Of all the venues in this collection, none was as improbable as the one that floated. From the late 1980s the Tuxedo Princess — a retired car ferry, formerly the TSS Caledonian Princess — was moored on the Clyde in the shadow of the Kingston Bridge and fitted out as a nightclub: eight bars across its decks, up to 2,000 people aboard on a big night, and, on the old car deck, the detail that made it legend — a revolving dancefloor. ‘The Boat’, everyone called it, and for about a decade it was one of the most beloved and least likely nights out in the city.
The Idea
The idea was imported from the Tyne. The Tyneside businessman Michael Quadrini had pioneered the floating-nightclub concept in Newcastle, converting old ferries into moored party ships; when the original Tuxedo Princess was moved to Glasgow, a sister vessel took her Newcastle berth, and the two boats — both affectionately known as ‘the Boat’ in their respective cities — became genuine regional icons. Glasgow, a city that had built the greatest ships in the world (as this site’s Shipbuilding chapter never tires of noting), took immediately to the idea of dancing on one.
The Revolving Dancefloor
The revolving dancefloor was the star. Simple, gimmicky and completely irresistible, it turned slowly beneath the dancers — so that a group busting moves together one moment would find themselves rotated into a knot of total strangers the next, sparking awkward introductions, spontaneous snogging and the general happy chaos that made the Boat what it was. Physics and romance in one rotating disc; it is the single most fondly remembered feature of any lost Glasgow club, and nothing since has replaced it.
The Great Equaliser
The Princess opened upmarket — a genuine destination in its early years, drawing a smart crowd across its many bars — before the arrival of glossier land-based venues like Victoria’s and the Hollywood Studios gradually pulled the fashionable trade ashore. But the Boat’s decline into cheerful, sticky-carpeted unpretentiousness only deepened the affection: dubious carpets, fearsome toilets, cheese on the decks and the great wheel turning below, it became the great equaliser of Glasgow nightlife, welcoming students, locals and visitors alike into its improbable embrace.
It was, in truth, gloriously naff, and that is exactly why it is loved — there is no nostalgia in Glasgow quite like Boat nostalgia, a whole generation’s worth of stories about the night the dancefloor spun them into their future partner, or their worst decision, or both. The Boat asked nothing of you but that you turn up and let the floor do the rest.
Setting Sail
After roughly a decade on the Clyde, the Tuxedo Princess set sail for good in 1998, her Glasgow chapter over; the vessel and her Tyneside sister passed through further moorings and eventual scrapping, the floating-nightclub era drifting into memory. The Kingston Bridge still arches over the water where she was tied up; the berth is empty; and a small, specific piece of Glasgow’s fun went with her.
The Tuxedo Princess earns her place in this collection as the perfect Glasgow paradox, and this site’s favourite entry in its Nightclubs chapter: a ship that never sailed, on a river that had stopped building ships, packed to the gunwales every weekend with people dancing in circles. She was daft, she was beloved, and in a city defined by its river and its refusal to take itself too seriously, she was — for about ten spinning years — absolutely perfect.