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This exhibition features six vessels filmed for the BBC Four series Boats that Built Britain. Two are on the National Register of Historic Vessels, managed by National Historic Ships
Fishing – Reaper
‘sweating and cold, growing up,
growing old and dying,
...we’re hunting for the shoals of herring.’
Ewan MacColl, ‘The Shoals of Herring’
Reaper is now owned by the Scottish Fisheries Museum as an operational exhibit. Last year she sailed more than 2000 miles, and welcomed over 17,000 visitors onboard. She is one of 200 vessels of prime UK significance on the National Historic Fleet.
Image: Reaper under sail.
Credit: The Scottish Fisheries Museum
The boat
In the early 19th century, government bounties for the owners of herring boats led to a boom in herring fishing. Increased demand for fish brought developments in boat design. In turn, this created a full-blown industry out of what had previously been a simpler way of life.
The introduction of the steam capstan at the end of the century gave herring drifters the power to handle heavier sails and fishing gear. Because of this, bigger vessels were used. Reaper was one of the largest Fifie sailing drifters at 70 feet (21 m).
She was crewed by eight men and a boy, and used drift nets up to one and a half miles long. Despite her sea-keeping qualities, Reaper and other full-sized fifies were eclipsed by the steam drifter in the 1920s and ’30s, when sail power became seen as less reliable.
The story
Jessie Hughes worked as a fisher lass out of Pittenweem, Fife, on Scotland’s east coast. Girls like her were an integral part of the industry. ‘Herring lasses’ as young as 15 travelled from villages all over Scotland to the ports, gutting and packing the ‘silver darlings’.
The fishing industry created mass employment, not only for the fishermen themselves but also for their wives and daughters, the curers, merchants and general hands. In 1910, over 90,000 people worked in these ancillary trades. In 1907, at the height of the Scottish herring industry, 2,500,000 barrels of fish (250,000 tons) were cured and exported, with over 10,000 boats involved.
Although the industry employed many people, it also brought losses. Winter gales underlined the perils of fishing as a livelihood. In August 1848, over 100 Scottish fishermen drowned in one gale, leaving 47 widows and 161 children without support.
Images: (top) Herring girls, Scarborough, Yorkshire, c.1910, Samuel Coupe Fox. Repro ID: P24661; (middle) Scarborough, Yorkshire, by Francis Frith & Co. Repro ID: P24806 © National Maritime Museum; (bottom) Fraserburgh Harbour in the 1880s. Credit: The Scottish Fisheries Museum
Vessel key dates
- 1901 – Reaper’s keel is laid
- 1902 – She is registered for fishing at Fraserburgh
- 1916 – Reaper has an engine fitted for the first time
- 1939–45 – She is requisitioned by the Admiralty
- 1959 – The vessel is purchased as a ‘flit-boat’ and re-named Shetlander, to carry cargo around the Shetland Islands
- 1975 – Reaper is bought by the Scottish Fisheries Museum