Fascinating article from The Herald about fishing boats, particularly wooden hulled vessels.
What caught our eye, of course, was that Jack Grieve, Fishing News’ Fisherman of the Year, has been buying fishing boats for £1 and then restoring them to full working order.
- Around 80 wooden boats are still at work
- The organisation 40+ Fishing Boats Association was formed to help preserve and sustain these vessels
- One of the oldest boats still at work is the Hopeful, K118, working out of Kirkwall and dating from 1959
- Many of these boats were lucky to survive the 1995 decommissioning cull of fishing boats and licences
- These older vessels have high maintenance costs – their oak and larch hulls need regular caulking and careful treatment
- Few boatbuilding yards have the skills or equipment to maintain wooden hulls
- One was our local Girvan yard, Alexander Noble and Sons, who depended on the skills of Douggie, now retired.
- “The people who own these old boats love them, but they’re also tools that go to work.
- “They’ve lasted 50 years and more because the men who use them look after them” – Mike Smylie
One of the wooden boats pictured in the article is Dunure boat ‘Huntress’, BA93.
