Peter Matheson and his team built a Stroma yole on Clydeside, inspired by The Voyage of The Aegre, between February 2024 and December 2025.
Links to all the pages of photos and notes are here.
Background
Peter Matheson, the moving force behind Clydeside Traditional Boatbuilders, is a boatbuilder from the North of Scotland who ran a yard in Caithness just 16 miles from Wick, where The Aegre was built, before moving to Clydeside, near Glasgow. Over the last 46 years, he’s built many boats similar to The Aegre, from 16 to 46 feet long.
In late 2023. Peter read ‘The Voyage of The Aegre’ book, he said he couldn’t put it down and decided that the next boat he built would be inspired by, and similar to The Aegre.
Peter says, “I know The Aegre was built by a Shetland man, but she had the lines of a Stroma yole
According to Peter, ” They say a Scandinavian fishing boat was washed ashore on the beach of Stroma island [in the Pentland Firth] and that this wreck inspired the Stroma men to build their boats. They built many of them, and they were the Rolls-Royce of fishing boats back then. I believe these boats are the most seaworthy in the world, and The Aegre has proved this.”
In building many yoles and other boats, Peter Matheson says that like The Aegre’s Shetland boatbuilder Tom Edwardson, he never uses moulds. Just a string line, a level to make the boats symmetrical and a plumb line to make sure the stems are plumb. This, he says, is a lot easier than lofting and making moulds to someone else’s drawings.
“We know the best shape for a boat, these boats having evolved from Viking times. Clearly, Edwardson, the Shetland boat builder, had got his ‘lines’ right. Some of my boats have been working the Pentland Firth for over 35 years, winter and summer, without mishap. People rely on them for making a living in safety.”
“Unfortunately the British government is doing their best to destroy the industry with their bureaucracy and ‘Safety’ regulations and ‘Stability’ tests etc. The old boatbuilders knew all about safety and stability and navigation in the fog, etc. Even though some of them couldn’t write.”
Peter studied all the available photos of The Aegre being built, then got to work.
Return to the listing of all the pages about the building of this Stroma yole.
