The volunteers responsible for Wick’s statue commemorating lost seafarers are “forever humbled” by the generosity of local businesses and the wider community.
Willie Watt, chairman of the Seafarers Memorial Group, said he and the rest of the committee had been blown away by the level of support for the monument which was unveiled in May 2023.
And he said the memorial at the Braehead, overlooking Wick Bay, would stand as a warning to future generations about the dangers of the sea.
Mr Watt was guest speaker at Caithness Family History Society’s first meeting of 2025, held in the Nethercliffe Hotel in Wick on Tuesday.
The Seafarers Memorial Group raised more than £100,000 for the sculpture created by Alan Beattie Herriot. It commemorates all those lost at sea in, or from, the WK vessel registration area stretching from Talmine across to Stroma and down as far as Portmahomack.
Willie Watt of the Seafarers Memorial Group accepting a cheque for £20,710 from Kayleigh Nicolson, of the Caithness and North Sutherland Fund, one of many large donations to the project. Picture: Alan Hendry
Mr Watt spoke about the fundraising efforts and told how the monument was designed, created and installed, with benches and lecterns surrounding it. The statue symbolises how “the sea gives with one hand and takes away with the other”.
He explained: “We wanted to do something that would commemorate all seafarers, not just fishermen – any marine person that went to sea and never came back from the WK registration area.
“We wanted something that we would be proud of, that would be striking, that would give peace and solitude and reflection and all the things that we wanted to embrace.
“And also, for future generations, reminding people that we’ve got a serious natural thing out there that will bite you if you’re not careful. We’re still losing people to the sea.”
Mr Watt pointed out that 79 harbours are covered by the memorial.
He said: “There are 79 harbours where men went to sea to fish and to carry cargo. It was an amazing exercise to try and work out how many harbours there were.
“Maybe we’ve missed one, or maybe we’ve got a name wrong slightly, but generally that’s what we’ve got and it goes all the way down to Portmahomack in the south.
“The next exercise we’re maybe going to try to do is make a pamphlet or leaflet about these harbours. It’s a bit like the North Coast 500 – if people know they’re there, they might well want to go and visit them.”
The memorial is a symbol of how ‘the sea gives with one hand and takes away with the other’. Picture: Alan Hendry
It is hoped that lighting will be installed at the memorial this year.
Mr Watt emphasised how supportive local companies had been.
“We are very grateful, forever humbled,” he said. “They really wanted us to do it and they wanted to be part of it.
“It was an unbelievable community and business project and we’ve all got satisfaction that it turned out the way it did.
“The support that we had blew us away – it was really quite amazing.”
Mr Watt reflected on the Black Saturday disaster of August 19, 1848, when a ferocious storm claimed the lives of 37 fishermen from Caithness, the Western Isles and Orkney.
Wick’s Black Saturday by Robert Anderson (1842-1885).
“People were watching them drowning in front of them,” he said. “Thirty-seven men died that night and there were other sailors who stayed at sea. They just rode the storm out.
“And that was the very first storm that was tracked back retrospectively to the Gulf of Mexico. They got all the captains’ logs that were in certain positions on the dates preceding it, and they could track it right across.”
The Seafarers Memorial Group organised a Black Saturday commemorative event in Wick Bay in August 2019.
“The Moray Firth lost more than 90 people. It was a massive event and it had never actually been commemorated,” Mr Watt said.
The statue rises to a height of five metres on a stainless-steel column surrounded by five lecterns. The male figure has one arm outstretched, holding a representation of a haddock, while the other hand gestures towards a panel at the base of the column featuring figures of sea users from past and present in bas-relief.
The Seafarers Memorial provided the backdrop to the first National Fishing Remembrance Day commemoration in Wick last May. Picture: Alan Hendry
Using local materials where possible, the base of the column is surrounded by Caithness stone slabs that are engraved with details of Black Saturday. These slabs are surrounded by granite setts.
The memorial also has four Caithness stone benches, two with backs detailing all the harbours and fishing stations in the WK registration area.
There are five stainless-steel lecterns, with tops detailing different maritime themes. Three of these tops were designed by pupils at Wick High School.
The memorial was the focal point for Wick’s involvement in the first National Fishing Remembrance Day in May last year.
It has also been the setting for Remembrance Sunday events.
Willie Watt preparing the site for the memorial to be installed. Picture: Alan Hendry
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The unveiling ceremony took place in May 2023. Picture: Alan Hendry