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 return the vessel to service under a succession of owners was unsuccessful, and she presented a sad sight gradually deteriorating at the side of the loch. Restoration In 1992 Dumbarton District Council bought the 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 Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire, and West Dunbartonshire Council. This enabled the paddle steamer to be lifted out of the water on 27 June 2006. Fundraising continues for the next stages of the restoration including donations from the Wolfson Foundation, the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society and £950,000 from the Scottish Government's Regeneration Capital Grant Fund, amongst others. There had been the suggestion that if Loch Lomond Steamship Company raised £1.7 million by June 2018, that the Heritage Lottery Fund would donate £3.8 million towards the restoration, however in September 2018 it was announced that the Heritage Lottery Fund had decided against this donation. In January 2019 an unsuccessful attempt was made to winch the Maid of the Loch out of the water onto her slipway but the ship snapped its ties and slid back into the loch, however a second attempt in July 2021 with a new carriage was successful. Restoration work continues on the ship, with her interiors being returned to their original 1950s appearance while adding modern conveniences like a lift between decks, and also enabling her engines and paddles to turn slowly fed by a package boiler mounted on the pier. In 2019 the project was set back due to a failed bid to