THE LAST MINUTES OF THE "UGIEBRAE"

I've ventured into the realms of maritime history with this recently-completed painting of the last minutes of the Peterhead steam drifter "Ugiebrae".  She was sunk by gunfire after the German submarine (probably the U38) had cut away her fleet of nets and ordered the crew to abandon ship.  This took place on 23rd June 1915, and the "Ugiebrae" was one of 16 casualties of U-boat action in that area that fateful night.  The event effectively put a stop to the herring fishery for the duration of the war.

Ten of the sinkings were of Peterhead drifters, two were from Yarmouth and four were Aberdeen steam line-boats which were also working in the area, to the east and north-east of Shetland.  Some crews were picked up by other steam-boats, but others had to sail or row their lifeboats to land and, in the case of the "Ugiebrae"crew, this involved a 35-mile row to landfall in the Skerries.  The ten men (and a dog!) were exhausted as they approached, and were helped on the last few miles of their journey by men from the Skerries.  From there they would have been transferred to Lerwick and thence home to the Scottish mainland by the regular steamer service.

The newly-acquired lifeboat was of little use for sea-going purposes to the Skerries men, as it was short, bulky and heavier to row and sail than the lighter-built and faster traditional Shetland-model boats, so it was put to good use as the roof of a lambie-hoose" on one of the islands.  It is the current owner of this building, now being restored as a historical project (the lambie-hoose, not the owner!), who commissioned the painting from me.

It's nice to be back working again, and my order-book seems to have filled up again.  I thought I'd get some peace now, but my clients won't let me retire, so I'll continue to fulfil their commissions the best I can, for as long as I'm able to!  I had my appointment with the orthopaedic department of the ARI a fortnight ago.  Apparently the bone density of my spine is not too bad, but my hips are ready to collapse any minute!  I've been o'd-ing on Vitamin D these last few months, but it appears that a more potent mix will have to introduced into my diet soon - ugh!!

Enjoy whatever you're ingesting this week!

THE OLD "EARL"

The first "Earl of Zetland" was launched on the Clyde in 1877.  At only 186 grt, she wasn't big, but she provided a lifeline service for the next 60 years, ferrying passengers, cargo and livestock between Lerwick and the north isles of Shetland.

In 1938, she was replaced on the route by the new "Earl of Zetland", but, on the outbreak of war the following year, the new ship was commandeered to perform Admiralty duties.  The old "Earl" was brought back into service on her old run for the rest of the war years, skippered by my uncle Adam Tait for this part of her long career.

My painting shows her steaming south through Linga Sound in a fresh northerly breeze.  The viewpoint is from Whalsay, looking westwards.  The original painting, with A4 and A3 limited edition giclee prints also available, can be purchased through the Gallery Shop pages of my website www.tait-gallery.co.uk

THE "ALDEBARAN"

Here's the "Aldebaran", a wooden-built Danish trawler, tramping along in fresh weather east of Sumburgh Head.  She, and hundreds of others like her, used to fish around Shetland in the late 1960s and early-to-mid 1970s.  In bad weather, Lerwick harbour used to fill up with these, and other Scandinavian vessels, providing a valuable feed for my almost obsessional interest in these splendid little ships.

At around 65ft in length, the "Aldebaran" was built in 1960, was just a fraction under 50grt, and was powered by an Alpha 240bhp diesel engine.  According to the 1977 edition of Denmark's Fiskeri
Årbogen, she was owned by an A Bjerg of Harboøre, on the shoreside of the Nissum Bredning, which is an inlet of the large sprawling expanse of inland waterway which occupies a large part of the north-west Danish mainland.  How do I know all that geographical stuff?   I just looked it up in my Collins European Road Atlas, of course!  I've never been to Denmark, although some of my paintings have.  Regrettably they all had return tickets!

Why have I painted a Danish trawler?  Well, it could have been a Norwegian whaler or great-liner, or a Swedish "bung-bung", or a larger steam trawler from Germany, Poland or France, or any one of the many types of fishing boat which could have been seen in Lerwick harbour during my formative years.  The Danish trawler just appeared out of the mix somehow.  I like to indulge in a bit of nostalgia now and then as regards subject-matter, and, judging by my list of commissions over the past few years, I'm far from alone in this.  Many people reflect fondly on a time when boats were of a more graceful design, even if the work was back-breaking (the more so when the catches were bigger!).

The fact that this painting is of a Danish trawler is pure chance, then, and it's my entry for this year's OBA competition.  I was persuaded to enter again by an old friend, who told me to "do them one of my seascapes, and put my heart and soul into it!"  This is a best-can-do then, and I'll see what they make of it.  My picture of Lower Voe didn't seem to trouble the judges last year, but the administrator in charge of the entries says she loves my seascape.  I bet she says that to all the boys - wish me luck!

CAT AND DOG

My creative visits to this blog have beeen so few and seldom over the past year that it scarcely merits the description.  I could roll out such excuses as feeling out of sorts and experiencing computer problems (both of which are true) but the fact is that, for whatever reason, my muse has been absent, and consequently so have I.

I've continued to go through the motions with my artwork, and the pre-Christmas stalls were very successful.  I hope you like my Cat and Dog painting (above), which was a rush job for a wedding anniversary present.  I didn't have much time to plan it properly, but I think that what I came up with just about worked.  The JPEG above has exaggerated the "blueness" of it quite a bit.

I'm hoping to get a good rant together for publication here, one of these fine days.  Let's face it, there's been plenty to rant about recently, and I've been going through a good few topics in my mind.  Please bear with me meantime - the muse will return to me soon.

THE "PILOT US"

This commissioned painting shows the 40ft seine-netter "Pilot Us" (LK271) coming in past the Bressay Lighthouse on a fine summer's evening.  This boat, built in 1931 at Fraserburgh, is now owned by Shetland Museum, after a long and successful fishing career for the Watt family of Scalloway.

I have a childhood memory of being one of a number of people standing on Blacksness Pier, Scalloway, looking at a huge skate lying on the foredeck of the "Pilot Us" - this would have been around 1960, I guess. At that time, she was one of a number of smaller fishing boats which went long-lining for better-quality fish during the summer months, the "Roost" off Sumburgh being a favourite "hunting ground" for them.

"ST. GILES" (II) IN ST MAGNUS BAY

This painting has been a long time in the making, having stood half-finished, since early summer, in a corner of my studio, while I got on with more urgent tasks.  Having "cleared my feet" of commissioned work, I was able to tackle my pending "on-spec" pictures, and this is the last of these.  It depicts the  second "nort boat" to bear the name "St. Giles", sailing south-westwards through St. Magnus Bay in fresh weather, having completed her day's business at Hillswick.  The photograph shows a slightly foreshortened version of the painting, there being more of the Hillswick Ness "banks" to the right of the ship on the original artwork.

The ship replaced the old "St. Giles", which had been lost after running aground in thick fog on Rattray Head in 1902.  The new vessel came into service in 1903 and, according to Alastair McRobb's excellent little book, The North Boats, was placed on the direct route, so the ship may never have been in St. Magnus Bay at all.  Not for the first time, my depiction could be a "dadbusted lie", as the magistrate said in the Comancheros film!

What McRobb's book does not tell us is what end the second "St. Giles" made.  Was she sold for further trading, or did she become a grounding casualty like her predecessor of the same name?  She is not in the author's list of north boats sunk by enemy action in World War I.  I would be very interested to know what became of this ship.

Last night I updated the website www.tait-gallery.co.uk by uploading the recently completed artworks (including the above) to the Gallery Shop pages.  If you live in the islands, come and visit my stall at the Toll Clock Centre in Lerwick on Saturdays 8th and 15th December.  The usual selection of prints and cards, including the new stock additions, will be on offer, and commissions can be discussed there too!  All of it is also available to buy online through the website.  Visit me on- or offline!

THE "SWAN"

My latest painting shows Shetland's own tall ship heading southwards, with an easterly breeze in her sails.  This is the first time I've done a "portrait" of the old lady for a while, although she appears in some of my Lerwick harbour paintings.

The "Swan" was built at Lerwick in 1900, and spent her first few years, under Lerwick owners, rigged as a lugger, as she long-lined for white-fish in spring, and took on drift-net gear for the summer herring fishing.  She was bought by a Simpson-headed Whalsay partnership, who converted her to the fore-and-aft "smack" rig which she carries today.  The sails disappeared as her main means of propulsion when she had an engine installed, and a wheelhouse fitted,  in 1935.  She fished on in this new "rig" until around 1960, participating in the new seine-net white-fishery from the late 1940s, long after most boats of her vintage had disappeared from the commercial fishing scene.  She began a new career as a pleasure craft and houseboat south of the border, but fell into neglect, and actually sank at her moorings in W Hartlepool on several occasions.  She was finally rescued from her plight, and the Swan Trust was formed in 1990 to restore her to her former glory as a sailing vessel.  Her transformation was completed in 1996, since when she has been in regular use as a sailing boat, both running "tours" around Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles, and competing in Tall Ships Races.

Olsen's Almanack, in the 1938 and 1950 editions (and presumably the ones in between too!), has her details as 18 tons nett, engine 21hp, and owned by T H Simpson and others, Whalsay.  Manson's Shetland Almanac and Directory of 1949 lists her as 44.1 tons (presumably gross!), 60.4 keel length, and 75hp of engine.  I don't begin to understand the difference in engine rating between the two publications, but no doubt a marine engineer will tell me!  I have read somewhere else that her overall length is 68 feet.

I've painted her against a background of the Bressay lighthouse and the cliffs of the Ord and Bard on the south end of the island.  The painting is currently in for scanning at my printer's, and I have been promised giclees of this work (both A4 and A3) to be ready for next Saturday's Toll Clock Centre stall.  They'll also be available for sale online (as will the original painting) through the website.  www.tait-gallery.co.uk

Have a good week!

A HAUL OF HERRING AND A PILOT BOAT

I anticipate no gasps of utter astonishment when I reveal that the latest works to appear in the Tait Gallery are both seascapes.  They were both commissioned.

One of them is the third in a series featuring the Gamrie dual-purpose boat "Silver Wave" (BF372).  She is pictured hauling a good shot of herring, attended by the ubiquitous flocks of gannets, fulmars and gulls, as the crew perform the back-breaking operation of getting the heavy shot aboard.

The other painting is of the Lerwick pilot boat "Knab", viewed from the headland from which her name derives, as she re-enters the harbour after performing another "escort" duty.  This was the first of two vessels to bear the name, built in the late 1980s and replaced by a more powerful state-of-the-art version around 2005 (I'm not sure of my exact dates here!).

I'm currently working on a painting of the local tall ship "Swan".  I'd originally planned to have prints of this ready for my first pre-Christmas stall at Lerwick's Toll Clock Centre on Saturday 17th November.  It now looks as though I'll miss my own deadline by a week or two, but I should have the giclees available by the end of the month.  Watch this space!

THE LION, THE SWAN AND THE GIFT OF YOUTH

The title of this post might sound a bit C S Lewis-ish, but it stems from a rough English translation of the names of the three ships featured in this week's featured painting.  This is the last of the new works I've managed to complete for this year's Catterline exhibition (I hope it's completed!).  I still have a bit to do on tarting up one of my old tall ship paintings, and I hope to get this done tomorrow.  If I don't manage it, this one will probably not be making the journey south, as I would like to get a new frame on it for the occasion, and it'll have to dry before going to the framer.

My able assistant-cum-driver and I will be hitting the high seas next Saturday evening, and I hope the seas are not high enough to cause similar problems to those encountered by the ferries earlier this past week.

The ships featured in the painting above are, on the left, the Dutch topsail schooner "Wylde Swan", the 3-masted Dutch topsail schooner "Gulden Leeuw" (Golden Lion) on the right, and, in between, the Polish full-rigger "Dar Mlodziezy" (Gift of Youth") receding into the gloom which attended the departure of these ships from Lerwick in late July.

Dutch ships dominated the 'A' class of vessels in this year's Tall Ships Race, and the "Wylde Swan" was  one of the most interesting of these.  She is owned by the same organisation which brought the brigantine "Swan van Makkum" to these islands for the 1999 event, and subsequently sold that vessel to Italian owners.  The "new" boat was actually built as a steamship in Germany in 1920, and she has also operated under the Norwegian flag, before being acquired by her present owners, who have converted her into the impressive two-masted topsail schooner which graced Lerwick harbour in July.

Equally interesting, and also originally a steamship, is the "Gulden Leeuw", which was built as the Danish oceanographic research ship "Dana" in 1937.  I remember admiring the sleek lines of this grey-painted ship when she called at Lerwick in this capacity during the 1960s.  However, I would never then have dreamt of seeing her return in 2011, rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner, with a fully-square-rigged foremast.

This will probably be my last post before my trip to the mainland.  My thanks must go to Cecil Hughson, who has been framing all the paintings, and to my sister Mary, who has the onerous duty of transporting them and me safely to the Creel Inn, Catterline, for next Monday's hanging.  Thanks to these old friends who have volunteered to help with the hanging of paintings and distribution of posters.  Finally, thanks to all those who have emailed me their good wishes - it is very much appreciated, I assure you.

Have a great fortnight!

FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR......CATTERLINE?

The last two paintings for the Catterline exhibition are of sailing vessels, and this is the first of these.  It features three of the windjammers which took part in this year's Tall Ships Race.  From left to right, these are the Dutch brig "Morgenster", the barque "Europa" (also Netherlands-registered) and the Norwegian gaff-rigged ketch "Liv".  The painting, on canvas, measures 30" x 20" (as you see, I've never been decimalised!).

Now ALL I have to do is finish the final painting (a 24" x 24" canvas), get these two framed, do the packing of paintings, hanging materials and personal effects, and we're off!  According to the Met Office website, the long-term weather forecast is for unsettled conditions, with gales at times and near-normal temperatures, for early November.  The near-normal temperatures should mean reasonable road conditions for driving on the mainland, but the gales I'm not so keen on, as they can disrupt ferry journeys.  Let's hope that Guy Fawkes night falls on a "day atween wadders", as that's when we're booked to catch the blue canoe for the mainland!

People say I worry too much - maybe they're right!  Have a good week - whatever the weather.

THE "PARAMOUNT"

Here is my portrayal of the Aberdeen trawler "Paramount" (A309) ploughing through a moderate North Sea swell in fine weather as she searches for the white fish shoals.  She was one of a pair of sister ships, built for Peter & J Johnstone Ltd by the Mitchison yard at Gateshead on the Tyne, in 1959.  The other boat was the "Partisan" (A310).  They fished out of Aberdeen until the mid-1970s, when most of this class of side-trawler had become obsolete.  I don't know the fate of the "Paramount" - whether she was scrapped at this time, or sold abroad, as some were.  Perhaps someone will be good enough to enlighten me.

This painting represents my strategy to turn out some simpler and less detailed seascapes, which are  less time-consuming to complete than the more complicated landscape scenes I had been doing up to then.  Time is a very finite resource for me, as I try to get a reasonable-sized body of work together for the Catterline exhibition at the end of this year.  However, being something of a martyr to my own cause, I've now embarked on another complicated work of Stonehaven harbour.  The only way I'm going to keep the momentum going is to do a couple more seascapes concurrently with this.  Work, work, work!

Talking of seascapes, the Tall Ships are making their way towards Shetland as I write this post.  This evening, I was amazed to discover, from my Ship AIS, that our own "Swan" has taken less than 36 hours to make North Uist from Greenock.  Now that's going some - and this stage of the event (the Cruise in Company) isn't even a race! 

THE ABERDEEN TRAWLER "VIGILANCE"

The latest oil painting from my curmudgeonly artistic brush is this portrayal of the Aberdeen trawler "Vigilance" (reg. no. A204) approaching her home port in choppy weather.  Part of the long stretch of sandy beach, which extends northwards from the harbour, is visible in the background.

The "Vigilance" was one of several Aberdeen trawlers built of wood at various shipyards in the north-east of Scotland in the late 1950s, in this case at Peterhead in 1958.  She was 90-odd feet long and 149 grt.  She appears with the Aberdeen registration in Olsen's Almanack until the early 1980s, and I don't really know her fate thereafter.  Maybe someone will enlighten me.

I'm currently working on another Aberdeen trawler, the steel Tyne-built "Paramount", which I hope to have completed this incoming week.  I've also started a painting of the inner harbour at Stonehaven.  This will take longer, and I plan to do other seascapes concurrently.  All this work is intended for the Catterline exhibition which I am still hoping to hang in early November of this year.

Wish me luck, and have a nice week!

OCEAN-GOING TALL SHIPS

When I held my last exhibition at the Creel Inn, Catterline, in early 2008, the success of it was due, in no small measure, to the efforts of my nephew Kenneth Halcrow.  He provided the transport, he devised and executed the system for hanging the paintings, he drove all over the Mearns and beyond, distributing the posters which I'd had designed for the event, and he sought out and searched through DIY shops in Inverbervie and Montrose for more picture wire, a large amount of which turned out to be an integral part of the hanging arrangement.

He also chided and corrected me if my customer service came short of the mark.  On the first afternoon, while we were in the process of the hanging operation, a couple of local men of senior years arrived to see what was on display.  They were heard to lament the lack of sailing ships among the subject matter, and Kenneth made sure that I had taken note of this deficiency for future displays.  He also saw that I handed out business cards liberally to anyone was showing even the slightest interest in the artworks.  In short, if he had not been there supporting me (and I was still recovering from a serious knee complaint which had only been operated on a couple of months previously), I think I would have broken down and wept when I saw the magnitude of the task before me when I arrived at the exhibition venue that Monday morning!

So, mindful of the lack of sail-power evident in my last Catterline show, I have been doing a few tall ship paintings over the past year or so, and this is the latest.  It depicts the 32.9m schooner "Johann Smidt" in fresh weather and an ocean swell, with one of the large 1980s-Polish-built flush-deckers in a trough behind her, and other sailing vessels visible in the distance.  I'm quite pleased with my sea, and I hope it attracts some favourable comment (perhaps even a buyer ultimately!).  It is available, along with many other goodies, from the Gallery Shop on my website http://www.tait-gallery.co.uk/Product-Page-1.aspx

The schooner "Johann Smidt" was built for Dutch owners in 1974 as the "Eendracht", but was sold to her current German owners when the new larger three-masted schooner "Eendracht" was built in 1989.  Both these ships were in Lerwick in 1999 for the Tall Ships Race, and I hope to see them here again this year.  I'm sure it will be a splendid spectacle and party, and I've booked my stall at the Toll Clock Centre for the occasion.  Arr, Jim lad!  See you there!

EYEMOUTH

Last week I promised that I'd have two more completed paintings to show you today. I almost succeeded, but the second one still has a couple of details to complete, so I've had to hold it over until I've done those.

Meantime, here is the "Dougals", a seine-netter which worked out of Eyemouth in the 1950s, approaching her home port after another trip. This work was a commission, and if anyone out there in the blogosphere would like a painting of a favourite boat or scene, I would be delighted to do the work. My contact details are on my website www.tait-gallery.co.uk, which also features many of my previous artworks, as well as a Gallery Shop, where original paintings, giclee prints and greeting cards are available to purchase.