With the post came access to the

Harbour, and before long he had a

30-foot Yacht as his plaything. On

good days he would sail away out

past the two Islands of the May Isle

and Bass Rock and into the deep

waters of the Forth before testing

his Maritime experience on the

treacherous waves of the North Sea.

I would occasionally drop into his

boat in the Harbour where I would

be warmly welcomed with a glass

of Whisky and beaming smiles as

he laughed away his boring land

job to regale me of stories of the

sea. He was a wealth of information

and at the time I was writing my

book on the Pittenweem Witches

and needed Sea lore and fishermen

superstitions to give the reader the

background to a story of Witchcraft

and murder in the Pittenweem

village in 1705. Brian certainly

delivered.

But he also gave me a story that

with a bit of research I managed to

piece together a very sad tragedy.

A tragedy that happened over a

hundred years ago and to some

astonished sailors, is still happening

now!

I lived in London in 2006 and was

only up North to Fife about one

weekend a month. But I dropped in

on the old sea dog with a good half

bottle in which didn’t last long, but

in the short while I was with him, he

had a story for me, unlike anything

he had told me before.

He had been out for a sail and good

winds had given him a run out into

the North Sea. He was about 50

miles out west of the May Isle and

had started to be concerned by the

time. It was September and calm

with the usual leaden sky, but he

had ventured too far out and needed

to return before the night fell. He

knew these waters like the back of

his hand, but he knew the tide was

right for the return of the prawn

fleet to harbour and wanted to get

back before the boats took up the

best berths. He turned for home

and with a good wind on his sails he

should be back to land in over two

hours.

He was putting up the full sail when

suddenly in front of him was the

silhouette of a boat, a heavy fishing

boat. It was on a direct collision

course with the yacht not 50 feet

away, and Brian quickly pulled his

rudder to portside while his yacht

for an instant reared out the water

as the wind caught the sail and

nearly threatened to overturn the

boat. Brian screamed obscenities at

the wayward captain of the fishing

boat as it passed with inches to

spare seeing the registration of the

boat in bold white letters KY39. He

looked behind him to vent more fury

at the boat, but to his astonishment

-it was gone! Nowhere to be seen,

there was nothing there....it seemed

it was never there!

“This story he told in cold

sobriety; it had scared him.

The boat was as real as

anything he had seen before,

it even had a crew, but all

he could remember was

the white numbers of the

registration and that it had

two masts. He checked for

KY39 but could find no boat

with that registration today.”

I have a fantastic library of Scottish

interest books going back to 1570.

First Editions of Witch Trial records,

criminal trials and wayward local

histories. I thrive on them as an

input of my source materials on the

books I get published. I knew I had

several books on East Coast sea

wrecks from 1800s to present day,

and with the registration I may just

find if there was any boat with that

number.

I leafed through relevant books,

but nothing was to be found of

the elusive KY39. It wasn’t until I

reviewed the Kirkcaldy boat licences

of which any boat with KY as a prefix

would originate from this port. I

found that in 1884 a boat with the

registration KY197 was sold to a Mr

BY LEONARD LOW

Photo by Gautier Salles on Unsplash

FISH AND SHIPS:

THE KEY LARGO PHANTOM FISHING BOAT

B

rian Watson had spent

20 years in the Royal

navy. Saltwater ran

through his veins. But

he gave it all up for a

Wife and family, to be near

them and support them. But

the draw of the tide pulled him

back to the sea trade, when

he took the position of the

Harbour master of Pittenweem

in Fife.