Boats and boatbuilders : the history of boatbuilding around Fraserburgh

The first boatbuilding yard was established in Fraserburgh around 1780. By the early years of the 19th century there were incomplete records of a yard set up by John Dalrymple. From the 1870s until the outbreak of the First World War, Fraserburgh was one of Britain's busiest fishing ports and the source of some of the finest and most sucessful boats. During the First World War, Admiralty work kept the boatyards busy converting fishing boats to naval use. In the late 1920s changes in fishing practices and increased demand for herring led to a second boatbuilding boom. However, by the 1960s herring demand had slumped and Fraserburgh boatyards began to close, the first being Wilson Noble in 1959. This book covers all these developments in detail and with many black and white photographs.