Ninety new jobs will be created at a Glasgow shipbuilders after it clinched a �17m contract.

Ferguson Shipbuilders, which employs 300 people, beat off strong worldwide competition to win the order to build a new anchor handling and tug supply vessel for Stirling Shipping.

The deal will secure work for the Clyde yard at Port Glasgow and see another 90 staff being taken on.

It will be the fifth supply vessel to be built by Ferguson for Stirling Shipping over the last five years.

Ferguson completed a similar vessel for the company earlier this year and has now won orders totalling �75m.

The firm was founded almost 100 years ago when the four Ferguson brothers broke away from the Fleming and Ferguson Shipyard in Paisley and leased the Newark Shipyard on the Clyde.

Royal launch

More than 300 vessels have left the Port Glasgow slipways since then.

The ownership of the company has changed a number of times during its history, the most recent development taking place in 1995 when Holland House paid �4.9m for Ferguson Marine.

In August the Queen visited the yard to launch the new Caledonian MacBrayne ferry MV Hebrides.

The second largest vessel in the fleet will come into service at the end of the year, serving the Skye to Harris and North Uist routes.

Ferguson is also building a new car and passenger ferry for Western Ferries to operate on the McKinroy's Point to Hunter's Quay route on the Clyde.