Two restored luggers

The Zulu St Vincent and the Lochfyne skiff Clan Gordon are sailing again thanks to the Tanera Mor Restoration Project, as Mike Smylie reports

- Mike Smylie

Halfway down the hill to the boatyard in the Scottish Highlands, the smell of turpentine, pine tar and linseed oil hits you. Like the aroma of oakum, this 'boat soup' as it is known, is pungent yet delightful. Then, turn the corner and suddenly a vessel towers above. Two huge masts with two vast red lug sails hanging limp over a black hull. Tradition in every respect. Only the bunting is a sap to modernity! This is the restored Zulu St Vincent, 405CY, built for Eriskay owners back in 1910. At 48ft 4in, she may not be a full-size Zulu as these were up to 80ft, but she is large enough to have the characteristic sloping sternpost and upright stem, and to give a gist of their magnitude. I'm at the Johnson & Loftus Boatyard at Corry, outside Ullapool, where in late 2020, Dan Johnson and Tim Loftus won the contract to restore St Vincent.

First, they had to collect her from Arbroath where she'd sat, deteriorating, for years. Nevertheless, they brought her up to Inverness, through the Caledonian Canal and up the West Coast without too much trouble, to then lift her out of the water to where she was worked upon.

Short-lived appeal

The iconic Zulu represents the pinnacle of sailing fishing boat design in Britain in the late 19th century, when herring was king. These Scottish luggers were fast, sleek and aesthetic to the eye. Crewed by up to nine men, they were rigged with two large dipping lugsails with immense power.

The Zulus-named after the Zulu Wars in Southern Africa when Scots fishermen, along with the general populace, were angered by reports of their soldiers being slaughtered for British colonial expansion, were popular in the late 1870s -yet by 1906 the last of the large ones was built and only a few smaller ones appeared over the next few years. St Vincent is thought to be one of the very last.