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Swan Ties up for 2024

9 October 2024

Shetland’s sail training vessel Swan LK243 has finished the 2024 season, having helped some 140 young Shetlander’s to experience sailing onboard the restored ex-herring drifter, in addition to 220 others.

Whitness Primary pupils on board Swan

The Swan Trust SCIO – the volunteer group which owns and operates the vessel on behalf of the community – has a stated focus to enable young folk to experience the thrill of sailing a traditional boat. As a sail training vessel, Swan promotes mental and physical health, builds life experience, friendships and memories. Passengers of every age develop new skills and are challenged to reach their full potential together as a cohesive crew.

Swan’s busy summer season started in April, and involved a total of 360 passengers, 28 volunteer crew and 6 retained crew. On the back of being named Sail Training Vessel of the year for 2023 by MCA and the Association of Sail Training Organisations , it was appropriate that the boat was able to provide a number of school trips around the isles – funded by the Zetland Educational Trust and salmon producer Cooke Scotland – included school bairns from Aith, Walls, Skeld and Sandness, as well as Whiteness, Scalloway and Hamnavoe.

Swan also sailed to more distant waters: taking passengers to the west coast of Scotland, Westray in Orkney, the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in Portsoy, and Gulating in western Norway.

Opening the vessel to visitors as part of the national ‘Doors Open Day’ programme also proved to be very popular, with over 160 people visiting Swan over the course of a weekend – before the Swan’s final trip of the season to coincide with the recently held Shetland Wool Week 2024.

Chair of the Swan Trust, Mary Irvine, said that the continued success of the Swan in meeting its mission – to encourage more people to take to the waves – is only made possible by hard work and community goodwill.

“We are incredibly proud to work with the community of Shetland - and the work we do to both keep our heritage alive, and offer life changing experiences for our current and future generations.

“Particular thanks go to all those who have crewed and volunteered in other ways to help Swan this season. And also for the generous funding from the Shetland Charitable Trust, Zetland Educational Trust, Cooke Scotland and many others including the local fishing industry – whose funding helped make a memorable day possible for so many Shetland school bairns and others of all ages.”

Bookings will open in the coming weeks to sail on Swan in 2025, and enquires are welcomed by email to [email protected].

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Want to get involved in maintaining and operating a traditional wooden sailing vessel? There are a number of different ways you can volunteer to safeguard, care for and sail this unique heritage asset.

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