No 71. Coaling Huilks in Stronsay

A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on

Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a









No 71. THE COALING HULKS OF STRONSAY.

Lying at anchor below Whitehall Farm in the Bay of Franks were the coaling hulks waiting for their customers, the herring drifters of Buckie and Bamff, Fraserburgh and Aberdeen, Lerwick and Lowestoft. And other places but these were the main herring ports I knew. The hulks must have been anchored fore and aft, otherwise they would have needed too much sea room to swing on wind and tide in a shallow bay. A very old photo I have shows them all lined up in one direction, drifters swarming about them like bees at a honey pot.
Ships serving there as coaling hulks, though not necessarily all at the same time, were the Watchful, Hebe, Glenmore, Dorjoy and Riga, and especially the Orcadia (ii).
The last mentioned, the Orcadia (ii), had pride of place for me. She had served the North Isles routes in the ownership of Robertsons Orkney Steam Navigation Co. from building in 1868 to 1931. She was withdrawn in 1931 when the newly built Earl Sigurd arrived, and was sold on to W & J Leslie of Kirkwall, who used her for two months as a replacement for the shop-boat Cormorant, going around the various Islands. She then served as a coaling hulk in Stronsay before being finally towed South and broken up at Bo'ness in 1934. That was the ship that took our mother to Sanday in Orkney to teach school there before she married our father in 1928. She stayed in Sanday with her mother’s brother Wm Robertson from Stroma and his wife Lizzie, who I think farmed there. If not then they lived there anyway.
A wonderful but very old photo shows about 6 hulks coaling the drifters at the same time. One was a cement barge, though I wonder now if the Hebe was indeed that barge. Nice name anyway. There was certainly a wonderful photo of a ship lying across the outer end of the Stronsay pier which had been a sailing ship, but stripped of her yards and sails as if on her way to the coal hulk station. The concrete barge is now settled hard on the bottom for ever, breaking loose in a storm and being holed though concrete ships were incredibly strong. John Jefferis built some small concrete fishing boats at Scrabster after supervising the making of the concrete panels for PFR at Dounreay for Taylor Woodrow, PFR going critical in 1974. Unconventional but well made boats.
They were filled with coal in readiness for the season by colliers, usually from Newcastle, that came to Stronsay during May and June to transfer their cargoes of coal into the hulks ready for the fishing season in July. That in itself was a busy job with men going out in motorboats from the piers at the Harbour to the hulks, about a near mile over the water. Early morning to late evening, then coming back as black as only coalmen could be, totally covered head to foot in coal dust. Hard manual work too.

. We used as boys look for the registration letters on the bows of the drifters to tell us from whence they had come, keeping a tally to see who had got the most. It was a change from collecting cigarette cards from fag smokers. The last of the old sailing drifters had of course little need for coal save a few bags from Davie Chalmer’s coal yard at the head of the pier for their stoves which served both as cooker and cabin heater The small iron pipe in the stern of all the drifters showed if the stove was lit or not, a give away small plume of smoke.

These old timers were past their working days on the high seas but still capable of service in their own way as coaling hulks. Their anchorage station in the sheltered Bay of Franks was a hive of activity in the herring season. First the drifters came in to the various piers during the early mornings, both in Stronsay and half a mile across the Harbour in Papa Stronsay, to unload and sell their catch, then unload their herring onto waiting carts to get them as soon as possible fresh to the curing yards. The crews then eased their boats off the pier to make room for another boat to slip in between them and the pier, then the crew turned in to their tiny bunks in the equally tiny six bunk cabin at the stern of the drifter to get their supper and sleep, work done for an upside-down-day, working through the night, hauling herring in the early morning, and sleeping during at least part of the day.
Early afternoon they stirred, banked up their fires and, with black smoke spiralling from their funnels, streamed across the harbour to the coaling hulks to get their bunkers filled ready for their next night at sea. The numbers seemed enormous to us, as indeed they were. Old photographs in Wick Heritage Centre of drifters in Wick Harbour give some idea of the numbers. Though Wick and Ian Sutherland claim Wick as the Herring Capital of the North Sea, rightly so, Stronsay in its day was as large. Herring migrated South from shoaling in Shetland waters to off Stronsay and then moved further South to off Wick, further on again as Autumn progressed to off East Anglia. And the herring boats followed them.

Storms were always a peril, even in a sheltered bay, their anchors the only attachment for the hulks to stay in place and their engines long removed. There were incidents but dealt with as I do not remember any ships being driven onto the beach. We did look to the hulks during or after any storm to see if all was well, not that much could be done if they broke loose. The Bay of Franks must have been good holding ground.

With the final cessation of herring fishing in 1938 the steel hulks were either towed away for breaking up at Burntisland or Bo’ness, or were cut to pieces in Stronsay during the War for scrap iron, the remaining hulks being bought by Davie Chalmers and broken up at Newton’s Pier. I am told that some of them still exist as door lintels in Stronsay houses or sheds. Certainly if any use could have been made of parts of them Stronsay would not have seen them going to waste.

The concrete barge stays high in my memory. It was the object of one of our dafter escapades, and I think all the iron hulks had gone by then. Our father had gone in to Kirkwall so when the cats away the mice can play!!! We had a 14ft dinghy which stayed above the beach. The rowlocks were always taken safely away by our father out of our reach. No matter, someone !*!*! suggested that we should explore the barge. Jackie Stevenson, his brother Hecky Marshall, David, Norna, Isobel and I, set off for the shore. No rowlocks, no matter, we found bits of wood on the beach which we made fit into the proper holes. Into the water with the boat, oars tied to the sticks with binder twine, and off we set. Not far to go, the sea was kind. In respect to our late father he had long trained us how to behave in a boat, no standing, keep your allocated seats, balance the weight. Got to the barge, tied up with the boat rope and we explored.
Then someone saw a motorboat heading straight for us from the pier. Ominous. So into the dinghy, oars out and we headed for the shore. One of our bits of wood serving as rowlocks broke, we were adrift. The motorboat soon came up, a rope was tied to our little battle cruiser and we were towed in ignominy to the pier. There our mother was waiting for us. And none of us could swim!!!