The Sinking of the Mizpah

Fishing is still a dangerous job today, but there were less safeguards and safety measures forty years ago when boats regularly simply disappeared without trace.

This is a first hand account of some horrendous but true stories onboard a small sixty foot wooden fishing boat fishing off the north coast of Scotland around the 1980 period.

The book follows one fishing family through their successes and their tragedies, including two eye witness accounts of the sinking of the Mizpah in late 1978, during a hurricane force twelve storm. It also covers the bravery of one trawler skipper who saved the six men onboard.

If you live in the north of Scotland and have heard of the Swackies, then this book will tell you where they came from and how they became legends in the fishing industry.