TIME AND TIDE CAN’T WASH AWAY THE PAIN
THE Daily Record’s Torcuil Crichton teamed up with his former art teacher to create a sculpture that has become the central focus of the Iolaire commemorations on Lewis. Here’s how they did it and why. IT WAS attempting to understand the impact of the Iolaire disaster that the idea of an art installation came about.
The Iolaire story was well understood on Lewis but I knew from dealing with disasters in the news that the scale of losses becomes hard to grasp when casualty figures climb into triple figures.
More than 200 men were drowned on the Iolaire and it was hard to imagine what that looked like.
We started with the scale of the ship itself.
No blueprints of the steam yacht exist but the dimensions were obtained – 189ft in length with 27ft beam.
My idea was to map out the size of the ship on a tidal beach for a one-day event where it could be covered and uncovered by the sea, with posts marking every one of the 280 people aboard.
But Malcolm Maclean, my former teacher who has staged dozens of artistic and cultural events, was more ambitious.
Could we do it near the site of the wreck in Sandwick? Too rocky and remote.
Malcolm came up with the idea of South BY Beach, the last remaining stretch of sandy shoreline in Stornoway harbour between two of the main piers.
We would bring the ship back to its home port. It was a genius plan but the practicalities of installing 280 deerposts, 79 of them tipped white to represent the survivors, within the six-hour tide cycle, and lighting the structure underwater so it could be seen at night, was slightly beyond us.
When you’re making art, always work with engineers. The Stornoway Port Authority, who run the harbour, grasped the concept and with diggers, cables and immense skill, turned it into a beautiful structure.
“Sheòl an Iolaire/The Iolaire Sailed” has become a powerful symbol of the commemoration events. With each tide, it reveals its own story, 280 men crowded into one ship, 79 came ashore alive.
The Facebook page for the installation has had more than 25,000 visitors and there has been a constant stream of people to the shoreline in the town centre.
When you see the sheer number of posts being covered and uncovered by the waves, the scale of the Iolaire losses hits home.