A GROUP of residents in Sandbank, on the shores of the Holy Loch near Dunoon, are objecting to plans to sell the site of a famous boatyard to a builder.

Robertson's Boatyard built some of the finest racing yachts in the world, including several Americas Cup challengers, but the last carpenters left 20 years ago. For a few years the company struggled on with repair work, but folded when the American Navy pulled out of the Holy Loch in 1991.

Argyll and Islands Enterprise bought the site for a marina development which did not materialise, and now it has been sold, subject to detailed planning permission from Argyll and Bute Council, to builder Stewart McNee. He plans to lease half of it to road haulier Charles Black.

Resident Ally Findlaysaid: ''This is a real backwards step for Sandbank. To position a noisy and untidy industrial facility in the middle of the village is sheer madness.

''The enterprise company have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds developing a business park less than a mile away on a less obtrusive site.

''Every tourist who drives to Dunoon passes through Sandbank. What will they think?''

She added: ''This is a wasted opportunity to develop the yard in a way that will really benefit the village. Instead we will have heavy lorries trundling through Sandbank, risking accidents as they enter and leave the site through the entrance which is on a dangerous bend.''

Both Mr Black and Mr McNee were unavailable for comment yesterday.

Sandbank, on the Cowal Peninsula, has suffered since many locals jobs were lost when the US Navy closed down its nuclear submarine base several years ago.

However the tourism industry has rapidly expanded and the economy of the area is recovering.

Sceptre and Sovereign competed to bring the Americas Cup back to Britain in 1958 and the early 1960s and the yard also produced Kurrewa for the Australian team.

One of the most famous boats ever built by Robertson's was the Circe which won the Sewanaka Cup in 1938 and successfully defended it the following year. In 1952 she was still considered so advanced that she was bought by the Soviet Union Olympic yachting team for that year's games.

Peter Collyer, 75, who worked at the yard during its heyday, remembers the attention to detail which marked Robertson's yachts apart from others.

He said: ''The men who worked there were among the finest craftsmen in the world. They were not boatbuilders but artists in wood. Everything had to be perfect or it was rejected.''

During the Second World War the yard produced 23 gunboats for the Royal Navy and throughout its history build several lifeboats.