Whilst sailing aboard the Eda Frandsen around the Scottish western isles recently I spotted in Plockton harbour a pretty clinker craft which I gauged to be around 15′ when discussing them with another of our group.

The craft appeared to have a ‘fifer’ type stem with a tight kicked up wine-glass raked transom. The boats are traditionally clinker built. They looked sweet yet purposeful. The slender and raked mast mirroring the transom seemed incongruous within the robustness of the boat and sail area looked to be fairly impressive.

Some of the craft I saw in Plockton harbour – Plockton was a ‘manufactured’ village in that it was built to better the living conditions of fisher folk. It is now a gentrified place that appears more English than English. It is a beautiful spot to sail into, that’s for sure.

I talked to the she skipper/owner of ‘Eda’ and he told me that most were built on Skye at Portree by ‘Mackenzie’. I vowed to investigate further.

A recently painted one sitting over on the fore shore.

During a search for Mackenzie boats I found two interesting pieces of information, see:

http://www.am-bata.org/upld/files/PlocktonSmallBoat.pdf

and,

http://www.plockton-sailing.com/index.asp?pageid=462739

The craft are strict one-designs. 15 feet in length with a 16.5m sail area. The oldest sailing is over a 100 years old. Many were indeed built by John MacKenzie of Portree on the Isle of Skye.

A view showing her underwater shape and sections.

The boats are long keeled and do not have a centre board. Within the Plockton small boat pdf are a number of miscellaneous minutes and in a motion of 1937 the question of allowing centre plates is dismissed as irrelevant!

Here we are nigh on 80 years later and they’re still gracing the water’s of Plockton, and other places.

Long live such craft…