Violet Stephen, the girl after whom the zulu Violet was named; Alexander Grieve Stephen, and the zulu Violet

Violet; William and George Stephen on board Violet, and William Stephen aboard Violet

David Stephen Rennie, great grandson of the first owners of the Violet has sent me some old photos and family history surrounding the old zulu, which is now maintained and sailed by Gary Maynard, and also of Vesper.

To read more about Violet as she is now, click here, and see the comments to this post.

The stories of old boats and of the families involved add a great deal to our apprection and understanding, so many thanks David!

Violet FR451 was built in 1911 at James Nobles for my great-grandfather Alexander Grieve Stephen (1873-1935) for about £90; the boat was named after his youngest daughter Violet (1910-94).

He had been skipper of the George Noble FR6, and during World War I he served in the Royal Navy.

When Violet was launched they went small line fishing with mussel-baited hooks and worked the herring during the season.

Originally Violet had a mast and sail, but was later converted to motor power first with a 15hp Kelvin engine and later a 30hp Kelvin, and in 1936 was fitted with a 48hp Gardner.

Alexander Grieve Stephen returned from the sea about 1931 owing to ill health and took a job as berthing master, and his brother in law James Duthie took over as skipper until about 1935. In 1934 Violet was rescued by Fraserburgh’s lifeboat.

On the 13th November 1935 Alexander Grieve Stephen died aged 61, and in that year his son John took over as skipper and was joined by his brothers George and William.

In March 1975 Violet was put up for sale owing to the failing health of both John, who was now 73, and William, who had suffered a severe heart attack. Violet was sold to the Sprague brothers and left Fraserburgh for the last time on th 12th May 1975.

The generation of the Stephen family who had known and fished aboard Violet lived for some time more, but were all gone within a few years of each other. David again:

On the 21st June 1983 John Stephen died aged 81 after a series of strokes. On the 6th of September 1983 my grandfather George Stephen died aged 74 from lung cancer, and on the 7th November 1986 William Stephen died aged 73 years and was buried on the 11th November, his 74th birthday.

Vesper FR453 was built in 1911 at Fraserburgh and was owned by George Noble and John Buchan. She was sold on the 8th April 1935 to my grandfather’s oldest brother, Alexander Duthie Stephen (Sandy) (1898-1982); by that time he had been Vesper’s skipper since October 1918.

Owing to ill health, Vesper was sold to Edwin Wiseman in 1957. It was then sold to Alexander Ross in 1958 and then in November 1970 to David and Isaac Newlands of Pittenween. In 1972 it was registered as Vesper II KY36, and then from January 1982 as Vesper II AA36 until February 1988, when it ceased fishing. (KY stands for Kirkcaldy and AA stands for Alloa – see a list of fiishing port codes here.) By the autumn of 1989 it was a ruin at Buckie, and only a few years ago it was broken up.

Alexander Duthie Stephen died on the 3rd December 1982 aged 84.

Alexander Duthie Stephen; Alexander Duthie Stephen aboard Vesper; Vesper

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Scaffie and zulus by Frank Mason, click on the picture for a large image

The recent post showing photos of Spindrift the surviving zulu reminded me that Frank Carr’s book Vanishing Craft includes some nice reading about scaffies, fifies and zulus, and the conditions in which they developed.

Carr reckoned that the three classes had canoe sterns because this enabled to boats to run well particularly when entering the narrow entrance of a harbour, because a sharp-stern boat type enables larger numbers of boats to crowd into the tiny Scottish harbours, and because the strength of the stem construction is particularly valuable in a tidal harbour where the boat will inevitably receive some hard thumps from the bottom of the harbour with every rising and falling tide.

As he says: ‘A sharp-sterned lugger can carry all sail until she enters the harbour, and on letting go the single halyard the sail falls into the boat  by its own weight, and is down in a moment. The boat then surges on with her own impetus and wedges her bows between the projecting sterns of two craft already berthed. There is no bowsprit or other projection outboard to carry away, and a good hard squeeze does not matter when the boats are strongly built.’

There’s a long and interesting exchange of comments following an earlier intheboatshed.net post in which fishing boat expert, journalist, author and kipper king Mike Smylie argues that the zulu was the pinnacle in British fishing boat design during the sailing era, discusses the correct nomenclature for a 50ft zulu-type, and calls into question the often-repeated story that the first zulu was a boat called Nonesuch – he says he has seen evidence that the first zulu was an 80-footer, herself called Zulu. I see from Mike’s book 2002 Traditional Fishing Boats of Britain and Ireland that he lists a number of small surviving zulus, if you can get hold of a copy.

I’d like to add one more quotation from Carr: ‘Big zulus up to 84ft in overall length and of 61ft keel have been built, and in such a craft the enormous fore-lug, rising to a height of some 70ft, is truly a wonderful sail. The zulu skippers were as particular about the cut and set of their sails as any racing yacht skipper, and these fine craft could easily sail 10 knots in a hard breeze. Six big zulus are still working out of Stornaway under sail, and Colonel C L Spencer, the rear-commodore of the Clyde Cruising Club, has told me that he has seen these craft come romping in from sea, passing the steam drifters and leaving them standing. A splendid sight indeed, to see sail beating steam in these days of mechanical efficiency. May they long continue to uphold the tradition of sail in such a magnificent manner!’

And, finally,  I have one more recent photo (below) of Spindrift to share, this time kindly sent to me by Adrian Perquage of Perquage Publishing, Beacette, Guernsey. Thanks Adrian! I think it’s useful to have this side-one view, not least because it shows clearly the striking stern of the zulu type.

Adrian is looking for information and history relating to RN45 MFV called Makalu, which I think is the boat discussed in this news story. If you have anything to share, please let us know using the comment link below of email me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I will pass the message on.

Spindrift, clearly showing her sharply raked stern – my thanks to Perquage Publishing

I’m grateful to Dominic Barnes for sending me these photos of Spindrift, which now belongs to his brother. She must be one of the last remaining Scottish Zulu fishing boats.

She’s now a liveaboard in the Channel Islands, but I gather from Dominic that she is fully seaworthy and has a big Gardner diesel that runs like a sewing machine.

For several more posts on Zulus at intheboatshed.net, click here.

I’m officially on holiday, but here are some links to keep regular readers going!

Five Years in Siam From 1891 to 1896 by H Warington Smyth

Lowell’s Boat Shop, Amesbury, Massachusetts

A short but also long report from Brest 2008

Concern over ‘abandoned’ boat

Sunk Brits’ four-day raft storm hell

A History of Shipbuilding by Per Åkesson

Glimpses of Traditional Boatbuilding in Goa by Johan Roque

Elderly fella making very nice models

Whaleboat racing

Regular visitors will remember I recently put up a photo of Nick Gates’ boat Ocean Pearl, which he believed to be a zulu skiff because of her vertical stem and raked stern. I must say that I thought the same – and was very pleased to be able to publish a photo of her.

Nick acquired her as a motor-powered fishing boat some years ago, brought her back to a condition where she could again put to sea, and added a sailing rig. The result is that she’s a handsome vessel, as the earlier photo shows.

However, the ex-trawler skipper and authority on marine history Jay Cresswell, who has for many years lived near Aberdeen, recently saw the photos and got in touch to put the matter right.

It seems that Ocean Pearl’s stern is not sufficiently raked and that she was built too late to allow her to be called a zulu. In support of his point, Jay sent us a fistful of photos of zulus shot while he was trawling in the ’70s and ’80s.

I’ll let him explain.

‘If Ocean Pearl was berthed up here in the North-East of Scotland, there is little or no doubt that she would be regarded as a fifie and, to confuse the issue further, a yawl too.

‘The boat below is a case in point – a fifie called Poppy on the Caledonian Canal, and one with the same rake to her sternpost, give or take a degree.

Fifie Poppy on the Caledonian Canal

‘The next photo shows clearly how, even on a fifie, the sternpost could be modified to reduce the rake by adding to it. This is the fifie Harvest Reaper at Burghhead; she was a smart boat just a few years back.

‘Both have the same rake between waterline and post as the Pearl.

Fifie Harvest Reaper

‘The rule is that for the classic zulu, the angle between keel and sternpost is around 135degrees, but if you add in further keel “drag” due to the boat being trimmed down aft, the resulting angle could be quite dramatic.

‘Many of the boats that were motorised required major surgery aft to create an acceptable propeller aperture, or were fitted with twin screws.

‘Later intermediate (45-50ft class) zulus like Spindrift were built as motorboats and had a less pronounced rake in their sternposts, but still had much more than Pearl.

‘A sailing zulu that worked very successfully as a motor boat for many years was Violet, and another was True Love, which had some very neat surgery carried out to give her a semi-balance rudder.

Zulu True Love

‘Vesper and Evangeline lasted a long time too. Both had classic rakes to their sternposts, but were extensively modified below the waterline with false deadwoods to accommodate a shaft and screw.

‘An another that lasted into the 1970s at least was St Vincent (another zulu, Spray, is on inside.)

St Vincent

‘And here’s the big zulu Springwell.

Zulu Springwell

‘The angle between the keel and sternpost of a fifie varied in a range between 90 and 110 degrees approximately – and that rake made the difference between a bog ordinary fifie and a jaunty boat like Pearl.’

For the record, Nick reports that Ocean Pearl’s sternpost is set at 115 degrees, which would presumably make her very jaunty indeed – but not a zulu.

Jay asked the members of a fishing industry website forum what they thought Ocean Pearl’s true identity might be. He reported:

‘The firm view is that this is a fifie, more particularly a motor fifie or baldie. I hadn’t twigged the build date, but it’s 1933, which puts the boat squarely in baldie land, moreover Fraserburgh baldie land.

‘A few intermediate zulus were built as late as the early 1920s but that was the end, save for a few tiny yawls that worked handlines, one of which was near here until recently.

‘One of the guys on the forum (many are retired fishermen of considerable age) who responded to my post suggested a hybrid … or bastard … but, as I said, the generaly view is that she’s a fifie.

‘I live just south of Peterhead, which is where Ocean Pearl fished until the 1960s. Pound to a penny I’ll be able to track down the family that owned her, especially since Nick has a nice pic on his yard website of her working as a seiner.’

Finally, I asked whether any other zulus that might still be around.

‘Research is at the Scottish Fisheries Museum, a sad carcass of what was, even as late as the 1980s, a salvable example of her type.

‘The only other big zulu I knew was Radium. She lay for a long time at Bowling Basin at the Clyde end of the Forth-Clyde Canal, but, if my memory serves me, it eventually sank.

‘There are a couple or so big hulls lying in Loch Dochfour on the Caledonian Canal, but that’s about it.

‘The one pictured below was captured here in the North East in the mid 1960s. She’s the Fisher Lassie, and in the photo she is still rigged for herring drift netting, which is what these boats were conceived to do.

Zulu Fisher Lassie

‘There are at least two large fifies extant, Reaper and Swan, and there are several intermediate examples, such as Family’s Pride, which is at the big end of intermediate. She worked out of Arbroath as late as the 1980s, but was converted to a charter ketch, painted red and based at Skye. I don’t know where she is now.

‘I rather think there are further large fifie hulls lying in muddy creeks in the South-East of England. Fifies lasted longer than zulus, partly because they were easier to motorise, and plenty of intermediate fifies were scratch-built as motorboats right up to World War 2, and a fair number of small motor yawls were built well into the 1950s, even early 60s.’

Thanks Jay – I think that ranks as one of the most interesting and informative intheboatshed.net posts I’ve read. Please don’t hold back from making contact whenever you have something you’d like to tell us!

Also see Nick’s website at http://www.nickgates.co.uk.

We’ve received this informative email from Nick Gates, the guy who restored the small zulu we featured in an earlier post.

‘Just been sent the link to your site by a friend. Very enjoyable! Glad to see our boat Ocean Pearl featured. The jury is out as to her correct type. Mike Smylie is unsure….thinks she may be a hybrid of a half zulu and a Danish seiner. Half zulu, because she is half-size, and built for fishing under power, not sail.

‘But sail she does! A few weeks ago we maintained a steady 8 knots through the water between Ryde and Chichester harbour, peaking at 8 ¼ knots. This was without the mizzen on a close reach in 18 to 20 knots of wind. She has proved to be quite handy in confined spaces, short tacks well, and will point as high as a good gaffer.

‘I plan to increase the rig this winter, with a longer bowsprit and larger headsails to improve her light weather performance. Saying that, she will pass any modern 37’Jeaun/Bavari/Rassy with ease.

‘I have done a couple of vids on YouTube:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u8W6MZS6gCo

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F56EqDJuOAA

‘Great site,

Come for a sail next year!

Nick Gates’

Well – that’s an invitation you don’t get every day! I’ll definitely take that one up if I get half a chance thanks Nick!

Nick’s videos are well worth looking at, the first for its glimpses of Ocean Pearl’s restoration, and the second because it conveys a sense of the heavy work involved in raising a big yard and how well the boat looks and sails.

See Nick’s website at www.nickgates.co.uk.

Is Ocean Pearl a zulu, fifie or a baldie? Click here.