The Reaper at Anstruther
Reaper is a Fifie Sailing Herring Drifter, the most popular design of fishing boat on the East Coast of Scotland for the greater part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
Built by J & G Forbes at their yard at Sandhaven near Fraserburgh in 1902 for the Buchan family who lived in St. Combs, she began life as a two masted sailing lugger.
In 1959 she was purchased by Zetland Council for use as a 'flit boat' carrying general cargoes and her name was changed to Shetlander.
The Council stopped using Shetlander in 1974 and shortly afterwards she was bought by The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Fife.
The boat was then moved from Shetland to Anstruther. A restoration plan was agreed and over the next few years the boat was painstakingly restored to her original 1902 two-masted lugsail rig. She was renamed Reaper and was registered again under her original Fraserburgh number, FR 958.
In 1985 a group of volunteers was formed, known as the Museum Boats Club, to take responsibility for the maintenance and operation of the boat which they continue to do to the present day. Between October 2004 and April 2005 Reaper underwent an extensive refit.
Reaper is now part of the Core Collection of the National Historic Ships Fleet and one of the few boats in the collection which are kept in seagoing condition.
