.:: Black Saturday Anniversary Flotilla of Boats At Wick Bay ::.

Date: 18 August 2019
Location: Wick, Caithness, Scotland
Photographer: Bill Fernie
https://www.facebook.com/SeafarersMemorial/
Black Saturday was, as reported at the time, a ‘fearful calamity'. In Wick Bay, alone, some 37 fishermen lost their lives, with countless more perishing around the coasts. Black Saturday, tragedy as it was, only accounts for a small proportion of the total numbers of seafarers lost to the sea along the Caithness coasts, over the decades. To recognise and remember all those seafarers who lost their lives, a Seafarers Memorial Group has been established with the aim of designing and erecting an appropriate memorial that will provide a lasting place of remembrance. Black Saturday, so named, happened on the morning of Saturday 19th August 1848 when the scale of the tragedy became obvious. The boats left as usual on the Friday afternoon but by the evening, the beginnings of a colossal storm became evident. Many of the boats began to head for home but in the early hours of the morningthe severity of the storm caused boats to crash against each other as they tried to gain the mouth of the harbour.