Off Scotland

'OFF SCOTLAND - A Comprehensive Record of Maritime and Aviation Losses in Scottish Waters'

A truly remarkable book, the result of 30 years research. Here will be found the basic detail of nearly 18,000 losses round the coast of Scotland. From the well documented losses such as HMS ROYAL OAK, HMS HAMPSHIRE, BRAER and BREDA, to the small fishing boats operating out of the bays beside small crofting communities in the Western Isles. The author has scoured Shipping Registers and Fishing Boat Registers as well as contemporary newspapers to provide the information on losses that in many instances were not reported by Lloyds of London.

The apparently quirky ordering of the two main chapters which cover the East and West coasts respectively take a while to get used to but anyone with an understanding of Latitude/Longitude will soon cotton on to what the author was trying to achieve.

The book also has two smaller chapters. One deals with vessels that had left a Scottish port or were heading for a Scottish port and simply disappeared. Certainly some of these losses should be in the area covered by the book, e.g. 'left Dysart for Orkney', whereas 'left Halifax Nova Scotia for Oban and the Clyde' could equally be on either side of the Atlantic. The second small chapter contains references to losses where the place name seem to suggest a Scottish connection but searching maps has not revealed where they are.

The book contains two indices, The first by name and the second by date of loss. Just in case you are researching a common name e.g. ELIZA, the name index has duplicate names sorted by year of loss. The name index also has previous names indexed.

I can understand a cargo of 'ice' but what is 'coffin furniture' and what was 'a valuable cargo'. Not a book for bedtime reading but definitely one to dip into, find something that looks interesting and go on to do your own further research.

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