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Scotland is using a 120-year-old sailing boat, built in a Viking-style design, to help preserve traditional boatbuilding skills. The boat, called the Stroma yole Bee, was originally used to transport livestock to and from the abandoned island of Stroma off the Scottish mainland. However, it was left on a beach for nearly 30 years after a bull put a hoof through its hull. The Stroma Bee is one of the few remaining Stroma yoles with a planked hull, and is now being restored for the second time.
A group of current and former pupils from Eyemouth High School are participating in weekly workshops to help restore the boat. As well as practical boat restoration, they learn about wider sustainable technologies, business planning and financial management. The Viking Project, headed by project manager Kevin McClure, is addressing traditional skills shortages and combating rural isolation among young people in places like Eyemouth.
Built in 1904, the Stroma Bee spent its first three decades transporting sheep, cattle and horses from Stroma across the treacherous two miles of the Pentland Firth. The design of the Stroma yole has origins that date back to the Norse Viking raiding boats that arrived on Scotland’s shores a thousand years ago. Bee was built using ancient clinker planking techniques by a co-operative of crofters from Stroma. It was rescued from the island in 1968, and towed to the mainland for initial restoration.
After being used for several decades as a private pleasure boat, Bee was acquired by the Berwickshire Marine Trust in 1998 to teach traditional sailing skills. The yole was sold by the trust in 2019 but was again abandoned under tarpaulin at an Eyemouth boatyard following her new owner’s death. With Eyemouth Marine completing a new training centre last year, Bee was given a new lease of life as part of the Viking Project, with wider projects involving stonemasonry and plastering on historical buildings around Eyemouth also planned
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