Traditional boat festival opens for maritime registrations

THE 31st annual Scottish Traditional Boat Festival returns to historic Portsoy harbour, near Banff, on the weekend of June 22–23. Registrations are now open for skippers and sailing crews to sign up for this year’s event, which is expected to attract more than 13,000 visitors.

Around 30 boats took part in the 2023 festival, opened by HRH The Princess Royal, Princess Anne. So far, 10 traditional boats from across the UK have confirmed attendance at this year’s event. They include the 17th-century

Fifie herring drifter Reaper from the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Fife, White Wing, a 33ft Baldie ( a variety of the Fifie lugsail design) built in 1917 and restored at the museum, and the Isabella Fortuna, a 19th-century Fifie which will sail to the festival from Wick in Caithness.

The flotilla of traditional b o ats fo r m s the centrepiece to the weekend of maritime celebrations, which will include live music and dance, Scottish food, drink and crafts. This year’s headline act, Celtic band Skipinnish, kick off the festival weekend on Friday, June 21. The festival was first held in 1993 to celebrate the tercentenary of Portsoy’s 17th-century harbour. Richard Thorne, maritime co-ordinator of the festival, encourages crews and traditional boat builders to get in touch and sign up via the festival website: stbfportsoy.org/ take-part/maritime

PHOTO: ALLAN ROBERTSON Boats and visitors at a previous festival, showing White Wing moored in the harbour.

PHOTO: ALLAN ROBERTSON Reaper, the museum’s flagship, was built in 1902. Equipped as a floating museum of the herring industry, she visits ports around Scotland and northern England.