Shetland's Boats: Origin, evolution and use

Chivers, Marc2022

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Summary

The popular view is that Shetland's graceful double-ended boats are direct descendants of the Viking longship. This unbroken linking of the Shetland boat to the Norse era was fuelled by nineteenth-century romantic visions of Shetland's Viking past.The reality is more complex as this major new study confirms. Economic and social conditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to changes both in fishing patterns and to the boats needed to meet these conditions.There are many similarities between boats built in Shetland and those of western Norway but they became a true Shetland product when islanders began to diverge from that tradition around 1780. No longer were they Norwegian boats in Shetland, but true Shetland vernacular boats.This book is a voyage of discovery into the origin , development and use of these unique open boats. It explores the central role these four- and six-oared boats played in everyday Shetland life, meeting the boatbuilders and the people whose way of life was centred on, and dependent upon, these seaworthy craft.