The Victualling Inshore Craft, or VIC, was a type of auxiliary vessel built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
During the First World War the Royal Navy had need of an auxiliary vessel suitable for lightering supplies to its ships in a variety of settings, often with insufficient, or completely without, shore facilities.
The puffers were employed ferrying all manner of supplies around the Firth of Clyde and Scotland's west coast, where small communities had limited, or no, harbour facilities.
[2] While the puffer was a Scottish design, the Clyde shipyards were fully occupied with building and repairing ships for the Merchant and the Royal Navys, so the VICs were built at river and canal yards in England.
Other yards employed were S&D Brown, of Hull; Watson, of Gainsborough; Pollock, of Faversham; Richards, of Lowestoft; Harker, of Knottingley; Goole Shipbuilding and Rowhedge Ironworks.