Father and son team Andrew and Richard Wilson continue working on the restoration of the Orkney yole Lizzie, which will be displayed in the proposed new boat museum. (PIcture: Kenny Pirie)

A Kirkwall father and son are already restoring one exhibit in preparation for the proposed Orkney Boat Museum in Orphir.

Andrew, 51, and Richard Wilson, 26, of Reid Crescent, are restoring the Lizzie, an Orkney yole, the traditional inshore fishing vessel of the islands.

The boat, which is thought to be more than 100-years-old, originally belonged to Andrew’s father, also Andrew, who lived in Sanday and went out creel fishing in it just before the Second World War.

Andrew said: “I remember going out on the boat with my father. I have seven of a family and we used to all go out on her, we really had great fun.”

However, after fishing with her for 40 years the boat was sold and the family lost track of her.

The boat was then washed ashore and damaged in a storm before going to the Kirbister Farm Museum in 1989. She was then moved to Lyness a few years ago.

Richard added: “I don’t know who she was built for, but George Dearness from Shapinsay sold her to my grandfather in the late 1930s.

“He used her for creel fishing, fishing and for competing in the Sanday regattas.

“She was a frequent winner of the local regattas and managed to win the cup for her class five years in a row in the 1950s. However, he had to sell her when he moved to Kirkwall in 1977.”

Lizzie, which is constructed from larch, was built in Burness, Sanday, in the 1870s by Thomas Omand Snr, who died on September 5, 1901, at the age of 82.

Richard decided to make a model of the boat, of which the family is so fond, and was let into Lyness museum to take measurements, before building a miniature Lizzie, replicating what she would have been like in her heyday.

However, not satisfied with this, Richard and his father decided to restore Lizzie to her original state last November and now the full revamp is almost complete, ready for her to go into the proposed boat museum at the Hall of Clestrain.

Andrew said: “We’re almost finished, it’s taken longer than we thought but we have been doing it all in our spare time. There’s only a few things left to finish off.

This picture of the Lizzie was taken sometime during the 1960s. She is pictured at morrings at Lopness, with Peter Fotherinham and Andrew Wilson on board. the yole is more than 100-years-old, and should take her place in the proposed boat museum.

“It’s strange, as the boat could end up in the Hall of Clestrain and my wife, Diana, was actually the last person to be born there.”

The word ‘yole’ comes from the Norse ‘jollie’ which was a small boat with sprit sails, handled by a couple of men, descended from the Viking ‘knorr.’

The design of yoles varied from island to island within Orkney. For instance, a Westray yole was more like the Shetland skiff, longer and narrower like the Norse boats.

But the Lizzie, although a North Isles yole, appears more like the South Isles version, slightly shorter with a bigger beam.