Confused? Well I was born in Ireland, brought up in England, but now live in Australia, so I’m obviously (not) qualified to bring some clarity to these Scottish terms.
Luckily Rob Malton, enthusiast and volunteer boatbuilder with Peter Matheson at Clydeside Traditional Boatbuilders, has come to my rescue. Rob explains these Scottish terms, drawing on the book below, ‘Stroma Yoles: their Construction and Development’. According to Rob, yohl, yahl, yowl, and yole, are all variations derived from the Norse ‘golle’ with the ‘g’ being pronounced soft like a ‘y’. A yole is defined as a small double-ended open boat, full-bodied, for carrying loads, sometimes described as a knorr.
Not to be confused with yawl, an English word possibly derived from the Dutch jol from the 16th century. In England. A yawl is a two-masted fore-and-aft-rigged sailing boat with the mizzenmast stepped far aft, usually aft of the steering post, so the mizzen boom overhangs the stern. And then there’s a yawly, a small ship’s boat, but we won’t go there. Have y’all got that? (Sorry)
But back to Scottish yoles; within the category, there are many variants, such as the Stroma yole, regarded as possibly the most seaworthy and rugged of the Orkney yoles. It used to be that to be regarded as a Stroma yole, the vessel had to have been built on the island of Stroma in the Pentland Firth. However today I’m told, a boat built on the mainland in the style of a Stroma yole, may be regarded as a Stroma yole.
The above on Stroma Yoles seems unobtainable today, but a wonderful new book, The Orkney Yole, was published in 2021 by the Orkney Yole Association and is available from The Orcadian Bookshop.
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