WATCH: Historic herring drifter Reaper arrives for Scottish Traditional Boat Festival
A 19th century Fifie sailing herring drifter arrived at Portsoy today as the celebrations get set to begin for the Glenglassaugh Scottish Traditional Boat Festival.
Reaper has been based in Macduff since Saturday and made the journey to the festival this morning.
Thousands of visitors are expected to attend the event this weekend, to see the finest historic fishing fleet drop anchor in Portsoy, alongside a medley of music and dance, local food and drink and unique Scottish handcrafted items and gifts.
The main attraction for this year’s festival will be a performance by the Red Arrows on Saturday evening.
Built in 1902 by J&G Forbes in Sandhaven, Fraserburgh, Reaper began life as a two masted sailing lugger.
At 70ft long, she was used for drift net and great line fishing and in the 1930s, held the record catch of herring in Shetland, some 223 crans, nearly 250,000 fish.
Owned by the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther, Reaper marked her 120-year anniversary last year and through careful conservation and care, is one of the few vessels in the UK’s National Historic Fleet which is still in seagoing condition.
The boat was the focus of a extensive restoration and repair programme which took six years to complete.
In 2017, Reaper was taken to Babcock at Rosyth and following an extensive survey, it was revealed that significant refurbishment was required to replace decayed or damaged wood. This was necessary to restore structural integrity to the boat.
Thanks to funding from the Scottish Government, repair, restoration, and specialist woodwork was carried out by A&R Way Boatbuilding, including the installation of a new 67ft foremast made from Oregon pine from Canada.
Reaper returned to the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Fife in 2019, however a considerable amount of work remained on the internal fit-out.
Major reconstruction of the interior was led by shipwright, Ali Beedie along with hundreds of hours of work by the numerous Boat Club volunteers including Mike Barton, Dave Crowther, Donald McDonald, Sadie Crowther, Winston Stewart and Bob Flann who restored the cabins, galley and display areas.
Richard Thorne the festival’s coordinator for maritime and music who was aboard the Reaper for its journey to Portsoy said: “Reaper came into Macduff last Saturday and has come in for the duration of the festival.
“She’s a regular visitor and last year was the first major trip out since a big refit.
“This year is a lot smoother, sunnier and just a bit more relaxed. It’s great that she is here.
“Everybody who comes to the festival looks forward to coming to see her.
“There’s a good number of regular big old boats that like to come in and they make the festival.
“Some of the other vessels include Isabella Fortuna down from Wick, Swan coming in from Lerwick, Marean from Banff and for the first time a Dutch barge that has come from Ireland.
“I’m looking forward to the festival now. The weather has kept us waiting for weeks but it is set fair for a good weekend and can’t wait for it to start.”
This year’s festival is sponsored by Glenglassaugh Distillery and global brand ambassador Stewart Buchanan was also aboard Reaper as it travelled to Portsoy.
He said: “It is great to celebrate this traditional vessel. The distillery dates back to 1875, so you wonder if the boat has passed by Glenglassaugh back in the day. I’m sure it may well have done.
“To be on this especially under sail is phenomenal.
“This is our first year of being main sponsors of the festival. We hosted an event on Reaper last year which was amazing.
“It worked so well we had to do it again and then go that step further with the main sponsorship of the event.
“There is a great tradition with the boats coming to Portsoy, much like whisky. These things are connected.
“The weekend is going to be amazing. We will have three different places at the harbour.
“We will be on the main stage doing a tasting there, we will also have our VIP tent at the Salmon Bothy area and we will have our whiskies behind the bar at the music events.
“Glenglassaugh is one of those undiscovered little hidden gems in Scotland. Even to put the distillery into that local presence is phenomenal.
“It has a great history and a lot of the people from Portsoy have had family or worked themselves there.
“It’s about bringing that community all together with Portsoy, the festival and the distillery.”
Visit www.stbfportsoy.org for more information about the event.
