Westray skiffs

Arriving in Westray one of the first things that I notice in the fishing harbour is a small wooden boat. Only fifteen feet long, it sits on the water at a mooring looking perfectly at home. Sheltered behind the pier, moored in the bay are three more boats, almost, but not quite identical.

‘These boats’ I ask of the harbour master, ‘would they be Orkney Yoles?’

‘Oh no’ he says,, looking at me as if I’m mad ‘that there is a skiff’.

Skiff is perhaps the most flexible of boat descriptions in the western world. It applies to small clinker dingies, flat bottomed tenders and ultra modern racing machines.

‘Aye, we’ve quite a few here, yes. There’s mine out that way and more behind the processing plant’. Asked about his own boat he explains, ‘We bought it twenty year ago, it was a bit, you know. So we rebuilt it, my son and me. Launched it in ‘96 and we’re still using it, yes.’

This boat, the Westray Skiff, is a rare and valuable thing, a local boat type unique to only this small island, with a heritage reaching back over a hundred years. I found ten boats near the harbour, though I’m told there are far more in barns, sheds and gardens around the island. To have this many traditional local boats in a community of four hundred with limited income is remarkable. Some of these boats are a hundred years old, others are built as recently as five years ago. There is no professional boatbuilder here, these boats are built and maintained by their owners. It’s true that some of the repairs make the professional boatbuilder in me weep, fiberglass patched over rot; plywood fastened with screws more suited to kitchen cabinets; paint thrown roughly over it all. These boats are not so much a testament to craftsmanship as to a desire to remain connected to heritage, a testament to our cultural need to understand our own history.

While it is a cliché that heritage without people is dead heritage, I believe it is broadly true. These boats are maritime heritage at its most alive, raced twice a week and loved by their owners. This is local people valuing their own culture without funding or as a tourist exhibit, but because it is an essential part of who they are.

I work with the GalGael Trust in the heart of Glasgow teaching boatbuilding and other maritime heritage skills. We work with long term unemployed and those suffering from addiction and other social issues. I’m always trying to make maritime heritage seem meaningful and useful for our participants, here on Westray is an example of how valuable it can be.

Posted: 26 August 2013, 8:46am

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