Light in the lum and light below the Vaila Mae

Tuesday - Sixareen launch day

A sixareen (photo from Shetland Photographic Archive)

Mustering at the museum the excellent Brian Wishart assembled our fine rowing crew from various parts of Shetland – all well qualified and skippers in their own right, so who gives and takes orders to and from whom is a mystery.

(photo by J Kerr)

Sorting the sail (photo by J Kerr)

The boat made ready we spent the morning filming the beautiful Vaila Mae. 

Under the oars (photo by J Kerr)

The sounds of the oars rising and dipping, with square sail up to catch the wind she just flies along through the water... 

Sail up on the Vaila May (photo J Kerr)

.... it's a wonderful boat to experience (and it will be available for trips around Lerwick Harbour during Boat Week - see website for more detail: https://www.shetlandmuseumandarchives.org.uk/community/boat-week/events).  

You begin to understand how such boats were able to travel so far out to the far Haaf, although the fishermen must have had a cold, wet and cramped time living in the boat, often sleeping under the sheet for several nights until they had a full catch and could return to the fishing station. 

Old sail from the Boat Haven, Unst, and sections of oars from Shetland Museum
(photos by J Kerr)

The sixareen was best suited for the prosecution of the white fishing. With a keel about two thirds of the overall length, flaring outwards to the gunnels, like the Viking ships, inside it was divided into compartments by gratings under the benches where the men sat to row. With working sections to hold the fish, the bottom of the boat would be filled with ballast of beach boulders until ready to be replaced by the caught fish. Sitting on top of a run of fish secured down by netting made the boat more stable and less likely to take on water. In the owse room the flooring was higher so the shovel might have a smooth sweep from one side to the other when bailing. The mid room was for shooting and hauling lines, which could be 6 miles in length.

Rowing on the Vaila May (photo by J Kerr)

When the first fish showed 'light in the lum', then 'light below that', followed by 'white below white', hauling a line laden with struggling fish weighing 30 - 40 lbs per cod and ling, plus Halibut weighing 2 cwt and gigantic skate, all hauled from depths of 30 to 90 fathoms must have been a supreme test of strength, even with the boat being pulled by a couple of oars in the direction of the line.

The foreroom held ballast, fire kettle and pot, plus peat fuel, the head room and bow-space were culinary areas holding a sea chest for knives and utensils and food, along with water breakers, sail, six miles of line, 5000 baited hooks, buoys, sinkers, spare rope, boat hooks, oars, oilskins etc etc.. All of which, with a mast lying somewhere in the mix, didn't leave much room for manoeuvre in a boat containing six large fishermen rowing, a skipper at the stern trying his best to avoid the breaking sea that could flood in and the bailer trying to keep the sea at bay, all at some points, hauling and gutting fish, at snatched times in between, eating and sleeping.

Action on the Vaila May, (photo by J Kerr)

Shetland fishermen were unsurpassed in their handling of these open boats, rowing the 30-40 miles to the fishing grounds. But very few fishermen would have owned their own boats, most being owned by the landowners who hired them out for the fishing season, which of course meant if the boat was lost it had to be paid for, often by a grieving widow and children, who, not being able to pay, would be evicted from the croft. In 1774 a six-oared boat complete with mast, square sail and oars cost about £6 and measured 18ft on the keel, 24-25ft overall. 

A break from rowing  (photo by J Kerr)

Thank you to Brian et al. for all your work in planing our trip, and for all the rowing we made the crew do. 

Brian Wishart, Sandwick, Gilbert Fraser, West Burrafirth, Robert Wishart, Lerwick, Jim Tait Mowbray, Walls, Andrew Cooper, Walls, Trevor Jamieson, Cunningsburgh, Ewen Balfour, Brae, Trevor Jamieson (and for blowing of Ludder Horn)

Luder Horn (photo by J Kerr)

Vaila May (photo by J Kerr)

Sixareens on Stenness beach 1890's (photo from Shetland Photographic Archive)

'

.....out at the Haaf, before the compass came into general use - with the fog and tidal currents prevailing..... here the men of old had means of finding their way to land.... an underswell - the moder dye - the surge or physical protest the Ocean makes when her cosmic motion is restricted by the proximity of land. Unnoticeable in deep water, the wave-like motion or swell becomes clearly discernible to trained eyes on soundings, and can be best observed in foggy weather. ... No matter how fierce the gale, how wind-driven and uncertain the billow, the methodical undulations of the 'moder dye' could be seen across the hills of a wind-torn sea, always setting four-square towards the land'. 

Extracts taken from 'The Sail Fishermen of Shetland', A Halcrow, pub. The Shetland Times, 1994, 1st published T & J Manson, Lerwick, 1950.
Other information taken from 'Shetland Fishing Saga', C A Goodlad, pub. The Shetland Times Ltd. 1971, and 'Inshore Craft of Britain: In the Days of Sail and Oar' vol 1, Edgar J March, pub.david & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970.
Plus information gleaned in conversation with Tommy Isbister, Trondra, Shetland: 
http://www.shetlandheritageassociation.com/members/central-mainland/burland-croft-trail) 

Running before the wind

Monday 19th June 

Having stayed over night in Braewick campsite we were up early and down at Stenness beach to be greeted by morning mist and drizzle. Undeterred clutching Wellington boots, cameras and GoPro stick we set off for sea with Tom Williamson who was waiting for us in his creel boat . 

It meant that we could get some sense of the experience of leaving from Stenness Beach as the sixareens had once done; of what the Haaf fishermen would have seen as they rowed out to the fishing grounds, behind them the land and Böd slowly receding and before them the open sea and far horizon (not that we went anywhere as far as they would have gone). 

 

During the fishing season from around Beltane Day in May to Lammas Day in August their days and nights were spent traveling in an open boat between shore and far haaf setting lines and hauling the fish until there was a full catch in the boat and they could turn and head back to shore, where the ling and cod would be washed, salted, and laid out on the stone beach by the beach boys while, after a few hours rest, the men returned to the sea. Bleached white by sun and air, the white fish, so prized on the continent, would be stacked and then weighed by the factor and a record made of each boats catch.

Hand-written list of Ling shipped from Stenness, 1817 (document held in Shetland Archives)

I've read that the men sometimes rowed for nine hours, although, weather permitting and with a good wind behind them, with the sheet raised this must have taken them to the far haaf a lot faster. A hard life, and one in which they didn't have much say but to go to the fishing, given pretty much all they had was owned by the Laird.

Extract from Fisherman's Agreement Book, 1861 (held in Shetland Archives)

The day we went out there was a brisk wind and choppy seas, the mist hanging over us, but I know they experienced far heavier seas running. Being so low in the water the land disappears the further out we traveled. Even so, rowing Foula down with its high cliffs, would have been some feat. Any bit of land would have acted as a marker - a meid from which to orientate their position. As Tommy Isbister remarked 'when you were sitting down in a boat ..when the land was sinking you knew where you were'. These men would have known their sea, could read how the water was running, and most of the time knew how the weather would be.  Despite this there were times when there was heavy storms and loss of life.

Grave stone in graveyard at Eshaness

Returning from the haaf fishing the first sight of the beach would have probably been the chimneys of the Böd rising above the hills, or smoke rising from the lodges.

Thank you to Tom for taking us.

Agreeable beauty

Saturday 17th June  - Agreeable beauty

While the south of the UK is sweltering in 32 degree heat here in Shetland we have perfect weather for filming mist out at sea using 16ml film and video.

Followed by some photographing of atmospheric ruined lodges scattered around Stenness beach. Most have disappeared, swept away over the last 100+ years by the action of wind and sea as well as the stones being plundered over the years sine they were last occupied in the 19th C to build walls and houses elsewhere.

They would certainly have been agreeable to 18th C William Gilpin's definition of the picturesque as 'that kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture' and for whom a bit of a ruined abbey or castle with rugged edges would add 'consequence'.

Days full of sound

Thursday/Friday 15th/16th June  - Full of sound

Having collected Shetland's own musician Catriona MacDonald we drove to Stenness and recorded the wonderful sounds Catriona playing the Shingly Beach tune composed by the famous Tammy Anderson. Set against the sounds of the sea and birds it was pretty special  (not that we are getting or intend to be romantic!).

Margaret Anderson arrived and was recorded reading about the Ling catch in Stenness on Friday, June 19th 1812, her fine voice mingling with the tide's comings and goings.

And finally it was time to go home. Tomorrow is another day...

Friday 16th June started as yet another session of filming the sea  - using the GoPro above and below water level

and more recording bells ringing and footsteps walking on the beach.  

But the best of the day was a visit to Mary and Tommy Isbister on Tronda - such a wonderful mind - knowledge of and skills in building boat, violins, houses, playing fiddles, farming, fishing ....

sixareen line and hooks

We left, having recorded Tommy and with much information about the Haaf fishing, how to split a Ling, and the construction of sixareens filling our heads.