The Pentland Firth
By James Miller's (Condensed from) A Wild and Open Sea
 Summer 2001 Yours Aye

The Pentland Firth lies between the northern Scottish mainland and the islands of Orkney and has a well-deserved reputation among the world's mariners as a channel to be navigated with great care.  Twice each day, the tide surges through the Firth from the Atlantic to the North Sea and back again, and currents can reach up to 12 knots.  In the past, many captains and shipowners preferred to make long detours north of Orkney or south by the English Channel to avoid the roosts and eddies in the Firth.  The Firth itself is not large-around 17 miles from Dunnet Head, which can serve as its westerly entrance, to the most easterly of the islets that make up the Pentland Skerries in the east.  The gap between Caithness on the mainland and Orkney varies from 6-8 miles, and the islands of Stroma and Swona lie in the channel.

 The dangers of the Firth have impressed writers for centuries.  In 1380, John of Fordun wrote that Scotland was bounded on the north "by the Pentland Firth, where a fearfully dangerous whirlpool sucks in and belches back the waters every hours."  The Phoenician explorer Pytheas sailed along the British coast in around 250 BC and mentioned a place called Orca where there were waves of immense size.  A Roman fleet came this way in AD 84.  It is recorded that they "subjugated" (unlikely) the Orkney isles, but it is not known how far they sailed.  The Norse sagas also mention the Firth and provide us with its first shipwreck records.  The Norse period left a lasting mark on the place names and dialect of Orkney and Caithness.  Some of the tidal features of the Firth have Norse names, such as the Swelkie (from svelgr, whirlpool) and the Bores of Duncansby (from bara, wave), and Norse legends account for the origins of some of them.  During the ebb tide, where the main current is flowing from East to West, a violent race develops in the western part of the Firth.  This is called the Men of Mey and, on occasion, the waves can build up to tremendous heights and burst in white anger, even on a calm day.

Charts of the Pentland Firth were inaccurate and of little practical use to navigators until Murdoch Mackenzie, an Orkney schoolmaster and mathematician, carried out the first modern survey of the islands in the 1740's.  His maps were published in 1750 and were bought by merchants all around the North Sea.  Thirty copies were bought by the Hudson's Bay Company since their ships made Stromness their last stopping place on the voyage to the Arctic from London.  After Mackenzie's work and building of lighthouses - the lighthouse on the Skerries, erected in 1794, was the fifth modern lighthouse to be built in Scotland - encouraged more and more captains to venture through the Firth, a considerable shortening of the voyage to America from the east coast of Britain.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy expanded considerably to meet the threat from the French and Spanish fleets.  The Quota Acts passed by Parliament in 1795 required each county to furnish a certain number of recruits for the Navy, but this was not enough to man all the frigates and ships of the line, and the press gang was active.  Orkney has many stories of men dodging the press gang.  The strategic posion of Orkney, lying on the routes used by the Atlantic merchantmen and the Arctic whalers, meant that it was a fruitful recruiting ground for prime seamen.  Throughout this period, privateers - raiders licensed to attack the shipping of the enemy - were also active.  To protect the British trade with the Baltic, merchant vessels were required to adopt a convoy system.  Longhope on the island of Hoy became the official assembly point for these convoys.  Two Martello towers were built to guard the entrance to Longhope, but, by the time they were finished in December 1814, the immediate need for them had passed, and they never fired a shot in anger.  Now they make interesting tourist attractions.

 A new lighthouse was built on Dunnet Head, the northernmost point of the Scottish mainland, in 1831.  As the years went by, more lighthouses were added to pinpoint other hazards in the area of the Firth - on Noss Head 1849, Cantick Head (1856), Holborn Head (1862), Stroma (1890), Doncansby Head (1924), and Strathy Point (1958).  All these liighthouses are now automated.  New charts, new lighthouses, and better technology led to merchant captains making greater use of the Firth as a shortcut from the North Sea to the Atlantic.  This, in turn, led to many more accidents and to the growth of local pilotage.  Fishermen, with their unparalleled knowledge of local waters, had always served as pilots for passing vessels, but throughout the 1800's, this activity reached a peak.

When a ship was in need of a pilot, she signaled on approaching the Firth.  The main picking up places were off Noss Head and Freswick Bay on the east coast, and the area around Thurso on the west.  Pilots also operated from Stroma and Swona and, in fewer numbers, from the Orkney side of the Firth.  On the sighting of a potential client, pilots took to the sea at once and rowed or sailed as fast as they could to reach her, as the first pilot to arrive usually got the job.  After navigating the Firth, the pilot was normally put ashore to make his way home on foot or in his own boat which would have been towed behind the ship in the meantime.

It happened, however, that sometimes a ship could not or would not stop, and several pilots found themselves borne away on an unforeseen voyage.  James Miller of Nybster was taken to Ireland in this way.  In 1869, James Mowat of Freswick ended up in Quebec.  In 1891, David Banks of Stroma was taken to the Faroes.  Another David Banks had perhaps the longest adventure of this sort.  In the late 1830's or early 1840's, banks was borne to America where he signed on another ship for the homeward passage.  However, this ship set out on a long detour via many South American ports and was almost  lost in the Roaring Forties.  Banks finally won home after he had been given up for lost by his relatives.  The number of pilots seems to have peaked around 1850.  Forth-one men gave their occupation as pilots in the 1851 census, but the number was always fluid as it was a part-time, ultimately spontaneous activity combined with crofting and fishing.  Many pilots also lost  their  lives in accidents and bad weather.  Pilotage in the Firth now is confined to the professionals who meet and guide supertankers into the oil terminal on the island of Flotta.

The increased use of the Firth also led to increased numbers of wrecks in its fierce turbulent waters and severe weather.  The list of groundings and founderings in the Firth is very long.  In the days of sail and before modern forecasting, a single gale could account for several vessels.  Lifeboat satations and rocket companies using rocket apparatus to fire lines to ships in distress, were established in various places around the Firth, and these brave volunteers saved many lives over the years.  Thurso had a lifeboat in 1860, Longhope in 1874, and Ackergill and Huna in 1878.  The two World Wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) saw a great increase in shipping activity in the vicinity of the Firth, especially as the Royal Navy established its major base for the Home Fleets in Scapa Flow.

The Firth now is arguably a quieter place and seldom now does a full-rigged ship appear from the haze to navigate the gap.  An echo of former times happened, however, in the summer of 1997 when the full-size replica of Captain James Cook's ship, the Endeavour, sailed west through the Firth.  The Firth is still a busy channel, and much of the shipping between northern Europe and North America passes through it today, about 6,000 vessels of all types per year.  The sea is a tricky as ever, and the saga of the Firth goes on.