Name Reaper

1.      What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric?

Evidence for designs, functions, techniques, processes, styles, customs and habits or uses and associations in relation to events and people.  How early, intact or rare these features are may impact on significance.

REAPER was originally built in 1901 as a two masted sailing lugger. She is 70 feet long with a dipping lug foresail and a standing lug mizzen. She is a typical Scottish sailing herring drift net fishing vessel, of which two types evolved, known locally as ‘fifies’ and ‘scaffies’. Both the scaffies and fifies were two-masted double-enders, mostly lug rigged with shallow bulwarks. REAPER is a large fifie, an example of the most popular design of fishing boat on the East Coast of Scotland for the greater part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She represents the ultimate development in sailing drifter design, with large sails and heavy gear made possible by the steam capstan first introduced in the 1880s.  REAPER’s steam capstan, which remains operational, was made in the 1920s by McDonald Brothers of Portsoy. Whilst in Shetland post 1908, REAPER was converted to a smack rig.  In 1916, she was fitted with a Gardner 4KM engine. This was a four stroke engine producing 75bhp running on paraffin with lamp heated vaporisers. After her purchase by the Scottish Fisheries Museum in 1975, her original rig was reinstated over a ten year period and she was renamed REAPER FR 958. An extensive refit was carried out between October 2004 and April 2005 by MacKay Boatbuilders (Arbroath) Ltd. Repairs included a new keel, new Daewoo engine and new masts of Douglas Fir.

2.      What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?

Associations with people or places.  Off-ship research.

REAPER’s history is integral with that of the Scottish fishing industry.  She was launched in 1903 at the J. & G. Forbes Boatyard in Sandhaven near Fraserburgh where she was registered as FR 958. She moved to Lerwick in Shetland in 1908 and became LK 707.  Her story during the First World War illustrates the vital role played by the fishing fleet at this time, when fish constituted a substantial part of the nation’s diet.  The installation of REAPER’s engine in 1916 also reflects her war-time role.  With fishing restricted to daylight hours because of the danger of enemy action, the engine became a necessity to ensure she could be back in harbour before dusk.  In the late 1930s REAPER held the record catch of herring for Shetland, some 223 cran – almost a quarter of a million fish. She is significant for playing a part in the Second World War, when she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and saw service in the south of England. REAPER’s other role as a working vessel came in 1959 when she was purchased by Zetland County Council and employed as an inter-island cargo vessel in the Western Isles, a ‘flit-boat’ carrying general cargoes and renamed SHETLANDER. REAPER has appeared in several films and television programmes and is well documented in the Scottish Fisheries Museum’s archives.  She has been recorded on the National Register of Historic Vessels since 1996 and has National Historic Fleet status.

3.      How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?

Overall aesthetic impact of the vessel, her lines, material she was built from and her setting.  Does she remain in her working environment?

The primary function of REAPER was as a fishing vessel and she was purpose built of larch planking on oak frames, with heavy gear intended for the adverse sailing and fishing conditions she would encounter in the North Sea and the east coast of Scotland. Her design, construction and rig made her perfectly fit for purpose. As a fast and efficient fishing vessel she presented an elegant, graceful and pleasing sight when under sail. As flagship of the Scottish Fisheries Museum at Anstruther, REAPER is maintained in sea-going condition and operates a full sailing programme between May and October each year. She acts as a high-profile ambassador for the Museum, vising ports and harbours around Scotland and Northern England where she would once have fished. 

Source: NHS-UK team, 15 February 2017. 

This statement was developed as part of the Heritage Lottery funded First World War project. http://www.ww1britainssurvivingvessels.org.uk/