia, resulting in, amongst other things, the
Pattern 263 Series of Cargo Vessels.
In 2019, SDY underwent a number of changes, both in personell as well as in products. Due to her pregnancy, Gwen Cathlong of the Tribe of Cork left the company in April, her Number Two as Head of Yard 15, Raidri Gormchló of the Tribe of Fingal, moving up, while for a short time, Nora Cathlong was Representative on diplomatic occasions.
This was soon changed, as the liaison to Sciathan was called back from Riverwood, Yvain Saighead of the Tribe of Westmeath became Business Representative.
On the 1st of October 2019, SDY officially announced, that it would from now on focus more on the markets of civilian shipbuilding, shipbuilding for law enforcement, marine engineering and offshore engineering. While SDY would continue to be on the market for military vessels and follow it and its developments closely, it would not be the focus of the company anymore. No further requests for prototype development of military vessels would be accepted.
On the forefront of that development is Togra Aoibhneas, or Project Rapture.
Silverport Dockyards Limited also operates a small shipping company with eight ships and a small fleet of testbed vessels, demonstration vessels and prototypes, amongst them the
Cineál.
All in all, Silverport Dockyards Limited employs around twenty thousand people in the Free Lands, plus additional thirteen thousand people abroad. It is the largest, private employer in the Free Lands.
We always build ships, be it of steel or be it of wood, since as much as Selkie are born for the saddle, Selkie are born for the sea. In us, centuries of tradition meets your need, modern technologies and ingenuity of unparalleled magnitudes to create our solution.