About 70 youngsters from Rosehearty Primary School braved wet and windy conditions in Fraserburgh this morning as they got to grips with the living history of fishing.
Pupils had been invited to tour the 122-year-old herring drifter, Reaper, as it made its way from Anstruther to Portsoy for the village’s annual sailing festival.
The boat, which was restored by the Scottish Fisheries Museum after its purchase in 1975, has been in Fraserburgh for a week and open to members of the public to visit.
Whilst it was built in the neighbouring village of Sandhaven, Reaper was first registered to Fraserburgh in 1902. From there, it spent time in Shetland before becoming a general purpose cargo boat.
Volunteers were on hand today to show youngsters how fishermen would have landed their catch, navigated, and raised the sail before going on to tour the modern trawler Grateful – complete with its diesel engines and purpose-built entertainment room.
Joan Paton, chairwoman of the Scottish Fisheries Museum Boats Club, spoke after the tour.
She said: “We have thoroughly enjoyed the week.
“It’s been very hard work, but very fun work. I think we’ve seen probably more than 500 pupils and all of them have been absolutely super. They’ve been lovely and helpful, and friendly and interested.
“It’s just been a lot of fun. But it’s been a lot of hard work – we all go to our beds by nine o’clock at night, we don’t normally do that at home!”
She added the Scottish Fisheries Museum now hopes to get Reaper to visit more areas in future.
“We’ve just got to fin some more younger members to come and join us, and we need to get the boat out to different areas,” she said.
William Whyte Jr, the skipper of the Grateful, also praised the enthusiasm of the pupils who visited both boats.
“This corner, long ago, was built on the fishing industry, and folk aren’t aware of what fishing is anymore. I think it’s really good to plant that seed at a young age so hopefully we get some of those kids back and into the fishing industry,” he added.
“And the stories we’ve heard coming back the next day from parents is that it’s all they’ve spoken about when they’ve got home.”
We captured some of the best moments from both boat tours below.
