Illustrated throughout with original photographs and drawings, this book offers a comprehensive view of twentieth-century Scottish boating, looking at fishing boats, small craft, ferries, boatyards and shipyards. Working as a ship inspector on the West Coast of Scotland, a society reliant on water transportation, Walter Weyndling had a busy and essential role. Responsible for the sea-worthiness of countless vessels and therefore the lives of their captains and crews, Weyndling’s job took him the length of the coast and introduced him to many entertaining characters along the way. The dangers of the sea-faring life are also examined in Weyndling’s examinations of marine casualties.
Although West Coast Tales is a book about boats, it is also a compelling portrait of life on the western coast and on the islands. It is the people whose lives are connected so closely to ship and sea who are most vividly remembered by Weyndling, from taciturn skippers and stubborn captains to East End Londoners turned Islay farmers. Comic yet moving, West Coast Tales has a gentle and reminiscent tone, perfectly capturing the attitudes of the time whilst taking the reader on a journey through Scotland’s boating history.
Walter Weyndling was born in Krakow, came to Scotland in 1939 and studied naval architecture at the University of Glasgow. He was a member of the Admiralty Naval Construction Department during the war and subsequently became a marine surveyor with the Board of Trade, firstly on the east coast and then on the west coast of Scotland. He died in December 2004.
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