Clyde-built, Mexico-bound, and crewed by a gathering of Shetlanders, Orcadians, Danes, Newfoundlanders and Liverpudlians; Barry Nisbet’s ‘The Springbank Voyage’ follows this four-masted barque through her 1909 voyage of hardship, beauty and tragedy, taking in themes of industry, the final days of sail, human strength and frailty and the unfettered power of nature.
Beautifully told through song in Scots and Shetland dialect, fiddle tunes from an older Shetland style, and slides and evocative found sounds, Barry weaves the tale of The Springbank Voyage through a modern-day lens, drawing unavoidable parallels with modern-day hardships of pandemics and climate change. This will be a real ‘coming home’ of this story, as Captain Dennis Royal, originally of Newfoundland, made his home at Clynder after the traumatic events of the Springbank voyage and a distinguished sea career.