I am not a boat person.  Anyone in my family will tell you that I don’t do boats.

But I do love The Swan.

When she is in harbour, I always go and have a little look.

It is always nice to see a beautiful boat.

A bit of The Swan’s history – she was built in Lerwick, launched in 1900 and was considered to be “one of the finest fishing boats afloat in the North of Scotland”.

She is a Fifie and was originally used for white fish (longline fishing) in the spring and herring (driftnet fishing) from May to September.

She was retired as a fishing boat in 1950, had several different owners and ended up sinking in Hartlepool.

She was then refloated and sold back to Shetland to be fully restored and turned into a sail training ship.

Both my daughters have sailed on The Swan when they were at Primary School.

While I was looking at my photos, I asked them about their experiences.

Daisy said she was seasick (so like her Mum) but it was “a very pretty boat”.

Flossie said, in typical Floss fashion, “We got a thing of juice and a biscuit.  I wasn’t at all seasick but Teacher was” and then sniggered to herself at the memory!

Every child in Shetland has probably been out on The Swan.

And where else would you see a loan Viking walking past the bus stop?

For more information about The Swan – and I will confess that I had to look it up as I knew nothing really – The Swan Trust and National Historic Ships UK.

And now, I think, I would quite like to go out as long as there were no waves, no rocking and no moving of the horizon!

I am not good on boats.  I just don’t do them.