The Hebrides, the islands off the West Coast of Scotland, are very distinctive, and have since the eighteenth century established themselves in the imagination of many. The ships which served these islands have a fascination denied to other forms of transport, and are entwined in the images they served, adding a touch of drama to the most ordinary voyage.
In the Nautical Magazine in 1905 a writer described the ships sailing to the Hebrides:
“If their decks could but tell what as sentient things they would have witnessed – all they have known of sorrow, of love and hate, of tragedy and comedy, success and failure – theirs were a tale worth telling, a tale to make good.”
Sadly, the ships could not tell of these things.
For many years, travellers to the Hebrides recorded their journeys by sea. This book includes accounts ranging from 1822, only three years after the first steamship ventured up the west coast, until the 1950s. During those years there was a sense of excitement and adventure, unlike most ferry crossings today, which some may regard as no more than an interruption in a car journey.
Collected here are over 125 accounts of voyages, some penned by well-known writers while others have been written anonymously. Read about sea-crossings in fair weather and foul, about fellow travellers and how they passed the time on board. There are descriptions of the ships, their masters and crews. There are tales of sailing to St Kilda, as well as many of the other islands, where often there was no pier, and landing had to be made by small ferryboat, often along with cargo and cattle or sheep.
Many books have been written about the different aspects of the Hebrides, but this is the first time that impressions of the journeys involved in getting there have been gathered together. These accounts present an eloquent portrait of a way of life no longer with us.
Hebridean Voyages contains detailed illustrations, all hand-drawn by the author himself.