This area of the Firth gets its name from the deep water immediately to the west of the sandbank which marks the entrance to the navigable channel up the Estuary of the River Clyde.

Steamships of the Cunard Line en route from Liverpool to New York City regularly called at Tail of the Bank to pick up additional passengers.

[8] A monument in the form of a Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor was erected on Lyle Hill overlooking the Tail of the Bank, to commemorate the Free French Naval Forces.

It is also associated locally with the Vauquelin class destroyer Maillé Brézé which blew up off Greenock with heavy loss of life on 30 April 1940, before the Free French Naval Forces were established.

In 1974 the "sugar boat" Captayannis was at anchor at the Tail of the Bank when it was driven northwards by a storm and turned on its side on a sandbank midway between Greenock and Helensburgh, forming a large shipwreck which is still visible in the middle of the Firth.

Though the sugar trade has been greatly reduced, Greenock's Ocean Terminal facility now handles container freight and regular cruise-liner traffic.