Email: steffan@classicboat.co.uk
ULLAPOOL, SCOTLAND
Horsepower for Saint Vincent
The yard of Loftus and Johnson has come to the end of a huge, two-year job, a herring drifter of 50ft (15.1m) length on deck. She’s been restored for the Tanera Restoration Trust and will live on the island of Tanera, near Ullapool. What makes remarkable, aside from the fact that she’s a large, wooden, working boat more than a century old, is the fact that her recent restoration has been undertaken with the aim to return her to her original 1910 state. The boat arrived at the yard floating, but, says Tim Loftus, “she was pretty ripe when you started prodding, as is the way with these things.” The job included a 70 per cent reframe and replank, with a new deck and pretty much everything else. The rig is a dipping lug on the foremast and standing lug on the mizzen. On a boat this size, that sounds frankly terrifying, but Tim holds that it’s an interesting rig that you can do a lot with. We look forward to the whole story, but for now, enjoy this photo of being towed by horse, as part of her journey to her new home. Being authentic to 1910, she lacks not just cabins (she has a fish hold), but an engine too.
