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longer a fish port. It’s an oil rig supply base, and if I were in your shoes …’ He stopped then, his body suddenly tense as a ghostly voice, calling in clear, began repeating the single word – ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday …’ The voice was urgent, giving details now … It was a trawler with its engines out of order being swept on to a rock-bound coast in heavy seas.
    ‘Shetland.’ Sparks was scribbling it down on his pad, and as the voice began to repeat the vessel’s position, he glanced up at a large-scale map. ‘Looks like he’ll drive ashore on Whalsay Island.’ He ripped the sheet off his pad and got to his feet. ‘Nothing we can do about it, but the old man better know.’ And he hurried past me through into the bridge.
    The name of the trawler was the Duchess of Norfolk . We looked her up out of curiosity. She was just under 200 tons, built at Lowestoft in 1939 and owned now by G. Petersen of Hamnavoe, Shetland. New engines 1968, Paxman diesels, so what had gone wrong? All the Chief said was, ‘Bloody Shetlanders, they wouldn’t know a crankshaft from a camshaft.’ He didn’t like the Shetlanders, having been stuck there once with gales and a leaking ship.
    The Duchess of Norfolk was in fact south of Whalsay and, with the wind backed into the north-east, she drove towards South Nesting. We caught snatches of radio talk, very faint, as the trawler Ranger steamed to her assistance. It gave me something to occupy my mind, following her progress on the Shetland Isles chart No. 3059. She cleared Muckle Fladdicap, a bare three cables to the eastward, drifted inside MucklaBillan and Litla Billan, missed the rock islet of Climnie by a shift of the tide and hit Fiska Skerry at 13.46. By then the trawler Ranger was almost up with her and inside of half an hour had a line aboard. That was the last I heard of her, for we were already in sight of Aberdeen’s North Pier, with the city showing grey through the murk above the pale line of the Links, and I was busy getting ready to dock.
    The skipper took us in, heading straight for Albert Basin, where the trawlers lay. As we approached Point Law, a survey vessel sweeping past us and a tug manoeuvring across our bows, the harbour area began to open up. Sparks appeared at my elbow. ‘See what I mean?’ He nodded towards a cluster of tanks to starboard with supply ships moored alongside. ‘Mud silos,’ he said. The area beyond was being developed, the sound of reconstruction work coming to us across the water. ‘That’s the future you’re looking at.’
    It was an extraordinary sight, the whole harbour area crowded with ships, drilling ships, survey vessels, seismic ships, tugs and ancillary craft all jam-packed among the fishing vessels. And, up-river from Torry Harbour, a litter of pipes and buoys, equipment of all sorts, lay piled on the quay, more mud silos and a new berth nearly completed. As we moved slowly into Albert Basin we passed very close to Point Law and the supply ship bunkering there. It was the first time I had been really close to one of these flat-bottomed, tug-like vessels that keep the rigs drilling.
    ‘I only know trawlers,’ I said. Moored there, the ship looked very sleek, very efficient, but I had seen one once heading out to the Brent in a strong westerly gale, seas breaking over the flat, open after-deck. ‘I’d rather have the Fisher Maid up around Bear Island than one of those in a North Sea gale.’
    He shrugged, his eyes smiling behind his glasses. ‘All I’m saying is, if you got in on the act, you wouldn’t be short of a ship for years, not the way new rigs are coming into service.’
    A trawler passed us very close, another just ahead of us, as we nosed our way down the length of Albert Quay, searchingfor a berth. I could see the fish market now, and then a gap opened up and the skipper said quietly, ‘Looks a laikely hole. Reckon there’s just room for us.’ He ordered port wheel, our bows swinging, and I took the